Thursday, January 31, 2013

Pizza and Red Riding Hood
Our week segued from exploring shapes, to the shapes involved in pizza, as well as things that are RED.
Below an example of how we use writing in a purposeful way in the classroom.  Whenever possible, I  involve the children in making decisions, asking them questions and making lists.  I sound out words as I write their comments and ask them, "What is that letter at the beginning of the word, 'pizza'?"  


And here they are going through those steps!  Below, mashing down our dough to make a platform for sauce and cheese.


We grated cheese together . . .



put the sauce on . . .


and, as the list said, we ate it! (after cooking)


Beautiful artisan pizza!





The children had a lot of fun playing with the play pizza, too.



We also made pizza pictures this week:  Summer created a beautiful, "Apple Pie Pizza."


We read and re-enacted the story of Red Riding Hood. ( FYI, I said that the wolf wanted to eat Red Riding Hood's treats for her grandmother).  Below,  Joy is Red Riding Hood, being given the basket of goodies for Gramma by her "mom", Bridget.  Jane is the Wolf-in-waiting.  Colin played the heroic Woodcutter.


And in T/Th, Summer played Red Riding Hood and Noe an excellent Wolf!  The kids remembered the lines and the sequence of the story quite easily.


We also have a mini-set for re-enacting the story as well.


Colin shared his Red Riding Hood puppets with us!


We had a nice surprise of snow this week!  We brought some inside to play with.


We enjoyed water coloring the snow.


We were excited to actually play in the snow outdoors!  Noe and Jane are great reminders of all the gear we need to enjoy the snow:
good gloves
boots
snow pants
warm coat
hat






We made a lot of hearts this week, too.  Below a heart to trace and a heart to paint!


















Monday, January 28, 2013


The Shapes of Things
We started the week off with a fun "shape-hunt" over on the Regis campus.  The children were able to identify circles, squares, rectangles and triangles on the sidewalks and buildings.

 

We also played around a very cool, big tree!

We reinforced the awareness of shapes through several activities, such as, below, creating shape pictures.  First we sat down together and sorted the shapes.  The children exhibited their growth in focussing by spending a lot of time on this task!





We traced the shape of our blocks too!

Tracing is sort of a new thing we are trying - it takes a bit of coordination in holding the object...


We used that skill to trace some shapes without the blocks too, good practice for intentionally drawing an object.


Jane tried it free-hand below...


We used a large triangle and square to illustrate how you can use shapes to make representational pictures.


A fun, edible activity included making shape-pretzels.  We call yeast the "magical ingredient."  Below, Bridget dissolves it in warm water and a bit of sugar...


They sure love to watch things cook in our little toaster oven and are very good at keeping their distance when it is hot!



In other news, some spontaneous train-play occurred in the T/Th class, so we read The Little Engine That Could and play acted it also.


 . . . and Noe is showing us she is learning to write her name!  Important milestone! Yay!