Mrs. Drews

We made a long list of all of the animals we needed to turn our classroom into a barnyard. We started out with ducks and figured we might need some tractors too. Our next big board says, "Holy cow-it's a pig pen in here!" I bet you can guess which animals will be featured on there! Besides all of the artwork we will be busy doing we have been  rolling dice on the smartboard and adding animals too. We are working on numbers in our journals this week too. Our favorite story this week was called Pig's Egg. What a rediculous tiltle since we know that a pig is not an oviparous animal! We put animals into columns last week after learning that any animal that hatches from an egg is called oviparous. We made up a silly word for the animals who do not hatch- it's no viparous! In the Pig's Egg story pig finds a turnip and believes it is her egg. Ask your child to tell you what happens inside the turnip! Even our bible story had farm friends, it was called The Lost Sheep. The special message for us was that God cares about each and everyone of His people. For a fun computer game to play go to this barnyard link at home: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/preschool/animals/farm/animalfarmgame.htm

We sang songs about our saviour and read stories about Him too. We also made some Easter artwork too. We used colored shaving cream to color eggs. We had some fun hiding eggs from our big buddies while they hid eggs from us. We also made a list of all of the animals that come from eggs. Our fancy word for that is oviparous animals. We used scissors to crack open a big paper egg to let a chick peek-a-boo through.  Next week we will build a nest for eggs, and have fun with feathers too. I hope your Easter is blesssed and leaves everyone with a renewed hope.

         We are continuing to focus on a star student each week, but you may have heard there is also something new to look forward to!
    Nibbles is coming to each child's home for a sleep over!  He comes in a backpack and has a folder for you to add a journal page about the fun he had with your child. You are welcome to add a digital photo of your child at home with Nibbles and include him in any big events you have during his stay!
      We've got our head in the clouds now as we head to the sky for our theme. We have shaving cream clouds with paint to create a stormy scene. We will have plenty of oppportunitiy for some interesting vocabulary as those different types of clouds are multisyllabic and fun to say! Cumulonimbus, what's that? There will be lots of great science questions too. What is a cloud made of? Why do they rain sometimes? What makes a could move or chnge shapes? I can not wait to hear the interesting things they will come up with as we explore this topic together! You never know what they will come up with, the sky is the limit.............

               What fun it is to rhyme and sing....we celebrate the birthdate of 
                                                   Dr. Seuss, the rhyming king.
We played rhyming bingo, drew pictures of rhyming words like a duck who drives a truck. We looked for rhymes around the room, one team found a clock and a block. We worked on rhyming dice and made our own nursery rhyme books. Besides working on the concept of rhyming we used our Hickory, dickory, dock clock to discuss telling time. We brought the clock to the gym to play what time is it Mr. Fox.

        
    
      We can hardly wait to celebrate on Monday night from 6-7 PM. We have pizza games to play, pizza songs to sing and you guessed it, plenty of pizza for everyone! It should be a great time! As we prepared for this BIG event there were plenty of learning opportunities along the way. We made patterns with toppings, counted slices, read and wrote about toppings, and rolled the dice to build our own felt pizzas. I think the part we look most forward to sharing are the songs. I am going to venture to guess you may have heard parts of a song called "I am A Pizza." It is such a catchy tune that I sing it at home too! 
     Next week we begin our time for a rhyme. We will have a Seuss celebration on Friday so bring in your favorite if you have one!
         

    We sent home a special family project and look forward to hanging up your love letters. Remember, you can write it in the form of a poem, acronym with the letters of your child's name or a song to the tune of another familiar song Twinkle twinkle little star let me tell you how special you are! This will make for a lovely bulletin board display. We asked the kids totell us what they know about love. What fun definitions we got. It is hugs and tickles, hide and seek games, one more story and it just means mom and dad!
   Then while working on a card for you I told them we were putting in the words "I love you so much and I'm not lion!" They all laughed and then a child says "yeah and then we can say I love you so much and I'm not a tiger." This recieved the same group laughter which made me realize they did not get the joke!
    Next week brings our Valentine party with games, cards to exchange and lots of love to share-I can heartly wait!