pin the nose on the narwhal!

it was mine and max's turn to host wee school this week, and boy did we have fun!  we did the letter N, and the first day we talked about nests and numbers.  we read "the best nest" by p.d. eastman and talked about the sorts of things birds find to build their nests.  leaves, hay, straws, man hair, horse hair (ha ha--love this book!), etc.     

then we went outside and gathered our own supplies to build nests for baby birds.  we found leaves, soft grass, dryer lint, etc., and the kids pointed where they wanted me to hot glue gun their soft nest supplies (not trash...ha ha) on their nest.  we colored a little baby bird and stuck him in his happy home!

next we played the number game.  we worked with numbers 1-10, and had to count the items on the cards and match them with the correct number puzzle piece.  these kiddos did really well with their math skills and number recognition!

on day 2 we talked about Noses!  i asked them if they knew a body part that started with the letter N, and we cycled through a few things (belly button?  no... ears?  no... mouth?  no...) before we all agreed Nose started with the letter N.  this part was pretty hilarious--i asked the kids what we use our noses for, the very first response:  "we pick them!"  

"very good!  we can!  what else can we do?"

 " we sneeze!"

  "that's right!  how about this?" (i make a sniffing noise)  

"we smell!"

so we decided to test our sense of smell--close your eyes!  you can't look, you just have to guess what's in the bag based on what you smell!  cinnamon and vanilla were a little hard--they knew they knew the smell, but not what it was called, and they didn't know the name peppermint, but knew the extract smelled like a candy cane.  and they all guessed orange and banana right away!

then we played the matching smells game--we had to glue pictures of things that smelled yummy or yucky on the right side of the paper.

then we read "the nose book" by al perkins and saw all sorts of different kinds of noses on all sorts of different animals.  we found an odd looking animal called a narwhal, and watched a national geographic clip about them so we could see what kind of nose they have.

then we played pin the nose on the narwhal!  wouldn't you?!

Jj is for...

"J" is for...

We talked about the letter J.  We practiced writing the letter in the air as well as on our papers and then made a J book.

 We used finger paints to put handprints on our papers.  As soon as we were done we flipped our papers over so that our hand prints now looked like jelly fish!  We attempted to draw eyes on our jelly fish.

 Jessa

 Max

 Calvin

 Lynlee

 The best part of jello is that it starts with "J"

We took cookie cutters and cut shapes out of the jello and the best part was eating it!

 Lynlee

 Max

 Jessa

 Calvin

These kiddos loved the jello! 

K is for Kangaroo and King!!

Letter K week started out with tracing our Letter K and talking about "k" words.  We were sad to see Camilla move, but we are so happy Lynlee is in school with us now!  She is a great addition!

We read Curious George Feeds the Animals to see what kind of "K" animals George would meet at the zoo.  We found a koala bear, and a kangaroo!  We spent some time talking about what makes kangaroos different from boys and girls.  We discovered kangaroos have pouches, really long tails, and they up a lot.

Then we made kangaroo paper bag puppets (joey included!)

And then we went outside (to enjoy this amazing December weather!) with our very own kangaroo pouches to find letter K's out in the yard!  I scattered letters A-K throughout the yard, and the kids were only allowed to put K in their pouch.  It was a hit!  And so cute to watch them get excited when they found the right letter, stick it in their pouch, and then hop away!

On day two of letter K, we created K's with fuzzies (Max was very excited and finished his while waiting for everyone to arrive)

Then we read the story of Teddy Koala Bear's Secret, about a Koala bear who lives in England, but takes a secret tunnel to Australia every night and meets up with his friends, a kangaroo and a kookaburra bird.  

Our two last activities were sizing--matching up small, medium, and large kings with their small, medium and large crowns, and then also matching up shapes (circle, square, and triangle) on a letter K crown.  Then snacks and outside to enjoy playing!

Ii is for...

This last week we discussed the letter "I".  We started out the day by practicing writing the letter  in the air and then practiced writing it on our papers.  We talked about words that start with I like insect, Iguana, igloo, and ink pad and made little books with pictures of these items.

 They all practiced writing the letter "I"

 Max

 Calvin

 Jessa

 Camille

 We finished off our morning by reading, "I is for Iguana"  and then gluing marshmallows to a picture of an igloo. 

Most of the marshmallows ended up in our tummies!!

 Calvin and Max

 Camille and Jessa

 

On Thursday, the week before Thanksgiving, We talked about Indians.

We talked about the first thanksgiving and how the Indians helped the pilgrims.

First we colored a picture of and Indian and then used our scissors to cut along the dotted lines to make a four piece puzzle with our picture.

 For our last activity of the day we made Indian feather hats.  We talked about what color each feather was as it was connected to our hat and even ran around the living room and made Indian noises.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!



The letter H..

For the letter H, we made houses. We taped pieces of paper in the form of an H and then added roofs on top. They turned out really good!!

After making our H houses we practiced writing the letter H on the white board. The kids did so well writing the letter and while they practiced writing, we named things that start with the letter H. 

The other thing we did for the letter H was filling the letter H with cutout hearts. 

We also glued Popsicle sticks on paper. They turned out really well!!