Dear Parents,
We asked the class to finish the sentence, “Hands can…” They responded: eat, touch a rock, get a tissue, fold, climb, paint, play, read a book, get dirty, and much more. We tried to play a clapping game but everyone was too tired. We’ll try another day.
We read My Five Senses and talked about having as many senses as fingers on one hand. We also said that four of our five senses are on our heads. Afterwards, everyone took turns reaching into the Feely Box to touch and guess what was inside using only our sense of touch. People guessed a stick, something hard, a present, acorns, acorn caps, and something spiky. Ask your children what it was.
We have been finding lots of acorn caps in our yard but hardly any acorns. We do not have an oak tree in our yard so we asked the children, “How do you think they got here?” And, “Where are all the acorns?” The class guessed that the wind had blown them here, or maybe squirrels carried them. Some said that the squirrels had buried all the acorns, or eaten them.
We used alphabet stamps and orange paint to decorate our art folders. Everyone stamped the first letter of their name on their folder. Lots of children knew the first letter in their name, but if they didn’t, there were plenty of helpers to remind them.
We dipped our hands into pink or purple paint to make hand prints. The next day we traced our hands and colored them in with crayons. We counted fingers as we traced, yep, five fingers! Some children colored inside their handprints, and some outside.
We read Hands Can!, Here Are My Hands, Wash Your Hands, and No David! The class knew that all of the things David was doing with his hands were not okay: grabbing fish the bowl, and playing ball in the house. The children said he could break things, get water everywhere, and hurt the fish. In Pickle, which we read the next day, we noticed that they also said to not touch the fish.
On Friday, Simon said to walk to the beat of our hand drum. We marched around the room taking giant steps, side-stepping, skipping, and then acting like many hopping animals. We also sang The Drum Goes Round and Round, and everyone took turns beating the drum. The children made loud and soft sounds.
Have a great weekend!
Therese