Anger is Red!

Dear mamas and papas and babas,

We began our week talking about feelings. We put on our thinking caps
and the children came up with two feelings that feel good and two that
do not. We asked what color would anger be? The children gave colors
to each of our four feelings and examples of what makes us feel that
way.

We read When I Feel Angry, and Dr. Seuss' My Many Colored Days. We
wrote a list of things we can do when we feel angry: we can stomp,
shake our hand in the air, move away, say stop, talk to our friends,
and ask for help.

We talked about what to expect on our trip to the fire station. The
children knew lots about fire stations. We had our second fire drill
the day before our trip. We left the building quickly and quietly. We
read Even Firefighters Hug Their Moms and other fire books. At the
fire station everyone got to get on the firetruck, spray water out of
a hose, and pick up a real ax! The fireman said,  "Don't worry, it's
not sharp." One fireman put on his jacket, boots, and helmet to show
us what we can expect to see if they ever come in our house to rescue
us. He reminded the children not to hide. The firemen said they use
their five senses to find the fires.

We played in the big room on tricycles and the jungle gym. We also
played Red Light, Green Light. First we played using our listening
ears and then we played using our eyes to see "should we stay or
should we go now?" The last round we played as crawling kitties,
however the meowing was so loud the kittens could no longer hear the
directions. So we crawled into the classroom to wait for Frank.

Yoga was quiet. And still. While half the class was in posing with
Frank, the rest of us read two books about anger. Is it okay to be
angry? Some children said yes, others answered no. After reading When
Sophie Gets Angry, we talked more about things we can do when we feel
mad. And things that are not okay. We looked at the pictures to see
how to tell if someone is mad.

We opened a new bottle of seltzer to compare Sophie's volcanic
exploding anger to the bursting water. We talked about how to calm our
feelings: taking deep breaths, talk to someone, give a hug, count, and
walk away. We added orange sparkles to the bottle to represent our
feelings and took turns shaking them up, watching them swirl around,
and then seeing them settle back down.

Lillian's firefighter uncle came to circle and answered our many
questions: Where do you get water if there's no fire hydrant? What
happens if the fire is all around you? Why do they put the saws out
everyday? What happens if the firehouse catches on fire? The fire
truck? The whole world? Did you just say the firemen have toys? (He
called their tools toys.)

We read Where Does The Wind Go? and talked about wind from our lungs
and taking deep breaths. We felt our bellies while taking breaths to
see if we could feel the air going in and out. We all got turns to
blow bubbles. We thought about if we needed big or gentle  breaths to
make bubbles. After snacks, everyone got straws to try and blow paint
across paper. We worked in groups of three. We blew thick paint, thin
watery paint, and powder paint. The children noticed as they blew that
colors were mixing together. They created some spectacular colors.

Next week, we will assemble and read our Me books. And meet Mr. Bones.

Have a spooky weekend,

Therese

It's Mine!

Hi everyone,

We started our week reading Leo Leonni's It's Mine! The children said
the three frogs in the book were not sharing or being kind. We noticed
when they were not sharing, some were frowning. However, when they
shared at the end of the book, everyone was all smiles. We see
similarities in our classroom.

The Greedy Python by Eric Carle gave us another example of someone not
wanting to share and the consequences of their behavior. We also have
been reading The Grouchy Ladybug.

We read Have You Seen Trees? and wrote down a list of trees we knew.
While half the class posed with Frank in yoga, we voted on one tree to
create for our family tree. Reminder: bring family photos!! (Insert
smiley faces here) We drew pictures of trees. We noticed that most
trees have the same color trunks.

We sang Byum Byum By Bubblegum in honor of the tree that won by a
landslide: the sweet gum tree. We blew big pretend bubbles and popped
them. The children do realize there is no gum on the gum tree. Some
children said they had chewed gum while others looked puzzled. One
person shouted, “You don’t swallow it!” We talked about where the gum
and syrup come from, and what a baby tree is called.

We started creating our family tree. We added brown paint to brown
paper using animal feet stamps. Some children used scissors to
strengthen hand muscles while cutting pieces of felt and brown paper
to use as the bark. We squeezed as much glue as possible before adding
our bark to the tee trunk.

We read I Love Fall! and thought about the leaves on our tree outside.
The children said it is mostly still green with a little bit of
yellow. We asked what our Lincoln Logs are made of? After answering
wood, we noticed many other things in our classroom and the big room
that are made of wood too: tables, chairs, bench, floor, walls and
balcony in big room, our boat, carriage, and our big blocks.

Family photos, please! Did I say that already?

Brrrrrrrrr,

Therese