I Like It When...We Go to the Fire Station

Dear Parents,

This week we read I Like It When… and the children took turns completing the sentence. We read them during circle, and these became a page in our All About Me books. 

We compared the cover of the books I Like It When… and You Choose. The children noticed that both books are red and have a penguin. One person said, 'They have the same author and illustrator named Mary Murphy, and both names begin with the same letter." Someone pointed out that one book is smaller and the other is bigger. 

We read You Choose and everyone got to choose what color of tulip bulb to plant. We dug up dirt in our garden, tossed our bulbs in, covered them with dirt, and waited for them to bloom. Many commented how hard it was to dig, it took a lot of elbow grease. Someone shouted, “We’re making flowers!”

During circle we read Flowers so we could see how our bulbs will grow. We also read Nicky Visits the Fire Station, in preparation for our trip to the fire station. We read Firefighter A- Z several times. We asked the class, “What do you think we will see at the fire station?” After our trip, we reviewed the list and noticed that saw almost everything we predicted. 

During yoga with Tasha, friends were seen lying on their backs listening to quiet music. While half the class was in yoga, the rest of us worked on assembling our Me books. Everyone helped push the stapler to hold their pages together. Then we sat on the carpet and read our books.

We read all the books aloud during circle. The class was excited to listen. 

At the fire station we saw a fire truck, firemen, a fire pole, fire pants, boots, and helmets. One fireman slid down the pole for us and another put on his uniform so we could see what they would look like if they came to our house. Fireman Connor told the children if you see a fireman in your house, don't hide, go to him.

On Friday we did our second fire drill. We talked about fire extinguishers and noticed that there was one in our classroom and three on our way through the building to the yard. When we reached the yard someone reminded us, “Fire extinguishers are not toys.” Another friend followed up with, “Swings are toys.”

Therese

How Tall Are We?

Dear Parents,

On Monday we read Whole Body Listening. The class listened to the book with their eyes, ears, hands, mouths, feet, bodies, and hearts. Afterwards, everyone gave themselves a pat on the back for listening so intently using their whole bodies. We read the book again Wednesday. 

We measured everyone on our Mr. Bones height chart. Friends were excited to see how they measured up. Afterwards, we sang “The foot bone’s connected to the ankle bone…” We knocked on our heads to feel how hard headed we are, and felt for our rib bones. Someone said the squishy part is our muscles. 

We examined a bird's nest that Henry found at his house. The children said they saw twigs, feathers, pieces of paper, string, and shiny objects in the nest. We wondered how long it took the birds to build their nest. 

We read The Leaf Man and looked at leaves found over the weekend at Prospect Park. We counted the points on the leaves and noticed they were from many different trees. Everyone took turns sorting the leaves into five piles. We have been observing the leaves on our tree too, and noticing a few are turning yellow. 

We are working on our All About Me books. We colored one page, using oil pastels. The next day we added watercolor. Brilliantly colorful!

Wednesday was our first yoga class with Tasha. While half the class posed in the big room, the other half started working on our book covers in the classroom. The children said that during yoga they did tick-tick-yoga-clock, high fives, and giant lava. 

Eight sleepers on Thursday. Quiet time certainly is quiet. 

On Friday during circle, we clapped the syllables in our names to introduce ourselves to our substitute teacher, Kat.

Kat, also an opera singer, taught us a song about colors, in her beautiful voice. A few children took turns teaching us a song that they liked too.

We sang “Hello Everybody and How Do You Do?”, and named different body parts and moved them. We also sang “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” at regular speed, very fast, and very slow. 

We looked at the cover of Eric Carle’s From Head to Toe and predicted what the book would be about. We read it together, moving our bodies like the animals in the book. We read Bodies are Cool and reread Pig Pig Grows Up.

Have a fun weekend,

Therese