Bears, Footprints, and Dirt

Dear Parents,

We started our week writing down things we know about bears. The children said: bears are scary, you don’t want to go near a bear, they can swim in a river, they like honey, and they hibernate. 

We read Teddy Bears 1 - 10, We’re Going On A Bear Hunt, and Amazing Bears. We compared the illustrations and photos of bears to figure out which bears were real and which were pretend. The children noted that the pretend bears were riding in a bus. 

We ate honey with apples and pretzels for snacks. 

We used brown and black paint, and stamps to make tracks on brown paper. We made deer, horse, frog, dog, and bird footprints. 

We’ve been reading bunches of non-fiction books about grizzly bears, bats, lambs, chipmunks, pigs, squirrels, polar bears, and hibernation.

On Wednesday, while half the class tumbled with Casey in the big room, the other half cut paper shapes with scissors. We drew triangles, circles, squares, hearts, stars, zigzags, and wavy lines. It was challenging but many children were focussed, and cut up a storm. 

On Friday, we took turns playing with dirt in a big bin. The children reminded us that we were supposed to make mud so we added water! 

Have a Muddy Waters weekend,

Therese

Making Money Honey and Reading Rhymes

Dear Parents,

We began our week making money to use in our cash register. The class made $72.00. We put it in our register and began buying and selling whatever was in demand. Some children wanted to buy ice cream, another said a puppy. A banana phone and a robot were other requests. 

Later in the week, children were buying and selling scarves and trading money for whatever goods they could find. 

In the yard we are rediscovering the swings and remembering how to slide one at a time without a pileup. We noticed that flowers are blooming. 

We introduced our blank books this week. Everyone has their own book. The first day we used pencils to write and draw. Everyone was busy at work for a while. One person said when we began to hand them out, “But I don’t know how to write a book.” We explained that just drawing pictures was fine too. 

During tumbling with Casey, children were seen walking backwards on a balance beam and hopping inside a hula hoop. While half the class was tumbling, we read two Dr. Seuss books and listened for rhyming words. We made a list of rhyming words. We also played ABC Bingo. 

We did the Feely Box this week. Guesses were: a horse, an animal, a zebra, an elephant, a hippo, a dinosaur, and chocolate. It was an animal.

We got out our box of plastic animals. The animals immediately began climbing the walls, jumping off the bench, eating the carpet, playing together, and gathering into groups. 

We read one more new version of the Three Little Pigs. They all survived! Oh, and there were four little pigs. Someone noticed that three of their names rhymed. 

Have a rhyme time weekend,

Therese