Gymnastics Field Trip

We had a blast going to Coach Patty's Gymnastics for a class. They did a great job with the kids and I think we all had fun. Sorry for the somewhat blurry pics!

Japanese Disaster Relief

Saying Hello in Japanese

We learned about Boys Day and Girls Day. This was a flag they used for Boys day.

Japanese attire!

Japanese writing

One of the insects they have in Japan

It's been so fun to have visitors in the classroom this past month! One of our preschool Moms came to school shortly after the Earthquake in Japan to talk to the kids about a Disaster Relief project her family is working on. Their family lived in Japan recently and have lots of friends there still so their children were very concerned about them. I was excited to have our class participate in this service project. We got to fill a box with items that can be put in care kits for children (such as, underwear, socks, fleece blankets, food, toothbrushes, coloring books and pencils etc) Our preschool Mom was so great and brought lots of fun things from Japan to show the kids and taught them how to say hello and goodbye in Japanese. Thank you Thank you Dayna...we loved it!

And thank you parents for donating items!

Cristo's Crazy Transformations

For some reason my computer won't turn some of the pictures around!

Our Artist for March was Javacheff Cristo. He was famous for taking an ordinary object and making it look different. Sometimes he would wrap a bridge in fabric, create a skirt for an island etc etc. We talked about some of his work and then each child got to choose an object from our art bin that they wanted to transform using various items (ie. foil, fabric, duct tape, glue, stickers, feathers etc). They each chose something different. We had half a granola bar box, a Kleenex box, egg carton, and old lotion container. They really enjoyed this open ended art project and some of them could have spent the old day on their little creations. It was great to watch!

V is for Violin!

The week that we were learning about the letter "V" or (Vincent Vampire Bat in zoo-phonics language), we had a special visitor. The Aunt of one of our students came to play the violin for the us. She plays beautifully and teaches as well. She showed them the different parts of the violin and even let them touch it. They were in awe the whole time. Because Handel was our composer for March she played one of his pieces for us. Very fun!

My Many Colored Days

This particular week we also read an adorable Dr. Seuss book called "My Many Colored Days". It's not very well known because it was published after he died and wasn't illustrated by him (at his request). It talks about emotions and how they change from day to day and he relates them to colors (ie. on my yellow days I feel like a busy bee and my brown days I feel low low down). We talked about this concept and then the kids each talked about how they were feeling that day and how it could be depicted using a color and an animal. Then they dictated their responses to me and then drew a picture using their color with oil pastels.

We did some color mixing for our colors theme at the end of March. You can't really tell in this picture but we made Green, Orange, and Purple by mixing playdoh together. Before we mixed them, the children recorded their starting colors and their prediction of what color they thought it would make and then they recorded the actual color they created.

St. Patrick's Day

The Leprechauns turned our water table Green!

Finger-painting shamrocks by mixing blue and yellow paint with our hands. Lots of mess....lots of fun! Going on a leprechaun hunt

Treats the Leprechaun's left us!

Stamping Shamrock's with Green Peppers

For Snack Time we ate Lucky Charms but first we graphed the different marshmallows!

Our Finished Products!