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

Baby Chicks Rule

Dear Parents,

We made a list of four rules for our baby chicks. The children showed us how to be gentle by patting their own hands softly. On Monday, one chick had made a pip hole in the morning. Shortly after we arrived, another chick had made a hole. By the afternoon, one chick had mostly pecked his way out of the shell. It was the number four egg.

We continued our alphabet word list this week, adding N, O, P, and Q words. 

When we arrived Tuesday morning six wet chicks had hatched. We observed them all day as their feathers became fluffy and fluffier. A seventh chick hatched during circle when we weren’t looking! 

We read The Wolf’s Chicken Stew. The wolf had every intention of eating the chicken but the chickens won him over. You can ask the children how.

We spent Wednesday petting our baby chicks. A few children said they didn’t want to pet them, however, they all changed their minds. A couple of friends thought the chicken feet were too sharp but when we showed them how tiny and soft they were, they had less trepidation. 

By Thursday we had nine baby chicks. Numbers three, six, and eight did not hatch. Farmer Eric had instructed us to throw away the unhatched eggs. 

The children commented on the unhatched eggs: “They didn’t hatch because they didn’t need to hatch.” “Maybe they were cold.” “There’s a light that keeps them warm.” “They couldn’t be with them friends.” “They throwed them away because them wasn’t hatching.”

This week we acted out The Three Little Pigsand Henny Penny.  The first story, we had one person who wanted to be the audience, but the next day, we had four audience members. Acting out the stories causes much commotion and laughter. We used a real acorn to fall onto Henny’s head. Everyone wanted turns to hold the acorn. 

On Friday we made three little pig sculptures using gray clay, and added hay, sticks, and stones. Afterwards, we asked the children what their houses were made of; most said bricks, and a few said concrete. 

Have a sunny side up weekend,

Therese