April 28th, 2009

Parents,
This morning we ate breakfast and used our hands to smear brown paint all of a huge piece of paper to make dirt for our corn field. We also worked on our fine motor skills and counting by feeding apples to horses, and worked on sorting with small and large colorful farm animals. We created a farm scene with felt farm animals and worked with play dough and cookie cutter farm animals, so we made lots of animals! During circle time, we decided that it was rainy outside, and we placed the big gray cloud and the rain drops over our tree. For calendar, we counted to the number 28 and read our pattern to learn what color our number should be. Since it was really wet outside, we couldn't go play on the playground, so we sang and danced to two songs during dancing and movement! First, we played the song "Lettercise," and then we sang and danced to "Twinkle, Twinkle." We learned that farmers do not only take care of animals at the farm, but they also grow crops, so we planted our own Lima bean plants in plastic bags! We hung them on the window, and we will get to watch them sprout! During story time, we read "Big Chickens," about four chickens who were scared of everything! For centers, we had speech with Ms. McGuire, and we worked in the big block center creating towers and homes for our farm animals. We also started painting cylinders green, to become the pupa for our butterflies! We went to lunch with Pre-K and went outside on the new playground. Ms. Mitchell had a pupa that was so close to becoming a butterfly so she took it outside with us, and we actually got to see the butterfly unfolding out of the chrysalis. Her legs started moving first, and then her wings came out and they were really tiny! After a while, her wings unfolded and became full-sized, and she started flapping them! This afternoon, in Pre-K, we will be releasing our new butterfly, and making symmetrical wings for our butterflies in one of our math centers!
Have a great night!
Lauren Avots