Dinosaurs

This week we had the opportunity to explore a new unit, with the children’s interests specifically in mind. In order to assure what topic they wanted to learn more about we took a class vote last week and the winner was Dinosaurs! So, that is what we learned all about.  

We mainly focused on five different types of dinosaurs: triceratops, brachiosaurus, apatosaurus, stegosaurus, and tyrannosaurus rex. We learned so many different facts about each dinosaur. We learned some dinosaurs were plant eaters, some were meat eaters and how they were able to protect themselves from their predators, plus so much more! 

For a fun math activity we printed out a giant triceratops footprint from Here. How many of our feet can fit into one footprint? We placed our shoes in the footprint, 10 pairs of shoes were able to fit inside the footprint. So big! How many unifix cubes long? We counted out that it was 36 unifix cubes. We had so much fun measuring and counting. 

We also learned that there are special scientists that study dinosaur fossils and bones. They are called paleontologists. We pretended to be paleontologists in our very own classroom, in the sand table. Would we be able to find any dinosaur bones or fossils? Earlier in the week we made our own unique dinosaur bones with salt dough. We added them to our sand table. We were very careful, using paint brushes to dust off the sand, to conduct our own dino dig.

Additionally, when learning about fossils we made our own fossil sugar cookies. We used a toy dinosaur to create the footprint. They looked just like real fossils, except these one tasted yummy!  

As an art project we created dinosaur footprint pictures.

Also, at the end of the week we illustrated our favorite dinosaur that we learned about and then labeled the picture. Each child then dictated one fact that they learned about the dinosaur.

Moreover, our neighbors 3E invited us over. One of their student’s grandparents is a cartoonist and he showed us what he can draw and how he draws it. Believe it or not he even illustrated for us a dinosaur scene!

Tu B’Shvat

This week we focused our attention on Tu B’Shvat, the birthday of the trees! We showed the children a globe and where New York was on the globe. We then explained to the children even though it is winter in New York and the trees do not have any leaves, on the other side of the world the sun is starting to warm up and it is becoming spring.

In honor of Tu B’shvat we decided to conduct a fun science experiment. We decided to see if we would be able to grow our own plants. However, in our science experiment we are not going to grow our seeds in soil; we are going to just use lima beans, water, a paper towel and the sun. For this science experiment we will need a lot of patience. As pairs the children sprayed water onto a paper towel and then placed their beans onto the damp paper towels. The children then placed their damp paper towels in a ziplock bag and hung the bags near the window to soak up some of the warm sun. For the next few weeks we will record what we observe.   

To celebrate the birthday of the trees we ate some dried fruits, such as, raisins, apricots, figs and dates. Since most of us have never tasted most of these fruits before we decided to graph which dried fruit we liked the most. After tasting each fruit the children placed a tally mark on our graph, under their favorite dried fruit. The children were able to recognize the name of the fruits just by looking at the beginning letter and sounding it out. We are so proud of our little readers!

As a fun math activity we played a matching game with leaves and numbers. Each child got a leaf with a number written on it and had to match it to the number on the braches. Since we have twelve children in the class we counted to the number twelve. This activity helped teach the children number recognition and one to one correspondence.

We additionally made our very own fruit salad. 

Painting Class

This week we learned about Keith Haring and how he began his art career right here in NYC. We then made our own artwork creating Keith Haring's famous outlines. 

             

More Winter

This week we continued to learn all about winter. 

We read the book The Mitten. 

We did an activity using the animals from the book, as well as few others, to learn about which animals hibernate and where. We learned that hibernation is a way that animals adapt to the environment. Animals hibernate to escape the cold. Animals that don’t hibernate are able to adapt to the cold. Furthermore, we sorted which animals hibernate and which animals don’t. You can see our chart hanging outside of our room.  

We also acted out the story by pretending to be the characters climbing into the mitten. That was a lot of fun! We acted it out at least 4 times this week because they enjoyed this so much. 

As a literacy activity, each child was asked to decide what animal could fit in their mitten. They then illustrated their work and wrote the name of the animal.

            

This week we also took the time to teach the children about things that come in pairs, such as, mittens, gloves and boots. We discussed the body parts that we have two of, like, our arms, legs, eyes and ears. We then spoke about how we need to make sure that all of our articles of clothes can keep them warm. That is why we need two of things like, gloves and shoes. We made beautiful water color paintings that were cut out to the shape of mittens. They are hanging in our classroom to create a beautiful winter wonderland.

                 

In the winter it gets colder and the temperature drops. So we conducted a fun science activity, using thermometers to experiment with temperature. We learned that a thermometer helps to tell us the temperature. We had two thermometers both reading at the same temperature. We then decided to keep one lying out in the classroom and we placed the other in a bowl of ice. When we check on the thermometers later will they still be at the same temperature? Some said yes and some said no. The children were very excited to see the results.  Later, when we compared the two thermometers we did see a difference! The thermometer in the ice was at a much lower temperature than the one sitting out in the classroom

 Furthermore, we made delicious Rice Krispy treat snowballs and drank some hot cocoa to keep us warm during this cold weather. 

Painting Class

We viewed Jasper John's Alphabet painting and used this painting as our inspiration. Instead of writing the entire alphabet though, we just wrote out the letters of our name. We wrote in crayon and painted over using watercolors. 

            

Winter

This week we returned from break to begin our winter fun. We shared what we already know about winter. 

We also played a game where we dress Petey. What clothing does Petey need to play outside during winter time? Each child had a turn to put one item of clothing on Petey.

We read the book The Snowy Day and discussed what we like to do on a snowy day. Each child illustrated a picture and then dictated their words. 

The book additionally touches upon snow melting. So we decided to conduct a fun science experiment to turn a liquid into a solid. We filled ice cube trays with water and since it was so cold outside, we put them outside. We left them over night and lo and behold, the water turned to ice! The children were very excited. We then brought the ice into the classroom to see what would happen next. 

With snow being our main theme of the week we practiced our fine motor skills by cutting to design our own individual snowflakes. We also made snowmen. We talked about different sizes: small, medium, and large. We used the three sizes and put them in size order to make our own snowmen. We then gave children a pair of eyes, arms, legs, gloves, boots, and a hat to glue onto their snowmen. We additionally, as a literacy activity, wrote our own creative writing stories about our snowmen.  

   

Song:

Snowflake Song (Tune: I'm a Little Teapot)

I'm a little snowflake, fat and round

Falling softly to the ground

When enough of me falls hear me shout,

"Here's a snowball, better watch out!" (pretend to throw a snowball)

Painting Class 

This week we focused on Edvard Munch's famous artwork The Scream. We noticed the beautiful colors he used to paint the sky and we focused on the emotions of the person in the painting. We then created our own scream painting. 

Chanukah and Dr. Seuss

We had Chanukah fun by playing dreidel, made menorahs and Chanukah decorations. We invited the parents in for a Chanukah party where the children did fun math games and science experiments. Furthermore the children helped make yummy latkes and apple sauce.

Our Menorahs 

In the midst of learning all about Chanukah we also had an author study. Our author was Dr. Seuss and we mainly focused on his love of rhyming. While reading his books we listened for the rhymes that he used in the book. We also practiced our own rhymes. We then made our own Chanukah rhyming book. Each child got to write out the word that they rhymed and drew a picture interpreting what their page described.

                   

Our full rhyme book was:

Chanukah is finally here, It's our favorite time of year
King Antiochus made the Jews feel mad, But in the end they were no longer sad
Judah Macabee was so strong, He showed King Antiochus that his rules were wrong
The oil was meant to last one night, But for eight nights the oil continued to light 
It is such a special sight, To see the Chanukah candles burn so bright
Each night we sing the bracha out loud, Everyone is just so proud 
With the dreidel I get to play, I made this one out of clay
I like to watch the dreidel spin, Maybe this time I will win
Golden latkes go in my tummy, Oh boy, are they so yummy
Sufganiot and gelt we get to eat, It is such a special treat 
Chunakah present we get to enjoy, Maybe it will be a new toy
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, Chanukah is so great
Chanukah is so much fun, I get sad when it's all done. 

Painting Class 1

We took a look at Van Gogh's Starry Night and noticed the swirling lines he used to convey movement. We made our own swirly night sky by finger painting with blue paint and we added gold glitter to create  starlight. 

Painting Class 2

 This week we learned about Paul Cezanne, who was known for painting still lifes.He would paint many common objects found around him (ex. fruit and flowers). We then created our own still lifes, by looking at a bowl of fruit and painting what we saw. 

Painting Class 3

This week we looked at Wayne Thiebaud's Three Machines. We decided to make our own gumball machines using crayons for the machine and dot paint to create the gumballs.  

                  

Thanksgiving

This week we have begun to focus on Thanksgiving. We learned about the Teepees (that the Native Americans lived in. We learned that the Native Americans used many colors and patterns to decorate their beautiful homes. To have the children have a full experience of teepees we constructed their own life size teepee. The children helped by decorating a sheet of butcher block paper with different colors and patterns. 

We decided it would be fun to investigate a pumpkin. We each had a turn to feel and smell the outside and inside of the pumpkin and described what we saw and felt. 

We decided to leave a few seeds inside the pumpkin and we added soil and water to our pumpkin. We are conducting an experiment to see if anything will grow. Only time will tell. We plan on taking such good care of our pumpkin. We will water it and sit it by the windowsill to give it sunlight. 

We also made Thanksgiving turkeys to share with our families, saying what we are thankful for. 

We finally, at the end of our week, shared a Thanksgiving feast with the class next door. We ate candied yams, pumpkin pie, roasted potatoes, and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. It was all delicious. 

Painting Class 

This week we created Mondrian inspired art. We glued on black strips of construction paper and painted with primary colors.

Painting Class 2

This week we did not paint. It was the day before Thanksgiving and I wanted all the children to be able to take their artwork home for the long weekend. We learned about how Michelangelo painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. We then, with Cray-pas, created our own artwork using the same technique. We made our own pictures by coloring underneath the tables instead of on top!