Letter E

E is for Engine!  We read the book "The Little Engine That Could" By: Watty Piper.  Then we form the letter E beginning with a train engine.  We also used legos.

E is for eggs.  The students learned to crack open raw eggs, mix the yolk and egg white, then pour the egg on a griddle to make scrambled eggs.  The entire class enjoyed the eggs.  Next, the students were given hard-boiled eggs to peel and eat.  Ms. Kristen and I were surprised all of the students like the taste of hard-boiled eggs!  We discussed that a raw egg is a liquid matter and a cooked egg becomes solid matter.  We observed that solid matter has its own shape and liquid does not have its own shape it takes the shape of its container.

Show and Share for letter Ee.  Elephant, Eeyore, a real egg, a toy egg, the earth and an elephant blanket.

We practiced writing the letter Ee with our pointer finger in the sky, on the carpet and on paper.  We wrote rainbow Ee's by tracing the letter Ee with red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple makers.  We dot art the letter Ee and finally wrote the letter Ee. 

E - big line down, frog jump up, hat, belt, shoes. 

e - hit the ball, run around the bases.

E is for Elefun!  We played Elefun and as we played we counted the butterflies that we caught.  We counted by ones to thirty and named the colors of the butterflies, orange, blue, green and yellow.

 

E is for Earth.  We read the book "The Earth and I" by: Frank Asch.  We used a globe to find North America and Pennsylvania.  We talked about our favorite activities: Going to the beach, swimming under water, hiking, playing on the playground.

E is for experiments and explosions! 

We made explosions!

1. Pour baking soda in bowls.

2. Add food coloring.

3. Pour vinegar over the baking soda and food coloring and watch the bubbling explosion!!!

 

 

 

 

Bee Tree ends in Ee!!  We played the Honeybee Tree Game.  The Honeybee Tree Game includes a hive, tree, base, leaves and bumble bees.  The students need to pull the leaves from the tree without disturbing the bees!  This game is a FUN way to engage the students in math.

 Counting: we counted 32 leaves and 30 bees.

Graphing: we used the leaves and bees to create a graph to determine which row had more and which row had less.

Addition: we added the bees and leaves - 62!  30 +32=62

E is for Eleven!  Each student had a container of manipulative toys and was told to count out 11 items.  This was a great activity to practice One-to-One Correspondence counting.  Following this activity the class was instructed to line-up the 11 items in rows.  Then we could visualize that some rows were short and others long, but each row still has 11 items.  We counted each row together, as a class, and learned that bigger items take up more space than smaller items.  Last, the students wrote the number 11 on the white board, on paper and placed 11 dots on their papers.

 

 

 

E is for Empty!  We read the book: "When This Box Is Full" by: Patricia Lillie.  Then, we discussed empty versus full and completed a science experiment by filling an empty bowl with liquid and creating Tie-Dyed Milk.  I found this project at www.coolscience.org/CoolScience/KidScientists/tiedyemilk.htm



Empty vs. Full cut and paste activity



 

 

 

 

Autumn Fun!

We began the day with a nature walk.  The mission was to collect small, medium and large acorns, some with caps and some without caps, and yellow, green, brown and red leaves all different shapes and sizes.

We lined up leaves to measure the length of each student.  Then we counted and recorded the data on a white board.  This is a great way to encourage writing names and numbers.

  

We created an actual leave graph, then we estimated which color leaves had the most and least.  We estimated that we had the most brown leaves and the least yellow leaves.  Our estimation was incorrect!  We had 30 red leaves, 22 brown leaves, 10 green leaves and 7 yellow leaves.  We recorded our findings on paper graphs.

Question: Do acorns and acorn caps sink or float in water?  Predictions: 2 acorns will sink and 1 will float, the big acorns will float and the little ones will sink, all acorns will float, all acorns will sink, acorn caps will float.  We discovered that acorns with caps and acorn caps float.  Acorns with out caps sink.

This one floating acorn was the ONLY acorn with out a cap that floated.  The interesting thing, this student predicted that 2 of his acorns would sink and 1 would float:)

 
The following day we predicted if a walnut would sink or float water.  We predicted that the walnuts would sink.  We discovered that the dry walnuts floated, however, after the walnuts absorbed the water, the walnuts sank to the bottom of the cup.

On the nature walk we each found 3 - 5 very special leaves to paint.  We layed the leaves on wax paper then squirted glue, shaving cream and paint on the leaves, then used q-tips to swirl the ingredients to create beautiful leaves to decorate the class room.

We painted with acorns.  We placed paper inside a container, added 3 acorns, squirted paint on the acorns and paper.  Next, secured the lid on the container and went banana's as we shook the container rapidly.  We opened the container to view the creations.  Finally, we glued the acorns on the papers.  Fun! Fun! Fun!

 

September 2013

Name Stamping

In September we learned the letters A B C D. Explored apples, clouds and rain. Excerised fine motor skills by using scissors to cut, paste, write and draw.  Practiced eye-hand coordination by stiring, using dot-art bottles and tracing. WE ALL LEARNED how to spell first names!!! 

Learning letters A B C D:

~ We played "I Spy the letter...." and found hidden A, B, C and D around the classroom.

~ We built letters with blocks and giant toy beads.

~ We traced letters with our fingers on tables, carpets, in shaving cream and paint.

~ We used dot-art bottles to "dot" letters.

~We used makers to trace and create rainbow letters.

~ We practiced using pencils to trace and write the letters. 

~ We learned the phonetic sounds of letters by participating in show and share coinciding with the letter of the week and consant repetion with letter-sound related activities.  For Example: A is for apples - we experimented to discover if apples sink or float.  We tasted and graphed red, green and yellow apples.  A is for Alligator - we made alligator A's.  B is for bumble bee - we created bumble bee B's.  B is for bubbles - we explored bubbles.  B is for balloons - we wrote the letter Bb on balloons and named a letter B word before playing with balloons in the classroom.  C is for cat - we made cat C's.  C is for colors - we used primary colors to discover green, orange and purple.  C is for clouds - we used shaving cream and water to create clouds, then added food coloring to make it rain.  D is for Dalmatian - we made dalmatian D's and visitied a fire station.  D is for dinosaurs - we used toy dinosaurs to introduce addition.  D is for dominoes - we played dominoes.

Show and Share Dd.

Writing the letter Cc in shaving cream



Magic C!!!



Building the letter B

Building the letter d.

"I Spy the letter B"



"I Spy the letter C"

Bumble Bee B!







Cat C.



Dot art Dd and Dalmatian D.



Science Exploration:

~ We made predictions!  We predicted if apples and apple seeds would sink or float.  Then experimented!

~ We experimented with primary colors to create new colors.  We learned that red + blue = purple, blue + yellow = green and yellow + red = orange. 

~ We created clouds and rain clouds!  The students squirted shaving cream into a container filled with water.  Then, added red and blue food coloring on top of the clouds and discovered purple rain.

~ We experimented with shaving cream!  We squirted the shaving cream on the table and used our hands to rub the shaving cream on the table until it disappeared.  We learned that the shaving cream made our table sparkling clean.

Apple Experiment!

Apple Graphing!

Rain Clouds!



Blue + Yellow = Green

Blue

Watching the Rain!

Arithmatic

~ Bowling is for letter B.  We bowled and as we bowled we counted and added bowling pins.

~ B is for bugs.  We counted and added bugs.

~ C is for caterpillar.  We counted and added caterpillars.

~ D is for dinosuars.  We counted and added dinsaurs.

Bug Addition!

Dinosaur Addition

Bowling!