Snowman Paint

We had a great 4-day week!  On Tuesday, we discussed why we had the holiday on Monday and learned more about Dr. Maritn Luther King, Jr.  We read a book about the skin we live in and learned that it is what is on the inside that is most important and what makes each of us special.  We also wrote about a dream we had for our world.  The kids thought of a lot of wonderful things like no litter, being nice to animals, and nobody using mean words.

Wednesday, the kids had a lot of fun making snowmen with our special snowman paint!  You can find the recipe and instructions HERE if you would like to do more painting at home.

They got to add a candy corn nose, raisin eyes and a raisin mouth, pretzel stick arms, and a fabric scarf.  Later that day, we wrote about what we would eat, play, be afraid of, live, wear, and like if we were snowmen.  I am hoping we have time to glue our writing papers on our snowmen tomorrow, so they can come home and be displayed!  They turned out really great!

For center time this week, we had a lot of fun snow themed centers.  The kids got to count snowmen and record their answers using cotton balls.

They cut out and sorted words that started with the "s" sound.

We learned a poem this week called "The Chubby Little Snowman."  It is about a snowman who loses his nose to a hungry rabbit.  I put the poem in the pocket chart with other foods and animals to choose from and the kids enjoyed making their own versions of the poem.

Since we have been working on teen numbers, they also got practice making teen numbers by adding 10 plus another number and showing it in ten frames with marshmallows.

We also filled in a Venn diagram and compared people and snowmen and figured out what was the same and different about them.  We learned we have many similarities with snowmen!

In math, we have been working hard on teen numbers again.  We have been finding many ways to represent them.  The main goal is to help the kids understand that they are 10, plus some ones.  This concept will be built upon in first grade when they will learn more about place value.

Here we are hard at work with our clipboards in our math circle recording pictures of teen numbers!

This week we focused on learning more about the TH sound.  I like to teach the kids that they get to stick their tongues out between their teeth and either blow or buzz to make the sound.  It says both sounds, (i.e. thumb and then).  We made special "thinking thumbs" and wore them around the room while we hunted for and recorded words that started with TH.
 

The kids have been doing a great job recognizing and remembering all of the digraphs we have learned so far! 

Ivory's mom came again this week and taught us about a great artist named Winslow Homer.  She also taught us about perspective in art and how to use watercolors to make a wash or to paint dark.

Here is the painting the kids recreated!  It is called Palm Tree, Nassau.

The kids did a wonderful job with their paintings and had a great time working with the paint.