Boats! Boats! Boats!

Today we started learning about boats! We started out our day by reviewing our shape of the month - circle! We also reviewed our new nursery rhyme "Rub-A-Dub-Dub." We had calendar and read the book Who Sank the Boat. This was a very silly story about all different animals who went on a row boat. We tried to figure out who was going to sink the boat. Ask your child if he/she remembers who sank the boat.

In the morning session, we welcomed a new friend to our classroom. Welcome, Alaina! We also worked on learning new vocabulary words, such as rudder, while playing a "What's Missing? Sailboat" game.

In the afternoon session, Audrie, shared some pictures of boats. We learned that Audrie's dad works with boats. All of the children were very excited to hear Audrie talk about what happened in each picture. Thanks for sharing with us, Audrie!

We had new centers today! Each child went to two centers. Ask your child which centers he/she went to today. At our first center the children got to make a boat out of clay. Then they tested how many bears each of the boats holds before it sinks. We used our clay boats and also tried sinking other types of toy boats, such as canoes, rowboats, sailboats, and motorboats.

The children made name ships at the second center. They traced their name on a ship, colored it, and cut it out. This worked on our fine motor skills. They used these ships to act out a song during our closing circle.

At our third center, the children colored their "Rub-A-Dub-Dub" page for their Nursery Rhyme Notebook. While reciting the rhyme, they drew a big circle tub around each group of three "men" to help them visualize the number three.  The children especially enjoyed peeling off the circle stickers to stick in their water!

The children at our last center played some sailboat matching games. The games were differentiated to work on specific concepts that each child needs to focus on. The matching games focused on colors, shapes, counting, numbers, and letters.

Today we had lots of fun during playtime!

During our closing circle, the children who made ships at their center, acted out the song "Six Little Ships." We started with six ships and one by one the ships sank because of the big, tall waves. They loved when Mrs. DeKeyser was the big wave and made them sink! Our friends also played a shape and number bingo game. You can play this game at home together to review shapes and numbers.  Just use a small item, such as Cheerios, m&m's, pennies, or blocks as bingo markers.  We also reviewed our colors with the color monster song we learned yesterday on the SMART Board.

 Have a great night! :)