We had a new friend join us in the morning session today! Welcome, Elise! :)
Today we started our new unit on "animals in winter" and learned some new BIG words - hibernate and migrate! See if your child can tell you what hibernate and migrate means! We learned that some animals hibernate in winter because food is hard to find while others migrate or fly to a warmer place until winter is over. We also learned that other animals adapt for the colder weather by growing thicker, warmer fur to help them stay warm. People adapt to the winter by putting on extra warm winter clothes when they go outside! Next week we will talk more about the clothing that people wear in winter.
Today's focus was on birds. We learned that some birds fly south in winter while others stay here all winter long. Geese and ducks migrate while cardinals, blue jays, and chickadees stay here all winter. We made bird feeders for the birds that stay in Wisconsin all winter to help them find food! It was fun lacing Cheerios onto pipe cleaners!
Our story was Lewis Cardinal's First Winter. In the story, Lewis is sad because all of his friends are leaving him. Some are migrating while others are getting ready to hibernate. By the end of the story, he was not sad anymore because he found a friend to spend the winter with.
We also sorted some animal pictures on the SMART Board by whether or not those animals migrate. There were some tricky animals, such as a butterfly and whale that also migrate!
Today we visited 4 centers!!! We were very excited about visiting 4 in one day! What hard workers we are! At the first center, we did a goose art project. We used a special shaving cream and glue mixture to paint clouds. Then we used our fingers to draw a large "V" and put geese on it in a "V" formation.
At the second center, we used watercolor paints to paint birds that stay in Wisconsin all winter. The children could choose to paint a cardinal, blue jay, or chickadee. We did a great job of remembering to put the paintbrush in the water before using a new color so that our paints would not get ruined! Way to go, 4K students!
At the third center, we colored our new nursery rhyme for our notebooks. Our new nursery rhyme is "The North Wind," which is one that not many people know. Take a look at it when it comes home next week!
At the fourth center, we wrote a journal about our favorite Christmas gifts. Everyone was excited to tell me about all the presents they got for Christmas!
The letter Mm was introduced today. We met our new feely phonic friend, mountain m, and practiced making the /m/ sound while tracing over it to say "hello." Our new BIG word also starts with the letter Mm - migrate!
The children were also excited to see something new in the sensory table during playtime - rice and mittens. They had a great time finding mitten matches to hang on the clothesline!
After snack, we wrote a letter to Santa and his elf to thank them for coming to our holiday program. We also painted our fingers to help decorate the letter!
Then we read a silly story called Duck at the Door. In this story, Max the duck decides not to migrate with his flock because he wants to see what winter is like. Unfortunately he realizes that he does not like the winter because it is cold and lonely. He knocks on a door for some warmth and finds a new friend who welcomes him into her warm house.
We also found some time to visit the gym today and get out our wiggles. The morning class asked to learn a new game so I taught them how to play "Nap or Flap?" to reinforce some of our learning from the day. The game is like "Red Light, Green Light." Then they chose to play with the balls. A group of children also played "Ring Around the Rosie" in the gym. In the afternoon, the children had fun running and playing tag.
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