Tops & Bottoms

Happy Tuesday! Today the children spent some time learning more about vegetables and vegetable gardens. The story they listened to today was titled Tops & Bottoms. In the story, a bear is very lazy and just wants to sleep all day. Hare, the bear's neighbor, makes a deal with bear. He will do all the work in taking care of the vegetables and bear has to do nothing. When the vegetables are grown, they will split them in half. Hare let bear choose which half he wanted so he chose tops. Unfortunately, bear discovers that hare tricked him and planted only root vegetables, such as carrots and beets. Bear then demands that this time he will get the bottoms only to discover that rabbit tricked him again and planted vegetables that grow above the ground, such as lettuce and celery. Finally, bear demands both tops and bottoms only to discover that hare planted corn, which grows in the middle! That tricky hare!

This led to a discussion about different vegetables and where they grow. We looked at some of the vegetables that the children brought into school yesterday to decide if they grow underground or above ground.

The children visited centers again. Ask your child which center he/she visited today.

The first center used our new listening center to listen to the song "Down by Bay." We looked at the pictures in a book and identified the rhymes we heard. The children also matched rhyming watermelons to create new silly rhymes to sing. Finally, each child illustrated his/her own silly rhyme to put into a class song book. We will sing through our class song book on Thursday once everyone has had a chance to complete this center.

The second center worked on measuring different vegetables. They used unifix cubes to see how tall each vegetable was and recorded it on their recording sheets. This center worked on counting, nonstandard measurement, drawing identifiable pictures, sharing, and writing both numbers and words. Wow!

The third center played a vegetable number Zingo game. Each child had a card with different types and amounts of vegetables. They took turns sliding the zinger and placing a number on the corresponding spot on their cards until each box was covered. We did a lot of counting at this center!

The children enjoyed playing in a variety of areas at playtime today. We did some vegetable print painting using different vegetables. What fun!

At closing circle, the children listened to the story Miss Moo Goes to the Zoo. Have you ever seen a cow at a zoo? We discovered that at some zoos, one may find a petting area that would have farm animals in it.

We sorted animals by whether or not they belong on a farm. The morning session ran out of time, but will get to do this activity for arrival tomorrow.

The afternoon session also completed their zebra Zz alphabet book pages since we ran out of time yesterday. They are very excited that we only have one more letter left to learn!

Please make sure your child gets a good night's sleep tonight so that he/she is well rested for the PALS assessment tomorrow. There will be a substitute teacher in the classroom again tomorrow.

Have a great evening! :)