One Duck Stuck!

Happy Thursday!

Today we finished up our pond unit. During opening circle, we read the book Do Like a Duck Does! This is a silly story about a fox who pretended he was a duck. He pretended to quack like a duck, flap his arms like a duck, and even splash in mud puddles like a duck. At the end of the story, the mother duck said that if he was really a duck he would swim in the pond with him. The fox could not swim and decided that he didn't like being a duck after all. The children loved hearing this story!

Then we sang a song called "D-U-C-K-Y." This is sung to the tune of "B-I-N-G-O." The students had to be very good listeners and know when they had to clap the letter instead of sing the letter.

Today your child visited his/her last center for the week.

At the first center, the children read the two versions of 5 Little Ducks.  They have a lot of fun singing along with the story. Then each child completed a 5 Little Ducks counting booklet. They had to write the number and glue the correct number of ducks onto each page in their booklet. Then they practiced pointing to each word while reading the booklet. Have your child help you read his/her booklet at home!

At the second center, the children did some feather painting. They started by cutting out a yellow duckling. They colored the beak and feet orange and then they got to turn their ducking into an adult duck by painting its feathers white. They were very excited when they found out that they got to paint with a feather instead of a paintbrush! We talked about how a duckling loses its fluffy feathers and grows new grown-up ones.

At the last center, the children played a duck rhyming memory game. Each child found matching pairs of ducks by flipping them over and finding the pairs. We have some very good rhymers in our class!

Then it was playtime!

During closing circle, the children read the book One Duck Stuck. A poor duck gets stuck in the muck! He asks for help and different animals come to help him get unstuck. The children heard lots of rhymes in this story! They even used their duck stick puppets that they made earlier in the week to help us while we read the story.

We ended the day by acting out the song "Five Little Ducks." The morning children had time to act this story out. Unfortunately, the afternoon class ran out of time, so the teachers ended up acting out the story. The children loved it!

The morning class also did the counting jar. Some of our friends are very good at guessing!

The morning friends also read a special book about ducks that was signed by the author and sang the song "Little White Duck."

Tonight from 5:00-8:00 is Southern Door's Fine Arts & Literacy Fair. Please consider stopping by with your child! Hope to see you there!

Frozen Party!

Happy Wednesday! Today was the day that the 4K students have been eagerly waiting for... our Frozen party! The children have been working hard to save enough BEAK awards to earn this party.

We started off the day by dancing to some of the songs from the movie. The children did not even want to play! All they wanted to do was dance! We had a lot of fun dancing!

Then we had a special visitor in our classroom. She was a volunteer from PIE (Parents Involved in Education) to share with the children a new fundraiser they are doing - Y-ties. The children watched a short clip on the SMART Board about how they are made. Check your child's folder to learn more about the Y-ties.

Afterwards, we made a Frozen shapes booklet together at the tables. The children were excited to discover that the booklet featured all of their favorite characters from the Frozen movie! To challenge them, they had to draw their own shapes around each of the characters to match the words on each page. Identifying our shapes has become easier so they were challenged to take their knowledge of the shape to draw it. We talked about the special characteristics of each shape before we drew it. Ask your child to read his/her booklet to you at home tonight. Encourage your child to practice drawing some of the shapes at home too! The diamond (rhombus) is an especially tricky shape to draw!

Then we had our ice cream party! There were a lot of great toppings to choose from for on top of our ice cream! It tasted delicious! Thank you to everyone who sent in a topping for the ice cream! We enjoyed the ice cream tremendously.

Of course we could not have a Frozen party without watching some of the movie on the SMART Board.

To end the day, we went outside to play. Several children enjoyed acting out the Frozen movie while playing outside in the cold.

We had a fantastic Frozen party! Tomorrow we will finish our centers from the week and wrap-up our unit on the pond.

Have a great evening! :)