It is hard to believe it is the end of October already! The time seems to be flying by. We began the week having fun with ghosts!! We did an experiment involving spinning ghosts. The children voted on which ghost they thought would spin. We counted and compared the numbers. Then the class discovered that the ghost with the paper clip and arms folded in opposite directions was the one that spun! Each child brought a ghost home. Try holding the ghost from different heights and letting it go to watch it spin. We also used shaving cream to write our HWOT letters and thought of words that rhyme with the word BOO. After reading,
Ghost's Dinner, we played with different colored water using ice trays and pipettes, matched ghosts feeling cards, sat and spun on the sit and spins like spinning ghosts and colored ghosts using different colored paint sticks. We then asked what their ghosts would eat and drink, just like in the story. (sensory, fine motor, gross motor, letter recognition and formation, rhyming, sensory)
We also sequenced pictures of how to make a jack-o-lantern. In addition, we used candy corn to practice positional concepts and we used play-doh and spaghetti straws to string spider rings. Everyone had fun going on a pumpkin letter hunt in the hallway! We also signed in to what we liked the best.....bats, ghosts, pumpkins or spiders. We then counted and compared the numbers. (recognizing letters and numbers, comparing, matching, fine motor, sequencing, positional concepts)
On Thursday, we had fun learning and playing with skeletons through puzzles, play-doh and bones (straws), making letters out of bones (Q tips), counting bones (Q-tips), breaking bones (cutting white paper strips) and connecting bones ( PCV pipes). We learned some important facts about bones such as they are used to support our body, our thigh bone is our largest bone, and the tip of our nose and earlobe do not have bones. (problem solving, letter and number recognition, one to one counting, cutting)
The students enjoyed feeling and cutting green cooked spaghetti noodles. The students also washed little pumpkins with soap. (fine motor, safe behaviors, sensory, following directions)
Our letter of the week was U. We went over the sound and things that begin with this letter. As we made this letter and all the other letters we have learned, we focus on starting our letters at the top! The students traced this letter as we watched our video about the letter U! During our 2nd Steps lesson we learned that two people can have different feelings about the same thing. For example, one student can be happy about the dentist while another student might be scared of the dentist.
Questions to Ask Your Child?
What color did the ghosts turn in Ghost's Dinner? (all kinds of colors based on the food they ate)
What color did the ghosts turn when they drank chocolate milk? (brown)
What does B-O-O spell?
What did we wash using a toothbrush? (pumpkins)
What did we hunt for in the hallway using our clipboards? (pumpkin letters)
In our book, did seeing the skeleton in the mirror get rid of his hiccups? (yes)
Books We Read:
Big Pumpkin
Ghost's Dinner
Skeleton Hiccups
Reminders:
Sunday 10/26 6:00-8:00 Halloween at the Magic House
Wednesday 10/29 Theis Pumpkin & Market, 14101 Creve Coeur Airport Road. 9:30-11:30
Thursday 10/30 Wear your costume to school-no masks and wear gym shoes for outside time
Friday 11/7 Fall Fling 6:00-9:00 Tropicana Lanes
Monday 11/17-Thursday 11/20 Our own Hippo canned food drive
Wednesday 11/26-Sunday 11/30 Thanksgiving break
Next Week: More Halloween activities
Halloween Pictures: Please email us one picture of your child dressed up in his/her Halloween costume next week. We will make a class book for our library so the kids can enjoy looking at each other!!
Things to work on:
Continue working on self help skills. (putting coat on, fixing sleeves and zipping)
When we to wear coats, we practice the "hippo flip" to put them on. We put the coat on the floor and have the students stand by the tag, hood or collar. The student puts their arms in the sleeves and flips it over their head and on the coat goes!! The student then tries to get the zipper first without asking us for help. Once they try and are having trouble then we can help. Also work on teaching them to fix their sleeves that are inside out! We say to put your hand in your sleeve, grab the end of it, then pull it out hard so it is not inside out anymore.
Enjoy the pictures below! We had such fun learning, exploring and being together!
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Giving the person a skeleton by counting
bones. (Q-tips) |
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The students had fun putting this skeleton
together. |
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We practiced making skeletons with playdoh and straws.
(bones) |
.
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The students picked a letter to make out of bones.
(Q-tips) |
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| Matching feeling ghosts. |
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The hippos enjoyed using skeleton hands
to grab the eyeballs. |
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Each student had a turn adding the bones to make
the skeleton. |
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| Gym fun! |
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We made ghost pyramids and the hippos rolled
their bodies to knock it over. |
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| Making pumpkins in art. |
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| We had a "We Belong" school parade! |
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| We also had a dance party! |
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| Show and Tell |
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| Show and Tell |
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| Show and Tell |
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The hippos pretended to be spinning ghosts
just like our experiment. |
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We used colored water and pipettes to place our water in ice cube trays.
This was based on our book about the different colored ghosts. |
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After reading, Ghost's Dinner, we used paint sticks to
make the different colored ghosts. The students then told us what their
ghosts ate and drank. |
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| Making HWOT letters in shaving cream! |
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| A friend helping a friend! |
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| We experimented with which ghost would spin. |
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| Music fun with scarves! |
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We made the lines on our pumpkin
that is now displayed on our bulletin board. |
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| Making haunted houses! |
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We went on a pumpkin letter hunt and
found our HWOT letters. |
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| It was fun to use tangram blocks to make jack-o-lanterns. |
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The hippos did a great job of sequencing the steps
to make a jack-o-lantern. |
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| Everyone loved cutting green spaghetti noodles. |
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| Washing pumpkins with soap and toothbrushes. |
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The students worked on matching and placing
these pumpkins in numerical order 1-9. |
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We finished our spider by adding 2, 3, or 4 eyes
since spiders have more eyes that we do. |
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After reading, Big Pumpkin, we recalled the characters,
answered questions and sequenced the story. |
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| We used orange sand to practice making the letter C. |
