Even though we are saying goodbye to our "Friendship" unit, we will continue to work on friendship throughout the year. We are very proud of our Hippos for working hard to play together, take turns together, and listen to each other. We are coming together as a hippo family!
Our week consisted of role playing with Ms. Ginny and Ms. Saba. We took situations we are seeing in the hippo room to role play (i.e. turn-taking with a toy, asking a friend to play, giving personal space, standing in line, and using our words when we want something). Every time we witnessed a hippo being a good friend, we added a cube into our hippo jar. We counted up the cubes from the past 2 weeks to show all the acts of kindness we saw. We counted 100 cubes!!
We also discussed feelings we all experience and showed the children "feeling faces". The students named the feeling and picked an appropriate feeling face based on scenarios we read in class. We also watched a video about the different feelings we can experience. In addition, the hippos answered the question, "how do you feel today?" as they signed in for the day. This gave us the opportunity to count, recognize numbers, and compare using more, less, and equal. (fine motor, participating as a member of a group, answering questions)
Another skill we introduced was the concept of personal space. Ms. Ginny and Ms. Saba modeled what personal space meant using hoola hoops and ways to protect our personal space and avoid getting into someone else's personal space. The book we read and the videos we watched talked about a space bubble and staying in your space bubble. We tied this concept to respect, in that we all want to respect others' personal space, especially when lining up. Center time activities included popping bubble wrap with our fingers and jumping on larger bubble wrap, making space bubbles out of paint and cups, and stepping in space circles. (fine and gross motor)
To go along with our acts of kindness, the students drew names and made a bracelet for each other out of pipe cleaners and beads. The students counted 10 beads, strung them, and then placed the finished product in a bag. The students gave them to each other during circle time. (one to one counting, fine motor, confident behavior, being respectful, participating as a member of a group)
We made an entry in our journal. The question was,"What do you like to do with a friend?" (drawing representational pictures, fin motor). We also played a game in which the students turned classmates names/pictures over and named them. It was a great way to practice learning the names of our friends! Center activities included cutting a variety of materials in our cutting tub (cutting skills with thumb up and helper hand), making feeling faces out of paint and feeling stamps (fine motor, naming feelings), experimenting with magnets (displays curiosity), matched feeling faces, and playing with legos, tinker toys, dinosaurs, tools, doll house etc. (developing relationships, resolving conflict if it occurs, being respectful to our friends)
In the hippo room, we encourage self help skills. It begins by following the morning routine when entering the classroom. When the children need help we ask that they try it first themselves. When packing up to go home, we have the hippos put their backpacks on the floor, load their papers by folding or rolling them, zip their backpacks, put their backpacks on by themselves and line up.
Our letter of the week was E. We talked about things that begin with the letter E. We practiced making an E with the big line first and the 3 littles lines next! Our 2nd Steps lesson focused again on self-talk to remember directions,
Books We Read:
Be Fair and Share
Feelings (social story about naming feelings)
It's Your Turn, It's My Turn (a social story to teach taking turns)
Personal Space (social story/video)
Questions to Ask Your Child:
What did we do with our friendship cubes we earned for being a good friend? (we put them all together in a long line)
What are the different feelings we have? ( happy, sad, mad, scared, surprised, etc.)
What did you make for a friend this week? (A friendship bracelet)
What was your favorite job this week?
Things to Practice at Home
When reading books, discuss the feelings of the characters and why they may feel a certain way. Talk about feelings with your family.
Next Week: Apples!
Dates to Remember:
Monday10/13 and Wednesday 10/15 in the afternoon- Parent Teacher Conferences-sign up genius to come out soon
Monday 10/20 No School
Wednesday 10/29 Theis Pumpkin Farm field trip-more details to follow
Thursday 10/30 Wear your costume to school-no masks and wear gym shoes for outside time
Below are our pictures showing all of our exploring, learning and fun we had this week!
