What a fabulous week we had learning about friendships and how to be a good friends in the Hippo Room!
Learning Highlights and Objectives:
- We read the book, I'm a Good Friend. We then asked the question, "What makes a good friend?" (comprehension)
- Ms. Ginny and Ms. Saba role played different situations in the classroom, specials, and outside, which focused on expressing feelings through words and how to ask a friend to play. Role playing showed correct and incorrect ways to handle situations. The students enjoyed volunteering better solutions. All these activities worked on communication, contributing to a group, confident behavior, taking turns and respecting others.
- We read the book, Fill A Bucket and listened to the song on our white board. It is about the invisible buckets we each have inside of us. Each one of us fills each other's buckets up by being kind, helpful, using manners, and using our words. As a class, we began filling up a friendship bucket with cubes. Each time we were kind to friends, helped them out, used our words, etc., we earned a cube. We can't wait to see how many we have at the end of next week.
- The next day we read How Full is Your Bucket? As we read the book we used real buckets to represent the invisible buckets we all have. We poured water in and out based on what happened in the book. Later, the children decorated their own buckets and experimented with water, cups, and pipettes in our blue tub. (fine motor, sensory)
- Capital F for friendship was the letter this week. It was fun to see how Ms. Saba and Ms. Ginny built this letter with long and short strips. (letter recognition/sound) We then built letter L and letter F ourselves then made the letter by copying it on gel bags.
- The hippos enjoyed decorating a "Friendship Fort" in the classroom with paint and art items. The students had to share the paint brushes. We worked on asking for turns and asking a friend to share the same paint color. (fine motor, working in a group, using language, making decisions independently, asking for help, waiting for turns, having FUN)
- During our 2nd Steps social/emotional curriculum we learned about using self talk to help remember directions and focus our attention. We practiced using self talk during the week!
- Link to "Fill Your Bucket" Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaddbqEQ1NE
- The students also worked on recognizing their names, rote counting, recognizing numbers, and sequencing our daily schedule during our opening circle time.
- We colored with a friend by laying on our backs under the table. (fine motor, strengthening upper body)
- The hippos played catch with a friend using a beanbag in the gym as well as tossing beanbags in a bucket. The highlight was taking turns with friends on the sit and spins! (gross motor, asking for turns nicely, waiting patiently)
- We went over our September character word RESPECT!
- After reading The Rainbow Fish, we fished on the floor, painted a fish, and sorted, counted and compared colored goldfish crackers!
Books We Read:
I'm a Good Friend
Fill Your Bucket
How full is your bucket?
Playing with friends.-social story
It's Fun To Play At School-social story
I Take Turns-social story
The Rainbow Fish
That's What Friends Are For
Bright Stanley
Questions to ask your child
What did we play with a friend during gym class? (catch with a bean bag)
What did the Rainbow fish give away? (his shiny scales)
Who are some friends you played with this week?
How can you be a good friend? (sharing, smiling, talking nicely, listening, giving a compliment, etc)
What job did you pick this week?
How do you fill someone's invisible bucket? (by being a nice friend)
Things to do at home
Point out the ways you fill up each others buckets by being kind, helping out, etc.
Next week: More Friendship
Reminders
9/18 School Pictures
9/18 Please send to school 5 apples, preferably different colors for sorting
9/20 Parent Open House 5:30-6:30
9/28 Wear Your Favorite Color Day
10/11 Vision screening during school
10/16 Parent Teacher Conference week
10/26 Theis Pumpkin Farm field trip-more details to follow
10/18 & 11/2 Hearing screening during school
Check out the fun we had during our friendship week!
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| We made our own "Bucket Filler." |
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After talking about using water to fill buckets, the kids had
fun with real plumbing pipes. |
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| Everyone enjoyed using watercolors to decorate the buckets! |
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| Shaving cream fun with cars! |
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| We filled the buckets by throwing bean bags! |
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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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| We made different kinds of lines in art class. |
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| Catch with a friend in the gym! |
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| Paining the rainbow fish and giving is a shiny scale! |
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| Blair's mom came to read to the class for Blair's b-day! |
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| Happy 4th b-day, Blair! |
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The hippos loved asking a friend to color under the table!!
We were working on our upper body strength! |
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Our sensory table contained, beans, tongs, scoopers and cups.
The students used the tongs to grab their pictures!
This activity worked on fine motor as well as learning the names of our
classmates. |
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| Such fun to paint our fort! |
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The hippos had to use their words to ask for
a turn on the sit and spins. Then they had to wait patiently. |
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| Garden fairy fun! |
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We practiced our cutting skills with scraps of paper from our
cutting tub. We are working on correct grip and use of the
helper hand. |
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Here we placed clothespins on round cardboard.
(strengthening finger muscles) |
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After reading a friendship book, the students came up
ideas of what makes a good friend. |
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| After painting our fort, we then added a variety of materials. |
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| The students were helping each other with the puzzle. |
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After building the letters L and F, the students copied these letters
using the gel bags. |
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| The students love looking at their family page in our family Hippo book. |
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We found our names to show we were here at school.
(recognizing names) |
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Our hippos are such good listeners for Ms. Tara's in art class.
We learned about all the different types of lines. |
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After reading about the Rainbow Fish and Bright Stanley,
we sorted, counted and compared different colored goldfish! |
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The hippos enjoyed fishing on the carpet.
The students matched the numbered fish to the fish on the card.
(recognizing numbers, safety with fishing poles) |
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| Playdoh with bear friends! |
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| Many laughs making these frogs jump by using our finger! |
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| Fill Our Bucket Song! |
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| The rest of the students shared their family page! |
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We used pipettes, scoopers, pipes and funnels
to experiment with water. |
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