Wow! We had such a fun filled week with Halloween activities, bats and spiders!! We painted and decorated pumpkins for our bulletin board using shape sponges. Everyone enjoyed pounding golf tees into pumpkins. The hippos also sang songs about 5 pumpkins sitting on a gate and the witch's brew. On Wednesday, the hippos guessed if a pumpkin would float or sink in water. We discovered it floated! In addition, we made funny jack-o-lanterns at the easel. We also used a hole puncher to punch out letters on a pumpkin and paint with letter cookie cutters. (goals: fine motor, following 2 step directions, shape recognition, recognizing letters, making predictions)
We began the week learning about bats and transforming our arch into a bat cave with black butcher paper. Our hippos listened to a few videos about bats. It was fun to look at pictures of bats in a bat cave and the different parts of a bat. During center time, we made bats and hung them in our bat cave upside down! We also made pyramids based on our bat book, Bat Jamboree. In addition we placed bats in a bat cave by recognizing a number and placing that many bats in the cave. (recognizing numbers, meaningful counting, fine motor, answering questions, matching)
The children also loved learning facts about spiders, from our friend, Sammy the spider. We constructed white PVC pipes to make spouts for the Eensy Weensy spider after we read our book. The hippos enjoyed pouring water through the pipes. The students found little spiders in sand using tongs. We also used clothespins to match numbers and give our spider 8 legs! (one to one counting and recognizing numbers). The hippos sorted spider rings and used tongs to get them out of their web. We also made spiders out of colander bowls and pipe cleaners. In addition, we made spiders out of our handprint! Our sensory table contained different Halloween items that the students had to find from the chart. (sensory, fine motor, matching)
Our letter this week was the letter C. We made the C sound and talked about things that start with C. We also made our HWOT letters in orange sand using our pointer finger. During gym time, we played "Spider, spider make a wish...how many flies are on your dish?" Each student was given a number and counted that many students and that student was then the new spider and so on. (gross motor, letter and number recognition, one to one counting, following 2 step directions, letter sound and formation)
During our 2nd Steps lesson, we focused on the feelings of surprised and scared! We made these faces and talked about what makes us surprised and scared. We also discussed how we can tell how a person feels by looking at their facial expression. We practiced looking at the facial expressions of children on our posters.
Books we read:
Room On The Broom
The Eensy Weensy Spider
Bats- video
Room On The Broom
The Eensy Weensy Spider
Bats- video
Bat Jamboree
Clifford's Halloween
Questions to Ask
How many legs do spiders have? (8 legs) How many planets are there? (8)
Do spiders have more eyes that we do? (yes, 6-8)
When do bats sleep? (during the day)
How do bats sleep? (upside down)
Do bats have fur or feathers on them? (fur)
What words rhyme with BAT?
Did the little pumpkin sink or float in the water? (it floated)
Questions to Ask
How many legs do spiders have? (8 legs) How many planets are there? (8)
Do spiders have more eyes that we do? (yes, 6-8)
When do bats sleep? (during the day)
How do bats sleep? (upside down)
Do bats have fur or feathers on them? (fur)
What words rhyme with BAT?
Did the little pumpkin sink or float in the water? (it floated)
What do spiders do with their web when it gets old? (they eat it)
What job did you do this week? (calendar, electrician, door holder, weather, line leader, caboose, bell ringer)
Reminders:
Reminders:
10/26 Thursday Theis Pumpkin Farm field trip -do not come to school, meet at the farm
10/29 Magic House Halloween Party 6-8pm
10/31 Wear your costume to school. No masks and please wear gym shoes for playing outside
11/2 Hearing screening during school
11/7 No School Professional Development Day
11/22-11/26 Thanksgiving Holiday Break
Things to Practice At Home ********
Practice the "hippo flip" to put coats on. We put the coat on the floor and have the student stand by the tag, hood or collar. The student puts their arms in the sleeves and flips it over the 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. We are also working 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. Please practice these skills at home!! They are so proud when they can do this on their own!! Also, we are teaching them to look for a loop on their coat to hang it on the hook. If they do not have a loop, then they can hang the coat by the hood. If they do not have a hood, then we are teaching them to hang it by the collar.
Next Week:
More Halloween, Skeletons, Ghosts and Monsters
 |
| Working on making the letter I using the correct formation. |
 |
| Recognizing letters while painting with them! |
 |
| I Spy.....the items on the orange poster. |
 |
| Having fun with halloween stamps! |
 |
| We picked letters, named them, then punched them out with a hole puncher. |
 |
| The hippos made a variety on Jack-o-lanterns at the easel. |
 |
| We painted our bat cave! |
 |
| After listening to a story about bats and pyramids, we made some with blocks! |
 |
| We also made bats for our bats to sleep in our bat cave. |
 |
| Look at our bat roost! |
 |
| The bats sleep upside down! |
 |
| Does a pumpkin sink or float? It floated! |
 |
| We used daubers to practice recognizing numbers on these pumpkins. |
 |
| Show and Tell |
 |
| Show and Tell |
 |
| Show and Tell |
 |
| Making different kinds of dots in Art class. |
 |
| Spider, spider make a wish...how many flies are on your dish? We recognized the number and counted that many classmates. We then switched places with them. |
 |
| We practiced tracing and writing our names. |
 |
| We were drawing monsters! |
 |
| Pyramid making! |
 |
| Thanks for reading the fun book to the class. |
 |
| Happy 4th B-day Neil! |
 |
| Recognizing numbers and counting that many bats to put in the bat cave! |
 |
| It was so much fun seeing the fireman, firetruck and ambulance! |
 |
| We made pumpkins with shape sponges! |
 |
| Everyone enjoyed hammering golf tees into the pumpkin! |
 |
| After reciting the 5 little pumpkins, we gave the students a variety of materials to make their own gates with pumpkins! |
 |
| Hippos cut the stems of their pumpkins. |
 |
| We counted and practiced recognizing numbers to make the legs of the spider. |
 |
| We explored pipe and gutters from the spider book. |
 |
| We placed spiders in trays using tongs! Tongs are good for strengthening the hand and fingers used for cutting and writing. |
 |
| Here we used the tongs to get the spiders out of the spider web. |
 |
| The students connected pipes making their own kind of downspouts. |
 |
| Look at all the rings on my fingers!! |
 |
| Me too! |
 |
| We made spiders with our handprint! |
\
