Friendhsip Continued- 3 Day Class

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, 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.  The hippos also 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 names and compare using more, less, and equal. 

Another skill we introduced was the concept of personal space.  Ms. Ginny and Ms. Saba modeled what personal space was 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 making space bubbles out of paint and paper towel tubes, and stepping/jumping 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 will give them to each other during circle time next week. (one to one counting, fine motor, confident behavior, being respectful, participating as a member of a group, saying thank you)

In addition, we played a game in which the students turned classmates pictures over, named them and counted the number of friends.  It was a great way to practice learning the names of our friends and counting. Center activities also included cutting paper strips and squares (cutting skills with thumb up and helper hand), matching feeling face cards (fine motor, matching), counting feeling faces then finding the number and putting a clothespin on it, (fine motor, counting, recognizing numbers) experimenting with people magnets, (displays curiosity) fishing for numbered fish on the carpet (matching numbers, gross and fine motor) playing red light, green light in the gym (gross motor, following directions) sorting colored goldfish then counting them and comparing the number (counting, more/less/equal) and playing with animals, dinosaurs, tools, doll house etc. (developing relationships, resolving conflict if it occurs, being respectful to our friends)

In the hippo room, we continue to practice 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.  In addition, please practice having your child put on their shoes by themselves, since we have to take them off to dump out all the sand!

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!

Books We Read:
The Rainbow Fish
Can You Name Feelings? (social story about naming feelings)
It's Your Turn, It's My Turn (a social story about 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 each connected 5 cubes and put them all together in a long line)
What are the different feelings we have? ( happy, sad, mad, scared, surprised, etc.)
Did you make a bracelet for a friend this week? (yes)

What was your favorite job this week?

What makes you feel happy?

What makes you feel sad?

What makes you feel mad?

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:

9/25 Hearing screening at school

10/14 Parent Teacher Conference week-Conferences Monday and Wednesday the 14th and 16th-Sign up genius coming soon

10/30 Theis Pumpkin Patch. We will meet there at 9:30 and an adult must accompany your child. More details to come.

Enjoy the pictures!

Garden Fun

We placed 19 items in the Fill The Barrel fundraiser.

We had 100 friendship acts of kindness cubes!

We made structures during art class.

Red Light, Green Light

Stairwell performance by the LECC Acorn choir.

Show and Tell

Show and Tell

Show and Tell

Music Fun

We read scenarios and the students had to pick the appropriate feeling. 
Sometimes there was more than one way to feel.

We counted the different feeling faces then found the number.

After reading The Rainbow Fish, we went fishing
to find fish with matching numbers.

How many? Which has more? Which has less? Which are equal?

Watercolor Fill the Bucket

We used dot paints and a special sticker to make our rainbow fish.

We turned over the cards with our classmates pictures on them and 
practiced saying their names. Continue to practice at home with
the composite picture.

Name tracing.

Cutting tub!