Hippo Headlines: Pumpkins, Bats and Spiders- 3 Day Class

Hello Everyone!

Wow! We had such a fun filled week with Halloween activities, bats and spiders!! We painted and decorated pumpkins for our bulletin board using foam paint rollers. 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. (goals: fine motor, following 2 step directions, shape recognition, recognizing letters, making predictions, matching)

We began the week learning about bats and transforming our arch into a bat cave with black butcher paper. that the students painted gray. 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 weighed different sized pumpkins and used tongs to get spiders out of a big web. We also made spiders out of colander bowls with pipe cleaners. Our sensory table contained different Halloween items that the students had to find from the chart. (sensory, fine motor, matching, shows curiosity, persistence)

Our letter this week was the letter C. We made the C sound and talked about things that start with C. 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 feeling of surprised. We made these faces and talked about what makes us surprised. We also discussed how we can tell how a person feels by looking at their facial expression.

Books we read:
Room On The Broom
The Eensy Weensy Spider
Bats- video

Bat Jamboree

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 or at night?
How do bats sleep? (upside down)
Did the little pumpkin sink or float in the water? (it floated)

What job did you do this week? (calendar, electrician, door holder, weather, line leader, caboose, bell ringer)

Reminders:

10/27 Magic House Halloween Party-Sunday at 6:00

10/30 Thursday Theis Pumpkin Farm field trip

10/31 Halloween parade at 9:15, parents welcome to come and stand outside to watch, no masks or make up, wear gym shoes for outside time

11/5 No School Professional Development Day

11/15 Fall Fling

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