Friendship Week

What a fabulous week we had learning about friendships and how to be a good friend 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 kind 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 using small blackboards.
• 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, patterning 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 FALL character word RESPECT!  We read a book, sang a song and answered ways to be restectful.
• After reading The Rainbow Fish, we fished on the floor, painted a fish, and sorted, counted and compared colored goldfish crackers! (safety with fishing poles, fine motor, sorting, counting and comparing numbers)

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

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 

Tuesday 9/16-  Please send to school 5 apples, preferably different colors for our apple activities

Check out the fun we had during our friendship week!

Show and Tell

Show and Tell

Show and Tell

We read books on our wobbly seats.

We made our own fish based on the Rainbow Fish
book. We added a shiny scale.

We sorted, counted and compared these colored
goldfish!

Playdoh and bear friends!

Our sensory table contained tongs, beans
and the pictures of our classmates. The students
used their tongs to pick them up and name their friends.

We used our finger to make these frogs hop,
a good fine motor activity.

It was fun to fish for numbers and match them to the fish board.

Gym fun!

We each played catch with a friend.

It was fun to mix primary colors to discover new colors.

We worked on positional concepts with letter bean bags.

The hippos decorated their "Fill the Bucket" cup
with a variety of materials and paint sticks.

The students practiced one to one counting
and learning numbers to complete the puzzles.

We "Filled the Bucket," using pipettes, water and cups.

On the carpet we put together real plumbing pipes
and colored pipes.

The hippos asked friends to ride on the sit and spins.
We practiced asking for a turn.

Below, everyone contributed to making a class structure out of blocks.
Above are the answers the students gave on what we built.

Recognizing names and numbers, counting, and comparing numbers.

Each child picked 2 blocks to make our class structure.

We practiced writing the letter L.

We also traced the letter F.

After placing the wooden pieces to make the letter F,
we traced this letter. F is for friends!

I am a bucket filler!

It was fun to put together feeling puzzles.

We went over our shapes on these bean bags then threw them
in to fill up the bucket.

Here we practiced recognizing and extending a pattern.

Everyone loved coloring under the table with a friend!
This activity works on upper body strength and fine motor.

We shared paints as we painted our friendship fort.

Letter L