Fun With Fishes, Frogs and Sense of Sight!

Ff

Our letter focus for last week was the fabulous, fantastic, friendly letter Ff.

The children started the week of activities in 5 senses, fine motor style!  Using glue, they traced the upper and lower case letter Ff on paper.  Then, using their fingers, the children sprinkled flour over the glue.  It was  "senseriffic" alphabet learning fun!

During one of our daily assemblies the children learned the song "Five Fast Fishes":

Five Fast Fishes swimming down the river

Five fast fishes swimming down the stream

Swimming past five floating logs

Swimming past five croaking frogs

Floating logs

Croaking frogs

Floating logs

Croaking frogs

Five Fast Fishes...Yeah!

After singing the song the children pretended to be frogs and fishes, and even learned some fish and frog Yoga moves.

A tasty froggie snack for Fun Friday!

From tadpole to frog!  The children have been observing this metamorphosis enthusiastically since collecting tadpole eggs from the rain water canals outside the center.  We collected the eggs on Friday and by Monday we had a tank full of baby tadpoles.  Each day last week the children marveled at how much bigger the babies were than the day before.  They are growing fast!  Soon we will see back legs.

A sequencing exercise.  The children cut out and added pictures of the  tadpole to frog process in order, to their very own book.

Learning about our sense of sight has been an eyeopening experience!  The children experimented with color and color mixing last week. They enjoyed using wooden blocks with colorful centers, exploring the light table with color paddles, building materials made from colorful plastic shapes, and exploring things from around the center with "The Magic Eye", a super moveable magnifying device! Using their senses of touch and sight the children finger painted and mixed colors on the tables to make prints and other beautiful artwork.  Using kaleidoscopes as their muse they drew colorful pictures of what was inside those interesting little tubes.  The children also learned about how Doctors test their eyesight using a chart.  They thought it was pretty cool to cover one eye and try to read the letters and numbers from a distance as they went from "huge" to "tiny", top to bottom.

Tactilio is a "senseriffic" game that teaches the children to look at an object and then try to feel for that same object inside a mystery bag. They continue to take turns until someone fills their card with all of the like items in front of them. 

We had a great time riding Gus the Bus on our first field trip of the year, Wednesday. Play time and laughter at  Crisp Park was a great way to kick off a fantastic year of fun field trips in Junior Kindergarten.  We enjoyed the company of several parents.  No need to fear if you weren't able to join us this time, however.  There will be many more opportunities.  We'd love for you to come along on at least one field trip this year.  We'll try to give you plenty of notice so you can plan.

 Hot and sweaty. A bit tired and cranky too. But, mostly happy after a lot of active play at the park.

In the Shorecrest spirit of community, we were so excited to welcome four middle division friends to share part of our day on Thursday.

They will join us a couple times each month to play, dance, sing, and learn right along with us.

Some other fun in learning this week included building gross motor, logic and reasoning, and communication skills!  Using gutters, ramps and balls, tires, and more in play helps children to think, discuss, plan, lift, move, and work together to make things happen.  Here is just some of what we were able to observe:

We are truly having a wonderful time getting to know the children in Junior Kindergarten this year.  They are all unique, special individuals.  We ended the week with each child using both natural and art/craft materials to construct a self portrait.  As you will soon see, the product of each turned out to be nearly as unique and special as the individual who created it.

Other fun in learning last week:
Pizza Kitchen!!!  The children were perfectly pleased with the new addition to the Exploratorium last week.  A pizza kitchen. As they learn about vegetables and herbs and how they can be used for many food, medicinal and household purposes, the children will experiment with different fun activities to do so.  Last week's pizza kitchen featured tasty herbs that go into making pizza and other Italian dishes, pizza making materials, an ordering window, menus, a restaurant table and opportunities to try out many pizza making hats.  Take a look!

It was a great week!

Tune in next week for a recap of the letter Ee and sense of hearing.

Enjoy Crisp Park pictures on the slideshow at the top of the blog.

I hope all your days are SUNNY!

See you soon.

Mrs. Carson