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A NC Mom to 4 wonderful boys, Wife to GREAT Husband, & TK Teacher!! Hey... Add a comment if you want!! I'd love to hear from you!!!

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Friday, March 14, 2014

Experiments, Lucky Leprechauns & Obstacle Course

Well, I am on my last day of Spring Break :( 
 
Before we left for Spring Break though, we had lots of fun with our Dr. Seuss Week.  We experimented with Eggs and Vinegar, we learned about Rhyming Words, we made Leprechaun traps in hopes of catching our tricky little Lucky the Leprechaun and lastly we ended the week with some Musical Obstacle Course Fun!!!



I found this experiment online SOMEWHERE.  I am sure it was on Pinterest!! 
We took 2 eggs and put them in Vinegar... we added a little green dye to one of them to see what would happen.  I put a clipboard next to the experiment so the kids could record what they observed over the course of the week.

By the 3rd day, we found that the vinegar "ate" away the outer shell of our egg...
It was fun to see the bubbles on the egg from the vinegar, it was also interesting that the shell just vanished.  One of the students noticed that there were no pieces of shell floating in the vinegar.  This lead to a discussion about where we thought it went or what happened to it when the vinegar touched it.  Some of our thought were...
 
"Maybe it's still there, but just soft"
"No, we can't see it anymore, or feel it."
"Yeah, it's mushy now, not hard or bumpy."
"Could it be like Kool-Aid??  When my mom puts Kool-Aid in water it changes color and goes away."
"Yeah, maybe it just went into the vinegar water."
 
It was a lot of fun listening to their conversations.  Which lead into a discussion on how the shell dissolved into the vinegar, and how the components of the vinegar "ate" away at the shell until it was all gone.  Then each child got to hold an egg and feel the differences from before it went into the vinegar.  We compared and listed how it felt.  Until, of course, a little boy squeezed a little to hard and we had green, squishy, mushy, vinegary, egg on the carpet :)
 

Here are our Leprechaun traps...
The kids were SO focused on making them. 
It took all morning to make them and set them up...
Boy did they have fun!!
 

They thought of every spot they could imagine!!!

I loved the use of the tape!!


We ended our week with an obstacle course that had to be completed to music!!  When the music stopped, so did we... no matter where we were.  There favorite part was crawling under the tables!!!
 
We also had fun with Rhyming Words... I made a game out of green plastic eggs.  I put one word on one side of the egg and the rhyming match on the second part and they had to find the match and put them together.  It was a little tricky as some of the eggs were bigger then others, so even though the two words may have matched, if the eggs didn't fit together, they still had to search for the correct match.  For some it was quite easy, others... not so much.  By Friday about 80% of the kids could read ever CVC rhyming word and find the correct match, those kids were asked to write the words on a recording sheet, where as the 20% who still had a hard time, were able to just play the game with a teacher and practice blending the letters to read them .
 
I am looking forward to getting back to school next week, although I will miss the ability to lounge around the house all day ;)
 
 

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Building in TK

 
We have been learning about number sense in TK these days.  Lots of counting going on, decomposing of numbers and as you can see from the picture above... building.  I brought out the cups for the 100th Day of School.  I thought it would be great to build with them and thought it may get some use from some of the kids... but they have become a hit.  It has been great watching them become more confident and proficient with them, building and getting them to stay up where they put them.  In the beginning they could only get two or three rows to stay up, but now look at that structure!! 
 
TK is AMAZING!!!!

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Farm Night

Well, it's been awhile, but I am going to a blogger meet up next month and realized I have not been blogging at all.  Since the holidays it seems it has been one big thing at school after another.  If it's not a performance, or singing, it is a special evening to show the parents and families the great reasons why they choose our school to send their children to. 
 
We had a Farm exhibit in TK and we had a blast!!  Our topics mostly centered around farm animals and gardening for food.  We had a great time learning about where our eggs come from, how to grow vegetables to eat and even where our milk comes from.  Below you will see how my room looked before the event.  The pool is for the baby chicks that we had. 
 
The chicks have been with us for a week and range in age from a week and half old to almost three weeks old.  They were really getting the hang of flying and would roost on our arms, and then take flight right off, flapping their wings and scaring the begeezus out of some of the kids... pretty funny actually ;)
 
 
 
This is just one of our little feathered friends.  They were pretty stinking this year, but we loved holding them, looking at them and talking about them.

We had a farmers market where we could "sell" all the veggies, eggs, and milk we were able to produce on our farm.

another view from the door

this is the bulletin board outside of our room... that is one of our "gardens" that we used to "plant" carrots, potatoes, radishes, and corn

view into our classroom
 
this was our "milking" cow Bessie... the kids absolutely loved her!!!
I don't know what they loved more, the cow or the chicks, but it was pretty close!!

we decided to make some butter from the "cream" Bessie produced ;)

 this was just an area for the littlest kids to play with some farm animals, but they found our construction vehicles in a box or something, because this is what I found when I walked over there :)


our egg stand...

this was our "garden" in our classroom.  Last year I found some great plastic carrots during Easter time, and we used those to "plant"  The kids had a great time with this also, there was a lot of talk about drought and they thought they should be able to get more water in the watering can to make sure the veggies didn't dry up... they are pretty smart cookies!!!
 
We enjoyed using this event as a way to practice our counting, sorting, and patterns.  We also read lots of farming books, animal books, and practiced some CVC words.  It was a pretty exhausting week, and although I truly love the event... I am glad it is over and we can get back to our normal routine... but wait, isn't Dr. Seuss Parade coming up, then Grandparents Day (at least at our school) and then Spring comes, and before you know it we will be practicing for our Moving Up Ceremony!!!  Argh... just when you think you can relax :)