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Monday, November 7, 2011

Veteran's Day 2011

I just could not wait another second!  I had to post our art project from today!  We talked ALL day about the upcoming Veteran's Day holiday and since we have several children who have Dads/Granddads who are veterans, I had to do something special.  I think we nailed it!  
(Yep, this is for you POPS!)

The white rectangle is actually a picture of the child holding the U.S. flag!

Up close view!

Making him was so much fun!  We used a sponge and "bounced" the paint on!

It was a little messy (okay it was ALOT messy!) but WOW it was fun.

The most important part of today was the lesson.  I hope everyone got the message, "be grateful!".

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Sunday, November 6, 2011

"M" Week and Home & Family

With Halloween over, we hit the road running on Tuesday as we started talking about our Homes and Family!  Nothing says family like talking about our Moms and talk we did!  I love hearing everyone talk about what makes their Moms special.  It seems I have a lot of Moms who are really good cooks!  We also did a wonderful art project - a house made completely with triangles and squares!!
I wish everyone could hear the children as the recognize the shapes.  My favorite comment was from "H" when he told me the grass was NOT a triangle or a square, it was a rectangle!  I loved it!  Look closely at the grass, the children cut it themselves!  I love working on our fine motor skills!

We spent most of Wednesday talking about the letter "M".  It turned out to be one of the most fun letters!  I found some magnets and little marbles with tiny metal balls inside!  I knew we just HAD to paint with them.   We dropped the marbles into the paint and held the magnet UNDER the plastic tray . . . . 


We wiggled the magnet and the little marbles magically followed along!  


The final results were truly magnificent - a multi-colored "M"! 


The rest of the day was devoted to those lovely magnets!  We tried all day to see what they would stick too!





It was a GREAT DAY!

Thursday was spent talking once again about our wonderful families.  Everyone loved taking turns and telling us who was in their family!  I loved when out of the blue "W" asked ME who was in MY family?  As soon as I finished listing everyone they all started giggling because they already knew about my son, the police officer!
We painted the most wonderful family tree on Thursday.  I didn't really want to JUST PAINT it, I wanted something different.  I found some old make-up brushes and they were a big hit!  
I think the children did an amazing job on their trees.

 
After they dried we added the names of everyone in our families!  Now that is a family tree to be proud of!


Friday was FINALLY here!  I love Fridays!  We really have a lot of fun on Fridays and I was determined NOT to disappoint anyone this week!  As soon as everyone came in the door my sweet friend and fellow teacher, Mrs. Christi traced their foot onto some brown construction paper.  It was really easy and quick for us to cut them out.  Next the children added some eyes, his nostrils and last but not least his hand print antlers!  What a Marvelous Moose!
Of course we had to read the wonderful book, If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff.  Ms Numeroff writes the most wonderful books.  I love them all!  

One of my student's Dad gave me some LARGE clear plastic tubes that had caps on one end.  The best part was that they unscrewed so I could put stuff in them.  I've had them for a few weeks but I really couldn't decide what to do with them.  Ahhhhhhhhhh. . . . then it hit me!

Look closely at what we put inside - 

Rice, metal marbles, metal clips, gem clips, puzzle pieces, etc.  When put together with our magnets, these long tubes made the most wonderful way to work on our fine motor skills.  I truly believe some of the children would have played with them all day long.  It didn't take long for the boys to realize that the only way the inside pieces would stick to the magnets was to ggggoooooo  vvveerrrryyyy ssssllllllloooooowwwww.  AHHHHH . . .an instant calming effect!  SUCCESS!

But I really couldn't let that calm go on TOO long, now could I????  NOPE!  We headed down to the kitchen for a little (and I do mean little) science experiment.  You know, you stick the marshmallows in the microwave and the blow up!  Okay, that was fun, BUT not fun enough so next I dumped several bags of mini marshmallows on the table and a couple of boxes of toothpicks.  Everyone looked at me and finally "C" said, "what do we do now?".  My response, "what do you want to do?".  OH MY, the most amazing thing happened. . . .
  Instant Art!

Again, several of the children were amazed at their structures.  I truly believe the children were proud of their work.  I could actually see their confidence strengthening!  It was a magical!

We had a few minutes before our playground time and what better way to wait for everyone to put on their jackets then to hold the first annual Marble Run of 2011!  I found some old plain hard cardboard tubes in a supply closet.  Now these look like giant toilet tissue rolls, no caps on them, the perfect thing to see how far a marble could race down the hall!  Everyone got a turn to let the marble fly!

Man, some of those marbles could soar all the way down the hall!
Okay, that was fun, but I had one more surprise . . . . 

As soon as we came in from the playground and everyone finished lunch we headed back to the kitchen for one more marble run!  This time we connect several hard plastic tubes together (again, I raided a seldom used supply closet) and well you can see for yourself . . . 




It was a hit!  We let the marbles fly back and forth.  It was a great way to end our day!  

Throughout our week I took pictures of each child holding our U.S. flag.  I have a very special activity planned for this Thursday in honor of Veteran's Day.  I hope you will stop back by and see what we will be doing.

Halloween Day 2011

Halloween fell on a Monday this year and it was our "M" week so I just couldn't help but have a little fun with it!  The entire day was devote to Marvelous Monday Halloween fun!  We started by doing a simple but fun art project.  I don't like scary things so we made a spider and his web!  First, we made our handprint spider!

Next we made our web.  Since it was "M" week, we dipped Marbles in white paint and rolled it around on a black piece of construction paper.  The class loved doing this!  I told them they had to be careful and patient so the marbles wouldn't jump off the paper.

The little spider was glued on and we had the perfect Halloween artwork!

We quickly headed to the kitchen for some Halloween cooking and science fun!  Since our art project was a spider, we had to make a spider cookie!  Unfortunately, I didn't have any chocolate frosting (opps!) so we made Multi-colored spiders!  Some were pink, some were blue and we even had some yellow ones!  No matter what they color, they were fun and yummy!


Our science experiment was super fun!  Everyone received an empty water bottle.  We put one squirt of yellow paint in it -
then a squirt of red paint -

then a little drop of rubbing alcohol - 

Can you see the two colors starting to mix?
Next came the fun part -
SHAKE IT BABY, SHAKE IT!

Making the orange paint was fun but then we grabbed the bottles and headed to our big Music/Spanish Room for some bowling!  We lined up all the bottles and used them for bowling pins!  Halloween bowling fun!

All in all, it was a Magically, Marvelous Monday!