SSSSHHHH! It's "S" Week!

I'm not really sure where to start on this past week. It was Super! We were coming off of our Spring Break and that is usually a big problem. I think the over-planning for the week really helped! Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty good at making sure our days are filled with fun and educational activities but sometimes things don't always go as planned. But this week was as close to perfectly planned as they will get (okay, seriously enough bragging on myself). I think this picture pretty much sums up our week! It is a rainbow made from our plates and pots from our classroom's kitchen!

We started the week with a new student. YIKES! But she was absolutely wonderful (see post below) which really helped to make things run smoothly (wheeew!). On Monday, we worked really hard on the Super letter "S". Oh my, there are so many fun things that can be done with the letter "S". We started out with a sun. We've made a sun during our big unit on the Solar System so I wanted something a little bit different. I cut out of the big yellow circle and handled the scissors over to the children! WOW! I was thrilled with our cutting progress. Of course, several had to add faces to theirs

and I even have one with hair!I LOVE THEM ALL!

This week we are also talking about the rain forest. This is a new unit for us so I had to put on my thinking cap. We have a wonderful book about the rain forest and on Tuesday we looked at all the beautiful birds that make their home there. I found a very old coloring sheet of a parrot (YAWN!). Nope, no way we are just going to color something! I ask our sweet office helper (we don't have access to the copier, Ellison die-cut machine, etc., they are located on another floor, so we have a "runner" who does all this stuff for us) to enlarge the parrot as "big as you can". She did GREAT! I also found some old dot markers (http://www.teacherstorehouse.com/product2.asp?product_key=69413 ) and cleaned them up. I'm sure you can tell, I cut them out and mounted them on some large black construction paper. I love to make our art work look very special, it is a great way to help the children take pride in their work. I think the parrots are wonderful!

The only instructions I game the children was to "try" and color each part a different color. I think they nailed it!

Wednesday is always exciting for us. We have "Wiggles with Mrs. Nancy". It is really a Pre-K version of Physical Education. Mrs. Nancy takes them to the gym for organized games. No doubt about it - EVERYONE loves Wednesdays! On this particular Wednesday we talked once again about the letter "S". Again, I had found some old worksheets (YAWN again!) and cut out the giant "S". I found some sticks in my yard and well, you get the idea . . . . .

While several children were working independently on their "S's", I called one child over at a time and had them work on our "name caterpillars". I have small multi-colored circles cut from our wonderful Ellison machine and each child is instructed to pick out one circle for each letter in their name. Next we pick out one more circle for their caterpillar's head and we start working! After all the circles are glued down the fun really begins. Each child adds a face and legs to their caterpillar and then each child actually WRITES each letter of their name on the circles! SO MUCH FUN and the look on the child's face when he/she sees the final results - AMAZING! Here are a few of our caterpillars -


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These lovely creatures will not be sent home right away. I'll have them laminated and store them away for our big art show in May.

Since we were talking about the rain forest, we decided to make our own. Thursday was a fun day, it is also our shortest day because we have to squeeze in Chapel and Spanish class into our already busy day. Since it was "S" week we got out of scissors once again and started cutting. First we cut out the grass, then we painted our wonderful sun. We added hand print trees and animal crackers for the animals!



Sorry for the wet glue! Simple project, but everyone really loved it!

FINALLY, it was Friday! I love Fridays, but not because it is the end of the week. It is because we have so much fun on Friday that we actually call it "Fabulous Fun Friday". Seriously, that is what we call it! We started the day off talking about snakes! Ahhhh, the perfect "S" word! We read a book about snakes and even made our own snakes out of sticks.







Everyone loved them! Next we headed to the kitchen for a wonderful science experiment and a snack. First we mixed up some cookie dough, added a little food coloring, and rolled them into snakes! We added some chocolate chips for eyes and popped them into the oven and wow, super yummy snake cookies!


I really goofed on this one! We were having so much fun with our science experiment that we forgot to eat our cookies. We had to take them back to our room and eat them for our deserts at lunch!

It was finally time for our super science experiment - homemade silly putty (a very simple recipe, just mix equal parts of glue and starch then stir!) First we mixed food coloring (your choice of colors, of course) and good 'ole Elmer's Glue together.



Next came the fun! On the count of 3 everyone dumped their starch into the colored glue and stirred! I didn't tell anyone what we were doing until they finished mixing. Oh, the joy on their faces! I've never heard such happy sounds! We played and played with our silly putty and then packed them away in little baggies so everyone could take it home. It was a wonderful day!

Next week, the letter "T" and Ocean Week, it should be great! I hope you will stop back again.