Valentine's Week!

Oh the madness has begun!  Yes, it is the week before Valentine's Day and we are SO busy at school.  We have been working on the most amazing present for our parents.  Our present includes a big surprise - we are writing and more than just our names!  Yes, for months now we have been working on our writing skills.  We have all different kinds of "pre"-writing activities that the children do everyday.  Most are so much fun they don't even realize they are learning to write.  I have page after page of laminated sheets that we write on each day (thanks to some wonderful dry-erase crayons!!!).  We also use our chalk box to write and draw on every day.

This HUGE box was given to me by one of my sweet parents.

 With a little contact paper our class now has a chalk board box.  

We love writing on it especially with the colored chalk.

OH NO!  I'm off topic again!  Let's get back to our Valentine presents.  Here they are . . . .

Let me tell you how we did this.  First we started by taking our pictures.  Look closely at our background.  My friend, Mrs. Christi found an old table cloth with hearts on it!  Isn't it perfect?!?!?!? AND thanks to my local Walgreens Store and all their fun editing choices, we made our present extra special by adding a HEART shaped photo.  The fun continued when we made our photo mat.  We used marbles and rolled the colors on!

My class loves to do marble rolling!  

It is a great fine motor skill activity 

and they love "reminding" me that we are using my Daddy's old marbles!

Now, let's talk about the "FABULOUS" part!  Look at our writing . . . 

YES, WE WROTE BY OURSELVES!!!!!!  Can you tell I'm proud?  I can hardly wait until Tuesday!!!

We also worked on some artwork that my class called the "Eric Carle Heart".  I guess I've read enough Eric Carle books to make a serious impression on them :0)  We started by painting our paper.  Now, we can't just "paint paper" that would be boring so we PAINTED the paper using all kinds of different objects.  We used a toothbrush - 

We used a make-up brush - 

We also used a plain 'ole paintbrush too!  Then we smeared all the paint together with a scrapper that I found.

The end results were awesome!

But we weren't finished yet!  We cut and tore the paper into strips and pieces (more fine motor skills!).

and glued them on a giant heart.

I added a little glitter glue around the edges and WOW!

These are proudly displayed on my bulletin board wall now and will be kept for our end of the year art show.

Since it was "H" week we wanted to incorporate something with our hands.  I love what we came up with.  This is our first very simple hand project -

 Here is a close-up of our poem.

I loved when the children realized they had made a heart with their hands!

Our second hand project was a little more fun and a lot more yummy!  We made our hand print with some red glitter paint.  

Next, we stamped on some hearts and added the yummy part - Sweet Tart Hearts!

Of course we had to eat some too!  The end results were pretty, fun and tasty!  We called it our "Tree of Love".

I think this year's class loves our weekly science experiments as much as I do.  This week we used the left over "Sweet Tart Hearts" as our experiment.  First, we dissolved them in a small amount of warm water.

The purple and green made a strange combination!

Then we added a small amount of baking soda.  

The acid in the candy and the baking soda made bubbles!

I love doing science experiments with everyday items.  You can find this experiment and others at Candy Experiments .  It is one of our favorite sites!

Thanks for checking on us this week.  I hope you come back and visit us again.  Next week we will have our annual Valentine's Party and talk about the letter "L".  After all, "February is the month of LOVE"!

Groundhog's Day 2012

Isn't he just the cutest thing?  We made these on Thursday for Groundhog's Day!  Let me show you how EASY they were to make.

First, the children glued on our poem and cut our grass -

Next, we glued our little groundhog to our craft stick -

I cut a small slit right below the poem.  Now our groundhog is in his burrow -

Now he has popped up and is looking for his shadow -

We also read the most wonderful book!  It was called Groundhog Gets A Say by Pamela Curtis Swallow and Illustrated by Denise Brunkus.

We loved it!

Did Mr. Groundhog see his shadow where YOU live?  Birmingham Bill saw his so it looks like we will have 6 more weeks of winter! :0(

Q is for Quilt

The letter "Q" is always a difficult letter for me to teach.  Let's be honest, there aren't a lot of fun "Q" words.  I know, I know, "queen", "quick", "quack", but come on . . . how many times can you you be "quick" while you are "quacking"?  This year besides the girls being "quacking queens" and the boys being "quick quarterbacks" we made a "quilt!  Everyone made their own "square" and we joined them together!  This turned out to be a keeper!  I am sure it will be a hit at our art show!  "Quick" and Fun, you have to love it!

Circus Week!

I have to be perfectly honest, I wasn't really looking forward to our "Circus" unit this past week.  It is not that I don't like the circus, it is mainly because we had just finished up one of the most amazing units, "The Solar System".  I was really afraid that our class might be a little bored but I think we manage to enjoy our discussions about the circus after all.  We started our unit by talking about the wonderful circus clowns out of shapes.  We all had a good time "screaming" out the different shapes we found.  Hey, the circus is noisy so we were noisy this week too! :)

I love elephants and the circus always seems to highlight the big mammal.  Several of my students had been to the circus this past week and they all were talking about the elephants, so we decided to make our own circus elephant.

Isn't he adorable?!?!?!  Our circus elephants were a hit during circle time.  Instead of using "your finger" to count the numbers, pick out the shapes, etc., we used our elephant's trunk!

We also enjoyed our "Circus Day" on Friday.  Our art project was one that I'm not very sure worked out.  We started with the child's hand print and three or four fingerprints (if you are 3 years old, you get 3 fingerprints, etc.).

After it dried we added the rest of the details

Instant clown, holding some balloons!

On Circus Day, the children were invited to come to school dressed as a clown.  It was great!  It still surprises me how many children don't enjoy "dressing up".  About half of my class actually came dressed as a clown but that didn't stop anyone from participating in our circus games.  Of course we had our "tight rope", which was a masking tape stuck to the floor in a giant square.  

The tight rope is behind the balance beams.

The "high wire" was two balance beams 

and of course there were the jugglers.  

Juggling is not easy so I found these cute little popcorn holders at the dollar store (2 for a $1.00!)  for us to use.  Instead of trying to juggle 3 balls, we used giant pom-poms and threw them in the air and tried to catch them in the popcorn containers.  FUN!  And, the popcorn buckets will be used again and again in my classroom.  I think they will be a great storage container for some of my games.

Our science experiment for the week was a lot of fun.  Have you ever seen those "circus peanuts" at the store? 

Well, let me tell you . . . they make a great science experiment by just putting them in the microwave!  Putting things in hot/cold water or in the microwave is one of our favorite things to do.  I found this post ages ago Science of Candy and it explains what happens to the marshmallows.  I know most people would think a 3 or 4 year old would understand words like, "molecules", but they do.  We make our predictions then watch what happens.

Those things really get big!  On the left is our circus peanuts in hot water.  It was a wonderful day!

Now that we have finished up our Circus Unit, we will spend next week talking exploring our unit of "Health".  It should be a lot of fun.  I hope you come back and visit us again.

New Fine Motor Skill Activity

I added a new fine motor skill activity to my classroom this week.  It has been a HUGE hit with the class.  Again, this is something that cost me NO MONEY!  I'm sure you can tell by the picture, you need a paper plate (or bowl), a plastic spoon, old water bottle and some marbles.  The object of the game is to spoon the marbles into the bottle WITHOUT using your hands.

You can use a larger mouthed bottled and put the marbles in a bowl to make it easier for the younger children.  My class LOVES this and they are really getting to be very good at it too!  I hope you try this and if you do, leave me a comment or a link to you blog please.

Quick Note

I just wanted everyone to know that I have had a lot of requests for my "Quiet Spray" label.  I have e-mail a copy to everyone who requested it.  If you have NOT received it, please look in the SPAM folder in your in-box.  Here is the little .jpg I use.  Everyone is welcome to use it.  THANKS!