D is for Dinosaurs!

I'm not too sure I would never want to be a weatherman in the state of Alabama.  Our winter weather is just plain strange.  One day it is 70 degrees in January and the next day we are below freezing!  That is exactly what happened last week in central Alabama.  And that crazy change in temperatures also brings tornadoes.   Because of a high threat of severe weather, our school was cancelled on Wednesday so sadly all our fun activities had to be squeezed into 4 short days.  So, let's take a look at our week!

On Monday we out by naming as many dinosaurs as we could.  Let me just say, my class could name many more than I could!  We talked about all the different characteristics of dinosaurs and started a fun and silly project that we called our "Shape-a-saurs". 

Can you tell this James' favorite dinosaur is the Apatosaurus?

And Boone likes the Stegosaurus!

Everyone had so much fun naming the shapes as they added them to their creations.  In the corner we wrote what our dinosaur likes to eat!  It seems "apples" were a favorite treat for most of our shape-a-saurus.

 

Tuesday we practiced our writing while talking about our dinosaurs.  Everyone called these our "Name-a-saurs"!  We started off with a cut out that slightly resembled a stegosaurus.  Next, we worked on our fine motor skill and added some hole reinforcers (I actually call them portable holes ) to make his/her scaly body.

 

  



Here comes the fun part!  We mix green and brown paint together to make "dinosaur green" (yes, that is our new name for the color) and painted the body. 

While the paint was drying we wrote our name on the plates for his back.

 

Some of our Name-a-saurs had short tails and others had tails that extended off the page.  I love the look on the students' faces when a project like this is complete.  They are so proud and so am I!

 

We also spent a great deal of time trying to decide if we would rather be a meat-eating dinosaur or a plant-eater.  The class was pretty evenly split until lunchtime and then everyone changed their minds, so we ended up being a class of meat-eaters.

 

We spent most of Thursday talking how dinosaurs are reptiles and they laid eggs.  Our project for the day was to make a dinosaur egg!  This took a bit of pre-planning but it was totally worth it!  Days before, I asked my sweet teacher friends to save me their coffee grounds.  Here is my recipe for dinosaur eggs -

 

 1 cup of used coffee grounds

 1 cup of flour

 1/2 cup of salt

 1/2 cup of water

 

Mix all the ingredients together (add the water slowly, if you coffee grounds are wet you won't need the entire 1/2 cup) to make a dough.  My students weren't too sure about our mixture and to be honest it took a little persuading to get them to stick their hands in the dough.  FINALLY, one brave soul took the plunge and rest of the class joined right in.  We made little balls and hid our dinosaurs in the dough.  Next, we baked them in a 200 degree oven for about an hour and left them inside the oven overnight to continue to harden. 

 

The next day . . . .

 

Baby Dinosaurs!

 

On Friday things went terribly wrong!  We had planned to make dinosaur fossils out of homemade clay.  WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?!?!?!?  First, we mixed up a basic salt dough recipe:

• 1/2 cup Flour
• 1/4 cup Salt
• Water

We mixed the flour and salt then add enough water to make a dough similar to play dough, not wet and sticky but also not dry and crumbly. 

This is when things went south!  It seems that two days of getting "yucky" was more than my class could take.  We hurried and made our little disc.  Finally, we used some old sea shells to make the imprints in the clay.  We baked everything for about 45 minutes in a 200 degree oven and then let them cool.  (To be honest, we should have baked them longer, they were gooey in the middle.)

Everyone was pleased with their fossils and I was very pleased that they did the project themselves.  The clean-up was another matter all together . . .

This picture was taken after I was half way through the cleaning!!!

 

Still it was a fun (short) week and I think we learned a lot.  By the way, this post has been linked to 3dinosaurs Fine Motor Skills Challenge!

 

 

Next week we will begin talking about Valentine's Day.  I hope you will stop back by and see us again!



 





The Letter "D" and Pets

Here we go again!  What a great week!  On Monday the class started our unit on "Pets" and introducing the letter "D" with a wonderful, easy project.

Unfortunately, I wasn't there because I was sick at home recuperating from a massive migraine (YUCK!).  But thankfully my substitute did a great job holding down the fort.  I like this project because it really isn't anything special - at first.  But look closely and you will see the precious little prints of the children.

Tuesday, I was back and ready to go!  We started our day with an interesting art project.  We made "Sam the Square Blue Dog".  As you can see, Sam was made entirely of blue squares.

  

 I think he turned out to be Darling and most importantly everyone was so proud!

We sent a note home asking the parents to send pictures of their child's pet(s) to school.  During circle time everyone took turns telling us the name of their pets and why they love them.  

Our class microphone came in very handy!  It seems this small little addition to my circle time REALLY works!  Everyone has already learned that you can't talk until you are holding the microphone.  YEAH!

Tuesday is also our "Music Class" day.  The entire class spends approximately 20 glorious minutes singing, learning new songs AND discovering new musical instruments.

Wednesday is always a super busy day.  We  worked again on our letter "D" and our "Squares" by making a dump truck filled with blue squares!.  With a room full of boys, I am sure that you know it was FUN!

Everyone had a good time pointing out all the different shapes we used.  

Wednesday is also our "Wiggles Day".  We head to our gym for 30 minutes of group activities.  It is really a Physical Education class for 3 and 4 year old children.  EVERYONE loves WIGGLE DAY!

Thursday starts out with our Chapel Class.  Again, it is church for 3 and 4 year old children.  We sing some of the most wonderful songs and then hear a fabulous Bible story.  Chapel last about 40 minutes and we love it.  I still am amazed at how well my class behaves in Chapel.  Needless to say, this class was no exception - their behavior was FABULOUS!  I was so proud!!!  We also head to "Spanish Class" on Thursday.  This is a short 20 minute class which introduces us the wonderful Spanish language.  I love hearing my class greet Mrs. Fish (okay, her REAL name is Mrs. Felicia, but no one calls her that!) by saying "hola" and "adi'os" as they leave.

The only problem with having Chapel and our "Spanish Class" on Thursday is that our art and circle time is drastically reduced.  I usually have to have something quick planned.  So this week we made a "Square Blue Collage".  SIMPLE, SIMPLE, SIMPLE but oh so fun!

Several blog post ago I mentioned paint chips and how I would be telling you what I did with them.  Well, if you look closely you will notice that some of the blue squares we have used on these projects were punched from paint chip samples!  

I LOVE IT!

Finally, it was our "FABULOUS FUN FRIDAY"!  I love to pull out special things on Friday.  My goal is for everyone to have so much fun that they can not wait to return on Monday.  I think this Friday did exactly that.  We started with an insane art project.  We called it 

We started with BIG half sheets of poster board.  Next, we made different shades of blue paint.  (Everyone really loved looking through the blue paint chips trying to find the shades of blue we made.)  Finally, it was time for FUN!  I have been saving different size square boxes to use as BIG stamps.  I like BIG things!  We used everything from old tea boxes (remember, I live in the south, we drink a lot of iced tea!) 

to old jewelry boxes  

But the fun really came when I pulled out this -

I found it at our lake house.  I think it was used for firework rockets during the 4th of July.   I'm really not sure, but we didn't care because the bottom was a perfect square!

You can see by the above photo that we also used an old tissue box.  We had a blast!

Soon it was time to head to the kitchen for our "Science" and "Cooking" class.  As everyone left on Thursday I told them we were going to "eat a dog" for Friday's snack.  I love the look on their faces when I tell them things like that!  Here are a couple of our "Dog" cookies -

Please notice our square heads.  And yes, they tasted as good as they looked!

Our science experiment for the week was "Does it Dissolve?"  Several of the children were given clear plastic cups (you only get to be a "Science Helper" if you are using your extra special listening ears) and we poured in different items to see if they would dissolve.

  

The grits and shaving cream were fun!

We ended up with eight different cups.  It was fun to look at them while we ate our snack.

We ended up our week by pulling out the ever-popular "Playdough", blue of course!  Everyone tried very hard to make our letter of the week.  Hmmm . . . . 

SUCCESS!

And people wonder why I'm very tired at the end of the week! :)

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you will come back next week and see how we learn, play and have a great time!