{In the Garden & Birds}

The last several weeks we have been learning a LOT.We decided our "Flowers and Showers" theme would be a perfect week to kick off our Garden PBL. We started off by brainstorming what we wanted to grow. We had a lot of great ideas!

 

Our next step was to research each item we thought of and see if it grew on a tree, bush, vine, as a plant or was a root. We knew we couldn't grow it if it was on a tree or bush because it would take too long. The peas looked up each item and made a chart of how it grows.

Finally, we made a list of what was practical (could grow in a month or so) and what wasn't practical (took a year or longer to grow). During circle time we talked about each one and came down to a good list of things we could plant.

One of our awesome dads, Coach Stralow made us a new raised garden box to start our garden! Now that we knew what we were going to plant, we could get started!

 

We got our seeds ready and took turns planting different parts of the garden. Pre-K 2 even helped out! We used teamwork to plant, fill up the watering can and give our little seeds their first drinks of water.

 Afterwards, we began making a seed collection. Some of the peas brought seeds from home or fruit that we could take the seeds right out of!

We taped down the seeds and carefully labeled them.

Afterwards, we put the seeds out with magnifying glasses so we could study them.

We also loaded up the sensory bin with flowers since we were talking about gardens.

Next, we did journals. We do journals every Wednesday and I love that part of our week. Everyone takes their journals and finds a comfy spot to work. Sometimes they work together and sometimes they work alone, but they always spend a good amount of time illustrating their page for the week.

Here's a few of the finished products!

And to conclude our garden PBL, here's a before and after in just two weeks! That rain really jump starting our little seeds. We are documenting our growth.

We love to read. We read a LOT.

 

 So it was while reading that we read this book about a flower:

 

That we found this page in the book with birds:

 

And a new obsession began! :) They loved this page and wanted to look at it over and over and know the different types of birds. So we thought about what we know about birds and listed all the types of birds we could think of.

I went to the library and checked out almost 20 bird books that we read over the last week, but here are a few of our favorites:

We took the flowers out of the sensory bin and added eggs, worms, birds and a basket with twine and yarn to practice nest weaving. (Sneaky fine motor fun!)

The peas wanted to do bird art, so we found some paper and  drew our own bird interpretations. Then they water colored them.

Angela and I cut their birds out and then they made nests and eggs and glued them all back down on blue paper. The results were awesome! I love the uniqueness of each bird.

 

We also watched this time lapse of baby birds. It is a little longer, but so worth it. We call these guys the crybabies.

Next, we became entranced by this live eagle cam of two bald eagles and their babies. They have triplets! Here's the parents with the eggs. If you go to the live feed, you'll see the eaglets are pretty big now!

All that eagle watching led us into a big discussion about nests. We found this video of a time lapse nest being built and they loved it!

And you won't believe it, but we found something RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR CLASSROOM!!!

 

What could it be?

It was a BROKEN EGG!!

The peas quickly investigated and found a nest in the tree outside our class. There is a mourning dove sitting on a nest.

 

Can you see her head?

To wrap up the week, we read this fantastic book:

After all that talk of nests, the peas begged to make their own nests. So we divided up into two groups and got to work!

We gathered found materials and tried our best at nest building.

Here's our finished products! We decided they were most like an eagle nest since eagles primarily use sticks to build their nests.

I love the curiosity and awe that the peas have for new information. They are always learning. We plan to find some bird feeders to hang up outside our room so we can do more bird watching. So far we've seen sparrows, a blue jay, a cardinal, a crow and a mourning dove. Tell us if you see any cool birds by your home!

{Cat in the Hat and All That}

 Last week was Dr. Seuss' birthday and we celebrated it with plenty of Seussical fun! We began the week by reading and doing everything Seuss style!

 

 One of my favorites to do is Ten Apples Up on Top. We do a lot of counting activities with this book every year and this year Ms. Amy gave us some mini apples and an idea to put the peas pictures on blocks so they could stack the apples up on top. :) We added red and green so we could pattern the apples, too.

 

 

 Next we read My Many Colored Days and discussed feelings. We wanted to incorporated some writing this week, so we made this an art and language arts activity.

 I love how unique these turned out and they did great with their writing! They found the color words on their own and wrote them independently, then we helped them spell the feeling words.

 We had a roll and cover red fish blue fish game I found on pinterest a few years ago and we talked a lot about working cooperatively, taking turns, and being fair. They did a fantastic job!

 Half way through the week the peas brought their favorite Dr. Seuss books to school. We did a people graph of their books! I made a graph of the books below, but everyone wouldn't fit so there's some more pictures below, but you get the idea. :) We tried to read as many of the books as we could.

  

On Wednesdays we do journals and we usually add a poem, but this week Ms Angela found a great Dr. Seuss quote to add and we talked about what a quote was. It was hard concept, but we talked about how Dr. Seuss had SO many great words to share with the world. They could illustrate anything they wanted with the quote, but they wanted to draw cat in the hat for the most part. Are these adorable? 

Dr. Seuss week=rhyme time. We practiced rhyming ALL week! We played a game where everyone had rhyming words and we sounded them out as a group. Everyone had to find the words that "matched" or rhymed with them.

Afterwards we read Hop on Pop. I found some bubble wrap Ms. Molly brought to school and after reading we put the "pop" in the middle of the circle. Each pea got to "hop" on the "pop" for being such great rhymers! We even invited Ms. Molly to hop on the pop!

 We were ready for more rhyming, so we read this next:

 I knew wanted to surprise the peas with wockets to take home and I have been brainstorming a way to use all these Starbucks stoppers I won't let my hubs throw away. I'm all about the upcycling! ;) So when I got ready to make the wockets I decided to laminate and hot glue the wockets on. I'm not sure how well they stayed since they went home Friday, but they turned out pretty cute. I think I might make the rest pointers...let me know if you have any ideas!

 The wockets loved their new homes!

 The traveled to centers with the peas all day. Can you see that wocket in her pocket? ;)

 

Last, but never least, we read:

 Inspired by Ms. Amy's class who did some fantastic free expression painting, we decided to paint cat in the hats. They drew the cat in the hat all week, so they were excited to paint him, too.

 Aren't these guys precious?

We celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday in style and it was a fantastic week. Now we are off for a week of relaxing for Spring Break. I hope you all have a wonderful break!