I can't believe it's already almost here...

I seriously can't believe how fast this year has flown by. We are already preparing for graduation, which is so bittersweet. And if you can't tell from above, we've already chosen a theme. It's going to be SO stinkin' cute! So save the date and we will get official invites out very soon with details about time, location and logistics. 

Be prepared to be wowed!

Pets

Last week our theme was pets, a great unit that gives us an opportunity to explain the needs of living things and the responsibility of caring for a pet. We had a surprise visitor in the form of a guinea pig for the week to accompany our pet unit! His name is Happy and he has become VERY popular. So much so in fact, that he has been invited to extend his stay for a while longer.

 To start off the week, we wrote sentences about Happy using some of our high frequency sight words. Some people just declared their love for him, and one person pointed out that he might want to lay off the hay since he's on the bigger side of guinea pigs.

We had had a lot of opportunities to pretend with animals. We had a veterinary clinic where we could help animals and a Littlest Pet Shop set in the sensory table.

Ms. Rhonda worked with Pre-K 2 to brainstorm attributes of different pets.

Then for Morning Message they cooperatively drew this cute kitty and wrote a sentence about him. Or her.

We used cats and dogs to make A-B-A patterns.

And we read one of Ms. Jennifer's favorite books, Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion and made our own Harry dogs, one side is a black dog with white dogs, and one side is a white dog with black spots. We used them to retell the story as a group.

Ms. Rhonda also had a really fun fish book we made after reading One Fish, Two Fish by Dr. Suess. It folded up and the peas had to illustrate fish pictures inside labeled as big fish, small fish, mean fish, tiny fish, etc. They were really cute.

We cuddled up with the famous pup Biscuit and read easy readers about him.

 Pre-K 2 did a little sequencing about a boy who builds a doghouse.

But our absolute favorite part of the week was our literature connection. We read this book:

I LOVE this book. It has a wonderful text for guided reading and is great for beginners. It was the first book I remember reading and I brought my very own vintage copy to read to the peas. The best part of this book, as everyone who has had the pleasure of reading it knows, is the dog party.

So, of course, we had a dog party! I don't have pictures of the activities since we were, well, partying! But we decorated dog-bone cookies, read the story and had party hats. Here some friends in the paper party hats....

We made puppy ears, too.

And after taking pictures of all the dogs doing silly things, we made our very own dog party tree. They think it's really silly and funny.

Also, sweet Taylor's mommy brought her brand new puppy Cooper by for a visit. He is so stinkin adorable.

 

Pre-K 2 even squeezed in some great science center fun this week.

 

 

 It was a great week! Happy Wednesday!



Eggstravaganza!

 

Last week we had an Eggstravaganza! We started the week preparing for our party on Thursday. Ms. Amy, Ms. Rhonda and Ms. Susan got busy making the most adorable Easter baskets. Although the peas cut out similar pieces, they all seem to have different expressions!

 

 

 Ms. Jennifer's class studied chicks! There was a lot of chirping! We did a writing prompt about chicks, made egg carton chicks and played "Chick Picks" where the chick picked a word and we had to yell out words that rhymed with the word the chick picked.

 

 

 

 We tried to stick with CVC words with "Chick Picks" (Consonant, Vowel, Consonant) but as always some words were very silly and we had to think of nonsense words to rhyme with them.We are all about nonsense in Pre-K!

 

Ms. Amy also brought jelly beans and we graphed them!

 

 We also got some great Easter books in, this one being the most popular:

If you haven't heard about this old lady, she has swallowed almost everything known to man. She's swallowed a leaf, snow, a bat, a pie, a spider, a trout, the list goes on and on. She is a little out of control, but great for predictive text and sequencing activities.

We had a sheet where the peas put the items she swallowed in sequential order.

There was an Easter book I really, really wanted that just came out. But it wasn't in at any of the books stores. I was disappointed since it came highly recommended as sure to please and cause many giggles. So if you are a book collector, you might check it out for next year!

And then, the week culminated in our Easter Egg hunt and party. First we welcomed our secret readers! 

 The kids LOVE having secret readers! Pre-K 2's secret reader, Mrs. Sporer, is a librarian at one of the Elementary schools, and Ms. Amy said the book she read was a wonderful book about kindness and treating others nicely. I had never heard of it, but ordered it after checking it out. It is a very sweet way to reinforce the qualities we want our children to have. It's called "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?"

Our amazing room moms recruited everything we needed and we put together a pretty cute snack craft, (it's a cookie carrot planted in smashed oreo and pudding dirt) but I think most of the kids were too excited to eat it! We are SO blessed to have such wonderful parents, we had so many volunteers come help with the parties, hiding the eggs, and anything else we needed.

 

Then we hunted!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Some sweet peas even found a hiding place to check out their goodies.

We had a wonderful, busy week. Hope you all had a blessed Easter and enjoyed your long weekend!