December Fun

It has been a busy month! Last week we had our class Christmas play. Unfortunately, I was so busy directing the students that I did not get a chance to take pictures. The students learned to sing Silent Night, Away in a Manger, What Child is This, The First Noel, While Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night, O Come All Ye Faithful, and Adeste Fideles. They learned The First Noel and While Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night in sign language too! The kids did a great job!

Last week, we learned about penguins and the kids made this cute penguin craft by A Cupcake for the Teacher.

We also learned about more than and less than. The kids decorated a Christmas tree cut-out with two different colors of ink. Then, the kids had to write which color had more ornaments. 

Class Auction Item Update

Our class auction item is coming along great! This is our summer tree. The kids has a lot of fun putting their fingerprints on the tree.

October Fun

This month has been busy! We made candy apples for cooking. We used a melon baller to make apple balls. Then we pushed a cake ball stick into the apple ball. Finally, we dipped our apple ball into caramel sauce. The kids had a great time making candy apples.

We also did a math mini unit with a pumpkin. We measured how tall it was with unifix cubes, measure the circumference with a piece of yarn, put it in water to see if it would sink or float, and counted how many seeds were inside of it! The students had a great time!

Spring Auction Update

I have been working on my spring auction item. Here are the trees printed on the canvas. I used a sharpie paint pen to paint the trees. I had to use three coats of paint, but I am really pleased with how they turned out!

More Apples

Here are some more fun apply activities that we are doing. In the dramatic play center, the students can pick apples off of trees and make apple pie.

We have our September words on a board so the students can practice reading and writing them.

We tried apple slices, apple sauce, apple juice, and apple jelly and made a graph of which snack we like the best. I was surprised that the students liked apple jelly the best.

We also sang a song about Johnny Appleseed. If you have ever see the Disney cartoon about Johnny Appleseed, then you have heard the song "The Lord's Been Good To Me". I used the same melody, but changed the words. Here are the words that I made up.

John Chapman was his name.

Born 1774

He planted seeds and helped those in need.

He traveled all around the land.

Yes, we remember him.

We made these two cute crafts that I bought from A Cupcake for the Teacher. The kids did a great job!

 This is the Johnny Appleseed hat.

Music Masters: J.S. Bach

This year I created a new program that I call Music Masters. Each month we learn about a new composer. This month we are learning about J.S. Bach. I teach the students about the composer, then we do a writing activity about the composer, and finally we fill in the notes on one of the composer's songs.

I gave the students a paper with the outlines of the notes, I projected the same paper onto the board and we filled in the notes together. They did an awesome job!

This is a sample of the writing that we did.

We listen to music by the composer of the month everyday during handwriting time. The students love it!

Class Auction

In the spring, my school has an auction. Each class makes something to sell at the auction. This year I thought of a cute idea. My class is going to make a four piece art project on canvas. Each canvas will have a tree painted on it (there will be one tree for each season) and the students will decorate the tree with their fingerprints. I painted the background blue and used the overhead projector to trace the tree onto the canvas. Next, I am going to use a paint pen to fill in the tree.