Monday, October 31, 2011

Go Away Big Green Monster



We had a great time with our Go Away Big Green Monster Day at school today! We had 6 stations that we rotated through all around the school. All of us participated and it was a blast! Even though we had so many transitions and it was such a different routine, we did a great job and had lots of fun!

Our stations:
monster mash obstacle course
parachute and Trick, Trick, Treat (Duck, Duck, Goose)
making a monster face snack
pin the nose on the big green monster
making a monster face on a paper plate
watching the big green monster story and playing a smartboard activity


Check out this retelling of the story on YouTube that I found (sorry about the high pitched voice! But the felt board activity she uses is cute!) 








AM Class


PM Class
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Saturday, October 29, 2011

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything

Miss Erin and I videotaped ourselves reading one of our VERY favorite books: The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. It has been a big hit in our classrooms over the last couple weeks. We love to read the story and make the hand motions to go along with it. We have also enjoyed our SmartBoard activity that goes along with it! Check out the YouTube video by the link on the right sidebar for a higher quality version.
Miss Jill and some of the other Independence staff helped perform this story on Thursday. We had a blast watching them and participating with them! Our class was the "shirts". When Miss Jill read about the shirts, we held our white shirts up in the air and said "Shake, Shake!". You can enjoy the Independence rendition of the story here:
On Friday, we watched the performance again in the morning because some of us were absent on Thursday. We enjoyed it just as much the second time! (This time Miss Stephanie is interpreting the story in sign language).
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Pumpkin Fun

In our slideshow this week you will see some creative ways we used the pumpkins we picked at the pumpkin patch. One of our favorite activities has been pounding plastic nails into a pumpkin in the Construction Zone. It is harder to get them out than it is to pound them in!


In addition we have been very silly and creative making Mr. Pumpkin Heads with pumpkins and the Mr. Potato  Head pieces. We have all kinds of fun creations!


The last few photos and videos in the slideshow you will see something new that we have been doing with our SmartBoards! We are practicing our story retelling skills with The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything and Go Away Big Green Monster. We can wear a microphone that is plugged into the computer. Then we move the pieces around the SmartBoard and retell the story. The SmartBoard records the movements and our audio and we can play it back! It was really fun to play with!


We have an update to our blog design. If you notice, at the top of the page there are tabs "home", "stories", and "songs". If you click on the "stories" or "songs" tabs, you will pull up all of our blog posts about stories and all of  our blog posts about songs. We are loving to watch theses stories and songs during our work time and have said that we'd love to watch with our families at home as well!

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Sunday, October 23, 2011

Learning Letter Sounds (Alligator Song)

In addition to the ABC Rock (in another post) we also love the Learning Letter Sounds song! We like to call it the Alligator Song.

It is one of the 6 songs we can choose from at circle time. 

You can also click on one of the links on the right to see it on YouTube (better quality). 

Enjoy!
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Pumpkin Carving

After visiting the pumpkin patch this week, we went back to our classroom and carved the top of pumpkin. We carved pumpkins that we found in the pumpkin patch!


We talked about how knives are sharp and only grown ups should touch them.


After that we each stuck our hand inside the pumpkin (or touched the inside) and took a handful of pumpkin goop out! Then we put the pumpkin in the Discovery Zone so we could finish cleaning it out during work time. Some of us really really didn't want to touch the pumpkin goop! That is OK. Some people like or don't like certain textures. Everyone did, however, at least touch the inside of the pumpkin!








AM Class Pumpkin Carving
PM Class Pumpkin Carving
Have you carved pumpkins at home? Will you? We'd love to hear what you made. Please leave a comment and tell us about pumpkin carving with your family!
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Thursday, October 20, 2011

Following Directions with Pumpkins

We have been practicing following directions. We practiced following directions in the morning class with mini pumpkins! You can try this at home. We practiced using body parts. The day we practiced these directions with the deaf and hard of hearing class, we did it using our auditory skills only. No sign! We did a good job listening to the directions and picking out which body part Miss Stephanie said!




Put the pumpkin on your head.


Put the pumpkin on the floor. 


Put the pumpkin on your foot. 




Put the pumpkin on your nose.


Put the pumpkin on your ear. 

Go ahead and try these directions at home!

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Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Visit to the Pumpkin Patch

Today (finally!) we took our walking fieldtrip to the pumpkin patch!


We had a blast walking through the pumpkin patch and seeing the pumpkins in all different stages of the pumpkin life cycle. We also loved seeing the one HUGE pumpkin that Miss Stephanie has. After each picking our own little pumpkin (though Miss Stephanie says it is technically a gourd) we got to sit on her old tractor and pretend we were driving it. Then we all started jumping in the leaves! It was so much fun to jump in the leaves and bury each other.


 AM Class
 
Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com






PM Class

On the way to school today Miss Stephanie saw something really exciting. She saw a deer in her pumpkin patch! She said the baby deer comes by every day, but this was the first day she saw her in the morning. The baby deer was even starting to follow Miss Stephanie to school! We enjoyed looking at the pictures of the deer.

Ask us:
What did you see at the pumpkin patch?
What did you do at the pumpkin patch?
What was your favorite part of the pumpkin patch?
How does a pumpkin grow?
What color is a pumpkin before it is orange?
What do a pumpkin plant's flowers look like?






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Sunday, October 16, 2011

ABC Rock

One of Circle Time jobs is mail helper. Our mail helper checks the mailbox to see if we have received any "letters". We talk about the letter of the week and what kinds of words start with that letter. We always amaze Miss Stephanie with what we come up with! Then the mailperson gets to choose which alphabet song we sing. The favorite lately has been ABC Rock! We recorded the AM class singing ABC rock and have been watching it during computer time too!


Here is our rendition of ABC Rock!


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Saturday, October 15, 2011

Pumpkin Patch and ABC Rock

Our Construction Zone has transformed into a pumpkin patch!


We have leaves to rake, scarecrows to pose, blocks to build hay wagons, and mini pumpkins to pick! We have been very busy in our pumpkin patch this week.


Unfortunately we didn't make it on our walking fieldtrip to the pumpkin patch this week because of the rain. We are going to try again on Tuesday!


Another exciting piece of news is our morning class ended up on the U-46 parent page because of the Llama Llama Day. Very neat! Click here to check it out. We have enjoyed picking the computer center this week and watching the Llama Llama Red Pajama videos of our class. 


Pictures of the afternoon class enjoying work time, especially the pumpkin patch (Somehow I didn't take any pictures in the morning?!?!)


One of Circle Time jobs is mail helper. Our mail helper checks the mailbox to see if we have received any "letters". We talk about the letter of the week and what kinds of words start with that letter. We always amaze Miss Stephanie with what we come up with! Then the mailperson gets to choose which alphabet song we sing. The favorite lately has been ABC Rock! We recorded the AM class singing ABC rock and have been watching it during computer time too!


Here is our rendition of ABC Rock!




Check out this video of the life cycle of a pumpkin. We have been reading several books about how pumpkins grow. Ask your child to tell you about each of the steps: seed, plant, flowers, pumpkin!





Another event this week was a Skype interview with author Tom Angleberger. Mrs. V one of the hearing itinerants set up the event for all of the deaf and hard of hearing students in the district at the library. Miss Stephanie went and it was really neat so see students of all ages from all over the district. And to meet the author on Skype! One of the characters in his books (for middle elementary aged students) is even deaf! Check out the post here!
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Friday, October 14, 2011

5 Red Apples

Miss Stephanie keeps promising to post our 5 Red Apples videos and she keeps forgetting! So here they are...finally! 


This is the song we have been singing for the last 4 weeks. 


Words:
5 red apples on a tree.
Look very yummy to me. 
A crow came down to
get some lunch. 
He ate one apple with a 
crunch crunch crunch. 
Crunch, crunch, crunch, 
crunch, crunch, crunch.
He ate one apple with a
crunch, crunch, crunch.


4...3...2....1!



AM
PM
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Thursday, October 6, 2011

Llama Llama Red Pajama Day

Today we had our very special Llama Llama Red Pajama Day! We were very excited about this day because the Llama books are some of Miss Stephanie's very favorite books! Whenever she hears a new one is coming out, she orders it right away so she gets it the day it comes out! 


We love the llama books because they are about things we can relate to, they rhyme and are fun for us to read, and we think the llama is funny!


Our Llama Llama Red Pajama day was sponsored by the Pearson Read for the Record program.



In the AM class, we read our book two times. We were VERY excited about the llama stuffed animal we had to help us read the story. We tried to go on the website to read the book on the computer, but the website was down in the morning. In the AM, Mrs. Chris (our principal) stopped by in her red pajamas to bring us our very own copy of the book!

AM pictures:



In the PM class, the website was working again. We enjoyed reading the book online and retelling the story ourselves. In the PM we had special guest stars come to read us the book! Dr. Susan Ali, the Coordinator of Literacy and Learning for U-46, came with representatives from Pearson and a reporter and photographer. Our class was chosen to be spotlighted for this special day. "Ms. Susan" read us the book and she also had a special PowerPoint to go along with it. It is the same one you can find on the We Give Books website! At the end, our special visitors gave all of us copies of the book to take home for ourselves! We were so excited! 

PM pictures:


The website is here:
wegivebooks.org

Click here for the: Link directly to the llama llama red pajama book
Other Llama Books
Llama Llama Misses Mama
Llama Llama Mad at Mama
Llama Llama Holiday Drama


This is the same website that has been featured in our newsletter. It is a great opportunity to share picture books with your child and to expand your library without buying additional books. The website does not "read" the book for you, it is like reading a real picture book! If exploring the books with your child, you can read the books in the typical way. You can also have your child click through the pages and retell the story independently. In addition, when you read a digital book on the website, you can click "donate" at the end and it will donate books to schools in need. If you click on this link, the author will read the story to you!

We had a great day and feel very lucky to have the special visitors come to our class. We are excited to keep reading the books online at home and school.

To read along with the story with your very own llama book, you can watch the video of Miss Stephanie reading and signing here:

To see the story in ASL (American Sign Language) click on this link, scroll down, and click on the video that looks like this:


To read along with the PM class and Dr. Ali "Ms. Susan", you can watch the video here:

Other activities:
-You can visit the Llama Llama website and enjoy some fun games and other online activities. 
-Beyond the book activities that came home in backpacks today can be found here.


Description on the U-46 website.


If you click here, you can read the story to you child. For a neat interaction twist, you can click on the photo of the author and she will interact with you about what is happening on the page!
http://connectedreading.com/bk/00100/d973e6bf0f3e2cd405d8db8621b3230c2c20a34b

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Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Making Applesauce on Tuesday

Today in class we made our own snack!

We were so excited to make our snack and then eat it!


We made applesauce. This is how we did it:


1. wash apples and hands
2. pick an apple (1 per person)
3. core apple and cut into tiny pieces
4. add apples to pot
5. add sugar, water, cinnamon
6. cook on stove on high until all mushy (at least 45 minutes for 12 apples)


Recipe
4 apples
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 t Cinnamon
Servings: 4
4 apples = 4 servings


Miss Stephanie promised us that she'd post about this on "our computers" today so we could make applesauce at home. If you make applesauce at home with your family, we'd LOVE to see a picture of it!


Check out our pictures:

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