5 Days till Halloween!

Staying with our Halloween theme, the girls wrote fabulous stories using a carved out pumpkin as a stage set.  Together as a class, we voted on the characters, setting and props.  The girls chose a cheetah and pig, the rainforest and a skateboard, french fries and birthday cake.

 

The girls used their iPads to take pictures of the scene.

 

They went back to their seats and wrote their short stories on pumpkin-themed paper.  They turned out fabulous and we are planning on turning them into a class book!

 

During our math time, the girls had to estimate how many popcorn kernels it would take to cover Casper, our friendly ghost.  They wrote their estimates on post-it notes.

 

Together, with a partner, they counted the kernels in sets of 10 and recorded it on the board.

 

Then they went over to Casper and glued on their kernels.

 

Here is Casper, all dressed up and ready to go!

 

The final count for Casper was 370 and the closest we came was 3 girls who guessed 100!

Pumpkin Math

Halloween is right around the corner so we have decided to embrace the craziness and incorporate it into our learning.  The girls were given a Pumpkin Math packet, filled with different activities all based around pumpkins.  They will be estimating, observing and having fun all at the same time! 

Observing the pumpkin, writing down as many different descriptions as we could.

 

Brainstorming what was lighter and/or heavier than our class pumpkin.

Pumpkin Glyph

We started our Halloween fun today with a pumpkin glyph.  The girls had to follow certain directions and decorate their pumpkin accordingly--it is a fun and different way to collect data about our Pre-First class!  Be sure to ask your daughters how they decorated their pumpkins!

Catching up on our Mystery Readers

Many thanks to our latest Mystery Readers.  The girls look forward to this time so much and we thank you all for taking the time out of your days to read to them.

Maia's mom, Leslie, and special guest--her Grandmother!

Sophia's mom, Teresa, in costume :-)



 

Blair's mom, Karen

 

 

Pumpkin Teeth

Today we worked on our addition skills and number sentences by adding pumpkin teeth.  The girls had to roll a dice 2 times and place the number amount on the top and bottom.  They then had to count the teeth and write the addition sentence.  Can you tell we are inching closer to Halloween?

Ant Cafe

Today during science we discussed what an ant might eat if they were to eat out at a restaurant.  The girls ideas were fabulous--we had everything from hot dogs to pizza.  We narrowed our choices down to marshmallows, chocolate sauce, mustard, applesauce, ketchup, graham crackers and dog food--which is how our Ant Cafe was created.  The girls put on their"scientist" hats and predicted what the ants would like the most.

 

We then created our masterpiece entree.

 

And here is the Ant Cafe in action.

 

 

Unfortunately, the ants did not cooperate (cue the sad music).  We think with this cold spell that they have already started hibernating.  As a class, we decided to hang on to our prediction chart till the spring when the weather is more conducive to ants eating/crawling everywhere.  Another science experiment bites the dust....

Spirit Day

Sorry we are a little behind on the posts, but that tends to happen when dealing with 5 and 6 year old girls :-)  Here are some pics from our Spirit Day--the girls had sooooo much fun (who doesn't have fun when boas and bead necklaces are involved?).  We did get some decent learning in on Thursday, and the girls created beautiful daisies--which are hanging on our main window--they had to make their daisy and put the petals in order using ordinal numbers.  We are already looking forward to our next out-of-uniform day....HALLOWEEN!!!!!!  Bring on the craziness :-)

 

Making our ordinal number daisies.

 

"Patiently" waiting for the parade to start.

 

The amazing marching band from Morgan State.

 

This is what you have to look forward to when your girls get older.

"Harbor", by Donald Crews

Today we read the book Harbor, by Donald Crews--our Author of the Month.  We discussed the different types of boats he used in his book and even talked about our own Inner Harbor.  The girls then compared Harbor to a previous book we read called, Freight Train.  They used a Venn Diagram to compare the two books.

Ordinal Numbers

We have been working on ordinal numbers during our math period.  Today, the girls were each given an ordinal number and had to position themselves according to their given number word.  After that, the girls had to follow directions and place the bear manipulatives on a certain ordinal number line.  They also got the chance to play a fun ordinal number game on our computers.  As a final activity, the girls were given sentence strips and stickers and placed their stickers in the correct order according to the ordinal number we called out.  To reinforce this concept at home, during dinner try asking your daughters in what order they ate their food!

Here are some pictures of the sticker activity!

Last Thursday's Mystery Reader

We had our second Mystery Reader come in last Thursday.  The girls loved seeing Leah's dad, Cameron, and enjoyed the stories he brought with him.  The mystery clues that the guest reader are sending in are keeping the girls on their toes...we love it!