Oreo Penguins

This post is a little late, but the activity was so much fun that we had to share it with you.  The Pre-First girls have been learning so much about penguins and they are in the midst of writing their own non-fiction book about the amazing animal.  For our "Fun Friday" activity last week, we talked about all of the facts we have learned about penguins.  Then we sent the girls back to their desks to create an Oreo penguin.

After the girls made their Oreo penguins, the girls had to design a scene using the the app Educreations on their iPads.  They then took a picture of their Oreo penguins and inserted it into their scene.

The final step was to type a factual sentence about penguins and voice record it onto their scene.

The girls had a blast with this activity and have truly loved learning about penguins!  Stay tuned for their non-fiction books!!!

Colors of Us

Peanut butter, honey and pizza crust.  What do these three foods have in common?  They are all unique ways of describing a person's skin color.  We have started our new unit in social studies called Celebrating Differences.  Today we read the book The Colors Of Us ,which is a wonderful story of a little girl whose mother teaches her that everyone is different, but in a special way.  We discussed how each person is different and how the world would be incredibly boring if everyone were the same.  The girls came up with their own way to describe their skin color--inside of a bagel, a muffin and syrup are just to name a few.  We then taught the girls how to mix paints to create these colors.  Below are some pictures of your daughters mixing paints to create these special colors.

Welcome back!

Happy 2013!!!  We missed your daughters tremendously over the winter break and hope that everyone had a safe and relaxing 2 weeks off.  The girls were a chatty bunch today and could not contain their excitement over seeing each other once again.  We loved hearing about their time off and the adventures that they had while they were gone.  We decided to start our day with a fabulous winter tale, The Smiley Snowman, and the girls created their own winter snowman (using marshmallows) after we read the story.  To end our day, we had a very special Mystery Reader--Mrs. Nothstein! 

 

Slipper DEAR party

Celebrating our last day together in 2012, we decided that our Pre-First girls should have a DEAR slipper party.  After our morning meeting, the girls got into their cozy slippers or socks, grabbed their books, a cup of hot cocoa, and a plate of popcorn, and settled into a nook in our classroom.  We played mellow holiday music and enjoyed quiet reading. 

Thanks to all who contributed to the parent gift.  We greatly appreciate it and have already spent it on our children :-)  Please have a safe and happy holiday and a wonderful new year.  We will see you all in 2013!

Gingerbread decorating

We ended our gingerbread unit today, and what better way to celebrate then with lots and lots of sugar and icing! Over the past few weeks, we have read many different versions of the Gingerbread Man--from the classic to contemporary stories, such as The Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers.  The girls have used Venn diagrams to compare the different stories and have also sequenced some of the stories as well.  It was a fun unit and decorating the gingerbread people was a great way to to culminate the unit and head into winter break.

Penguin enemies

Killer whales, skuas and leopard seals...oh my!  The girls learned that these 3 animals are the penguin's biggest--and scariest--predators.  We looked at some pictures from online and also got a lot of information from some stories in our classroom library.  The girls are working on torn paper scenes, depicting the penguin in a perilous situation with a feared predator!

Make noise words

For the past 2 days, the girls have been learning about words that "make noise" (aka words that make a sound).  Today, we read Night Noises by our Author of the Month, Mem Fox.  We brainstormed all of the different "make noise" words she used in her book.

 

After we brainstormed the words she used, we also came up with a few on our own.  The girls put 5 of those words into a step book and illustrated different ways to make the sound.

 

After they completed their book, we put them into pairs so they could share their work.

 

Next week we will start a new book during our Writer's Workshop period where the girls will have to use their new found knowledge of "make noise" words in their writing piece.