Garden update

 April 4 , 2012 growth from our garden bed.  We planted lettuce, spinach, cabbage, cosmos, and tomatoes.

This is a fourth grade bed their beans are growing so fast.

Signs of spring

 My students are holding the chain we used to measure the circumference of our garden bed.  We counted each chain and there was 228 chains and it took 20 of my students to hold it.  We then used the same chain to measure our classroom.  From wall to wall the chain was the same as the circumference of our garden bed.

 Today my students made hand print Easter chicks.  I got the idea from a site that I googled under the subject hand print crafts.

 Each year I have my students do this activity.  It is a cute way to learn the parts of the flower.  They get to learn the names while learning to write the words. I use real sunflower seeds for the inside of the flower, a cupcake foil for the petals, a straw for the stem (I only had red ones lol), yarn for the roots and then they cut out their own leaves from green construction paper.

This is a new thing I did with the children.  They wrote words that had to do with spring onto raindrops and then glued them to an umbrella.  It turned out really cute.

Chinese New Year ...the Year of the Dragon

 Flag of China....continue to learn about different countries with Around the World with Pre K

 Chinese New Year Mobile

 The symbol for Dragon...2012 is the Year of the Dragon

In the writing center the students can write Chinese symbols for animals....

New winter projects

 Name Snowmen....The students put one letter of their name on one "snowball".  Then added the face to a smaller snowball.

 Snowy Day scenes from the book.  Students got to choose the colors of their buildings and then use colored chalk to make the snaw.

 "I have A Dream"....the students were asked to tell me what they "Dreamed" to become when they grow up.

Tis the Season

 Students glues together red and green construction paper petals of a poinsettia.  Adding glitter for a special touch.

 My loft was invaded by the gingerbread man and snow flakes.

 Students were practicing writing color words onto their own copy of the above chart.

 Finished product hanging in the classroom.

 The students were introduced a KWL chart from our story about how owls grow.  These are their thoughts and questions about OWLS.

 Students were asked to draw and picture and write about what they did at Thanksgiving.  I took their dictations.

 This is their foot and hand prints that they traced with the help my TA and then they cut out their hands and their foot adding a nose and eyes to make this cute reindeer.  Parents are going to love having their hands and foot forever.

 This is a wreath with their hand prints in green paint.  I added red paint for the berries and then some I added glitter.

fall is in the air

The first picture is a project my students did about turkeys.  It is a windsock turkey.  I have done this for a few years and the kids love it.  The second photo is of my loft.  I turned the loft into a fall tree.  I used brown butcher paper to make the trunks of the tree and attached them to my legs of the loft.  I then placed leaves I purchased from the Dollar Tree and stuck them in the ceiling tiles to give the ceiling the tree look as if the ceiling was part of the tree too.  The kids enjoyed going to their reading center in "the tree".

Garden Veggies

 Lettuce from the first grade gardens.

 Tomatoes from the third grade gardens

Zennias from another first grade garden bed that survived the hot hot summer

Banana peppers in another first grade garden.  Our garden beds had a hard first year with a sizzling summer of 112 degree temps and construction workers moving beds that should have not been moved.