Let's Seuss it all up here

 Because I have been gone for so long I decided one post with a lot of random unrelated pictures should do the trick.
 We did some of the classics, Green Eggs and Ham, Cat in the Hat, and The Lorax, and one that not as many have heard of The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. The latter is on of my favs. It is one, of two books that Seuss wrote, that doesn't rhyme.  The kids thoroughly enjoyed this unit and I can't wait until I get to do it again.

 We made our Green Eggs and Ham of course and a thaumatrope of "Sam I Am" and a plate of green eggs and ham which when twirled come together to create a single image. The kids loved saying optical illusion and I loved hearing them try to say it.




















In "The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins" the boy ends up with...you guessed it...500 hats. The closer he got to 500 the fancier the hats got so we created our own fancy hats.The kids loved that they got to put their own glitter on :)

We finished our unit with "The Lorax" and here is our edible creation slightly resembling The Lorax. It's a baked potato, sour cream to hold all the ingredients on, shredded cheddar cheese for the mustache and olives for the eyes. Some stick pretzels would have been great for the arms and legs, I know for next time.

And My favorite of the bunch... Our salt dough Loraxes. Because of time issues I hot glued the letters for UNLESS for the children and they were able to paint them and the Lorax they made however they wanted. Its a treasure I hope they all remember!!!

Here are those random things I was talking about...

After Valentine's Day we had plenty of heart candies left. I'm sure I wasn't alone in this predicament, so we graphed them. The kids are starting to get this graphing thing, just in time too because I smell jelly beans in the near future!!



We made some really cute "Love Bug" head bands (that's whats written by the lovely model of course)  and a quick snapshot of our Valentine's Party.

Love is in the Air!!

We like all the other people in the world are getting ready for our Valentines party. We always make something that hte paretns will love and keep forever (with all the other stuff they keep of course) and I ran across this idea. I cannot remember where I saw it and I feel so bad, I want to give credit where due so message me if you know!! We had fun drawing our faces and adding hair like ours, gluing hearts and counting too.

 We decorated large cans for our Valentine Mailboxes and here is our Valentine project in out mailbox.

 In the meantime we had to do something "educational" lol so we did some rhyming wheels to tie in with our Dr. Seuss unit. The kids did better than I could have ever dreamed and they could read the words when they finished. The parents were pretty impressed.

Well now I have to finish preparing for the Valentine's Day Party tomorrow...Pics of the party coming soon!!

Will the time ever slow down?!

I feel like I have been in a whirl wind since Thanksgiving. Hopefully after Valentine's day things will finally slow down.

This month is our LOVE for Literacy month. We chose to do a different Dr. Seuss book each week and this week we chose Fox in Socks.

We made some bluey gooey, using this recipe but we used apple sauce and pureed canned pears and didn't add the sugar. It turned out fabulous. (my camera is well...not lost...just not where I thought I put it, so no pics for this :(

We also made a rhyming wheel and it went better than I even thought it would. My kids are reading their words!! We put the beginning letter on the lines on the wheel and then put it together and the kids actually read the words. I am so super impressed. (pics are coming)

Our Post Office is going well in Dramatic Play. Last week the kids could write whatever they wanted and throw it in an envelope and call it a letter. This week they had to ADDRESS the envelope it to someone and sign their name on the letter. Next week they will have to address the letter to someone and put a Return Address on the envelope and address the letter and sign too. They are learning so much!

We just started our Valentine's craft and I can't wait to put that up!

Goodby to a busy week and welcome to a busy weekend!

We're going Seuss-y!!

 We started Dr. Seuss! This week we focused on Cat in the Hat. We did a number game where we pulled a number from the cup, wrote the number and drew that many stripes on the hat.

Then we made our very own hats and had a parade! The kid did so well. They decided how many stripes to cut and glued them on all on their own. They loved it! We marched through the school and other classes and then outside around the school. The Elementary school across the street had some children on the playground and my kids were convinced the elementary kids loved and wanted their hats.

Children used any space they could find.

March (or January) of the Penguins!

This month we covered Arctic life spanning from the people of the arctic to the weather and the animals. One of my *new* most favorite activities paper mache penguins!!

 These are just DARLING!! We learned that the biggest penguin is the  Emperor Penguin. We also talked a little about Polar Bears and did this cute activity. The kids had to stretch the cotton balls out before they could have any glue which inspired them to work a little harder than usual.

 

After all that stretching and gluing we winded down with a little Gummy (polar bear) graphing. We laid them out and then colored in the squares. Most of the kids did a great job waiting to eat their bears. We talked about greater than, less than, more, less, most and least. They loved the activity and I'm sure there will be similar activities in their future!

Blurrrr

The holiday season is always a blur for me but my goodness! Now that I am blogging (really new and not too great yet) I can really see how long I have been away. So this will be one long catch post. We are in out Arctic Animals theme this month and we are covering the people, the animals and the homes that you would find in the arctic. Here is our temporary Igloo with the tissue paper fire...


We learned that the Inuit or Eskimos sometimes have to cut a hole in the ice to fish so we have ice fishing available in our dramatic play area and also have a drying rack set up for the Eskimos to hang their fish after catching them.

We tried to bring the theme out to the patio too so we put our figurines in dry cornstarch, I mean snow.

Our Arctic Toob in the snow (cornstarch)

The kids are getting really good with their beginning sounds and they have lots of practice with them as we make lists, charts and copy our picture "flash cards" to make our very own books.  We do a cooking activity each week and this is our first week's activity, Iceberg Jello. We learned that we only see a part of the iceberg because so much of it is under the water.

Iceberg Jello

We created our own puzzles by using pictures of the arctic and cutting it into a puzzle. These puzzles were way harder for the kids than I imagined though.

 And my favorite of the whole month...

 The Milk Jug Igloo! We lined up the milk jugs and counted, wrote our count (or estimate) and in the end looked at the info to see who was the closest. After the counting I started construction.

 Its only about 1/3 of the the way but this is what we have so far!!
 

What a break!

Our break is coming to an end now and I am more excited than ever to see my kids and get started on the next theme "Arctic Life." While the kids have been away I have been busy, busy, busy planning a little boy's birthday party. I don't like the fact that he is growing up so fast but thrilled to see the boy...man...he is and will become.

10 days and counting