Laughter & Learning in Room 139 : When do things happen at school?

Yikes! The last two weeks have flown by and the weekends have been great, but jam-packed! So, I'm going to do my best to catch you all up on what we've been doing the last few weeks. We've been talking about clocks, why we have a schedule, and why we have routines. To go along with this topic, we sang "Hickory, Dickory, Dock" and made a clock with a mouse on it. The kids had to cut out the circles for the mouse and then assemble the clock and mouse. It was a tricky project, but they really enjoyed making them!

Of course, these had to go on our bulletin board!

A few weeks ago we started doing journals with the afternoon class on Thursdays. Each cutie has a journal with their name on the front and they can draw or write whatever they would like in it. They seem to enjoy journal day!

We've been reading The Gingerbread Man and starting to discuss how to be a friend. During Center Time, we encouraged the cuties to draw a scene from the story or draw how they would have caught the Gingerbread Man.

We're really getting into our arrival routine. We discuss who is at school that day and then hold hands and sing our hello song. During the song we say hello to each person in the circle.

After we talked about what a schedule is, we read Peany Butter Fudge. In the story, Mom leaves a schedule for Nana to follow while she's gone. Well, Nana doesn't follow the schedule, but they have lots of fun and end the day making peanut butter fudge!

We also read Kevin and His Dad. In this story, Kevin and his dad clean the house first and then go have fun. After we read the story we talked about why we have to work before we play.

The biggest hit of the week was when we played a rhyming game that the kids LOVED!! We started with my name, so I said, "Listen for your name, listen for your name, listen for the word that sounds like Jeth, Seth, Teth. Who is it? It's Beth!" Then we tried it with each cutie's name. Like I said, they LOVED this game, they kept suggesting more names for us to try! You should try it with your kids! And, as an added bonus, it will be stuck in your head all day...guess what's running through my head right now. :)

Handwriting Without Tears uses Mat Man to help teach the kids how to draw a person, so we introduced the Mat Man song and pieces that go with it. The next time we make Mat Man, the kids will each have a turn to add a body part. It's also a great way to work on identifying body parts!

We finished the week by guessing what was in the Feely Box. Each sweetie had a turn to feel what was in the box and make a guess. After everyone had a turn, I showed them what it was.

Their homework last week was to decorate a gingerbread person. On Thursday each cutie told us about their person and who helped them decorate it. We have some great artists!