Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Mouse Tales

Hello everyone!  I am so glad you are visiting our classroom today.  We have been very busy doing so many things.   

Here is a little math activity we did during our City Mouse and Country Mouse unit.  We measured the mouse tails with unifix cubes.  We also counted the spots on the mice and wrote the numbers.  




We really enjoyed the book THE TOWN MOUSE AND COUNTRY MOUSE with the gorgeous illustrations by Jan Brett.  It was fun doing a comparison of life in the country and city.  We created a chart showing how life is different and yet the very same in some ways.


Jan Brett has a wonderful website.  Here is a link to her site with activities to THE TOWN MOUSE AND COUNTRY MOUSE.   http://www.janbrett.com/mouse_masks_main.htm

Another great book we read was THE LITTLE HOUSE by Virginia Lee Brown.  This book won the Caldecott Award the year it was published.  


We did an art and writing project about what The Little House saw in the country and city.  They were displayed on one of our hall bulletin boards.


 



One of our favorite books that we read about the country and city is ROUND TRIP by Ann Jonas.  If you have never read this book, I highly recommend it!



The illustrations show what they saw and did on their way to the city.  


And the very same illustrations show what they saw and did on the way back home.


One day we talked about what we would do if a mouse got in our house.  We did a follow the directions drawing of a mouse.  Then the children told me what they would do if a mouse got in their house.  These were displayed on our large bulletin board.  



Aren't these great!!!


















We really had a lot of fun talking about the City Mouse and Country Mouse.  

September In Our Class

Now that I finally have my laptop back and all programs working, I thought I would share a few things with you that we have been doing in school.  


Each Friday we go to the computer lab.  These are a couple of photos of one our early visits to the lab.  

























Now that I finally have my laptop back and all programs working, I thought I would share a few things with you that we have been doing in school.

Friday, August 24, 2012

2012 -2013 School Year, A New Beginning

A new school year has begun.  And we are off to great start!  We have read some wonderful books in class this week That I would like to share with you.



The Kissing Hand is such a sweet book about a mother's love for her child on the first day of school.  


A fun book to read aloud with children.  By about the third page the children are saying the repeat language in the book.  And oh do they love the ending.  The illustration on the last page is so funny.  Joy Cowley, the author, has a real hit here as she always does with young children.


A Cat Called Kite is by Mem Fox, one of my favorite authors.  This is a rhyming book of "right and Wrong".   Mem Fox told me that it was certainly not one of her favorites.  But children think to is funny and love to help with the read aloud.  



This is such a fun book about the beloved Miss Bindergarten and her class.  



This is the story of a family who started with one very sad and lonely cat.  But because of their love for cats they ended up with a dozen cats.  It is a fun counting book, (1-12) that also shows love and respect for animals.  


This is another counting book, (1-20) that tells many facts about cats.    It is full of great information and beautiful illustrations.


A kitten has lost her purr and is sure that one of the other farm animals has taken it.  The little goes in search of her purr all over the farm.



Oh, how I love this sweet story of two little girls and their mother who take in a stray cat.   

If you have not read any of these books, I suggest any of them to you.  They are all a good read and teach many lessons.  


A great story about an old man and woman who want the most beautiful cat in the world.  The old man finds so many cats on his journey.  Why there are   "Hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats".    

In addition to all of these great books, we have been doing some fun activities.  We have focus on the words "I Can" this week.  We know that everyone in our classroom can do so many things.  The children dictated to me three things they could do.  And then they glue the word "can"  on their paper.    We hung these papers up in our classroom so everyone could see what everyone could do.  




I always think that it is fun to see what they think they can do.  Some children what to tell great details and others just want to give a one word answer.  


We did our first graph this week. Because it was a first for us, we did it as a "whole group" project.  Using this poster I made, we counted the number of cats of each color.  


And this is what our graphs looked like when they were complete.  


We talked about word families and words that rhyme with cat.  We began reading the words with this big cat on our magnetic board.  And then used individual cats to read the words to each other.



We also talked letter C and words that begin what that sound.


And here is a little alphabet art.

Here are some of our calendar activities.
We begin our calendar time with our months song.  The month of August song is to the tune of "Bingo".


As yu can see, our calendar board has many activities on it.  


We discuss the day of the week, and the weather.



The children answer a "Yes/No" question each day.


We count the number of days we have been in school using tally marks, and odd and even chart, and a place value chart.




And starting the first day of school, we count down to the last day of school.


We started with 180 days and now after our first week in school, we have 175 days left!!
As you can see, we have been very busy and are off to a great start.  I look forward to seeing the children grow and learn.  

Thank you for visiting our first blog post of this school year.  I hope you will come back and visit often.