Friendship Quilt

For the last part of February we will talk about what it means to be a friend and nice ways that friends treat each other. We made a friendship quilt out of construction paper, pastels, marker, color pencil, and crayons, to hang on the classroom door. The blue squars talk about things that friends do. Each student was able to decorate a white square showing something that they like to do with a friend.

Happy and Sad Masks

Using paper plates, we cut out eye holes and labled each side with either happy or sad. Then students where able to decorate their plates to make a mask that looked happy on one side and sad on the other. We practiced using these masks at circle time to show how we would feel in different situations. Some examples were; "how do you feel when its your birthday, when a friend doesn't share, playing at the park, when someone yells". Everyone had fun practicing these emotions with their masks.

Heart Graphs

A fun activity we tried out was graphing candy hearts. Everyone got a small handful of concersation hearts and practiced putting them onto a graph organized by color. Some of the older students were even able to color in their graph and tell which color had more and which ones had less. This was also a great way to practice our counting. It was hard to resist all the candy in hand so we were able to 'sample' one piece before taking them home to share with our parents.

Valentine's Day

On Valentine's Day everyone brought in special cards and treats to share with our friends at school. We hung special decorated bags so that we could take all our goodies home. It was a great way to practice sharing and a nice to tell our friends how much we care as we learn more being a good friend.

Heart Smoothies

We made healthy for your heart fruit smoothies on Valentine's Day as a special treat. Every student was able to take a turn adding something healthy before we blended it all together. Our smoothie had strawberries, blueberries, rasberries, banana, fresh squeezed orange juice, and yogurt. To make it extra special we topped it with some whipped cream, a twisty straw, and just a few festive sprinkles to make it extra special. Our heart healthy smoothie was a hit with everyone!

Valentines Windsocks

This month we decorated red windsocks with hearts and other signs of love in preparation for Valentine's Day. Each one was made with lots of love.

P is for Pizza

English muffins, sauce, cheese, and olives. This month we made our very own pizzas for lunch while we learned about things that start with the letter P. Yum!

Melting Ice

We set up a large block of ice in our water table during outdoor play time. The students were given spray bottles with tinted water, salt shakers with glitter/salt mix, eye droppers, and food coloring to explore with. We loved learning what happens to ice when you put salt on it and the food coloring let us see the process better.

Ice Treasures

Using a mold I froze toy bugs and animals into water tinted with food coloring. We took our ice treasures to the park on a nice sunny day so the sun would help us with the melting. Students also used toy 'tolls', water spray bottles, and eye droppers to help uncover their treasures.

Ice Painting

Food coloring added to water in the ice cube tray. A small portion of a straw was added to each cube before freezing for a handle. We used only the primary colors for our cubes but the children made some amazing mixes of colors as the ice melted. Our final pictures were very vibrant!

Snow and Ice

Our January them is snow and ice. All month we are exploring these cold wet wonders and reading many stories that talk about snow or ice. Our first project was counting snowmen. We used cotton balls to make our snowmen and black markers for the details.

Gingerbread Houses

On our last day of school before Christmas each student was able to make their very own gingerbread house. We had parents come to help and bowls full of candy to decorate our houses with. The houses were made using small milk cartons, graham crackers, and imperial icing. Don't forget all the candy, yum!