Park Time

During the summer months, the large playground at a nearby elementary school is not in use. Every week students take a walking field trip to explore the park area and different playground structures. The fire truck structure is always a favorite pretend play spot.

Sugar Snap Peas

The sugar snap seeds we planted a few months back have flowered and are now producing pods. Everyone is excited to pick some and sample all the care we've given them.

Father's Day

We attached buttons, using tacky glue, onto basic plastic frames for our father's day gifts. Each student placed a picture of themself inside and on the bottom center we wrote, 'Cute as a Button".

Camping Day

One really big tent,

sleeping bags,

and friends.


We hiked through 'the woods' at a nearby park before coming back to school and discovering the large tent out back. Everyone was so excited to spread out their sleeping bags and play inside the tent. We used our water tables outside the tent as our 'pond' and enjoyed a special snack as well.

Smores

Smores were a hit during our camping unit. The real ones were tasty to eat and the pretend ones were very fun to make.

M is for Mask

Students had a chance to play with some fun masks this summer during M week. We learned that some masks get tied on while others have to be help up.

P is for Postcard

We had students decorated cardstock with markers to create their postcards. They were able to dictate a letter to the person of their choosing. After all the postcards were made and stamped, everyone got a chance to put their postcard in the mailbox.

School Picnic

Baseball

Games

Bubbles

Food, Family, & Friends!

Yogurt Parfaits

Children helped to make yogurt parfaits as a special treat for our school picnic. We used an assortment of fresh berries, granola, cereal, crushed graham crackers, dried cranberries, and organic vanilla yogurt. The children were taught how to layer the ingredients in clear cups. They added a few sprinkles on the top to make them extra special. This was a yummy treat that everyone enjoyed.

Decorating Cups

We found these plastic cups on sale and thought they would be perfect for our upcoming school picnic. Permanent markers in various colors were used to draw pictures on the cups. After the children finished decorating them, we used a thick black marker to add their names.

Popsicles

We made our own popsicles using construction paper, markers, tongue depressors, and glitter. They were a perfect part of our picnic theme.

Kites

We used lunch size paper bags with the bottom cut out for our kites. A long piece of string was attached to one end for the kite to fly with. Streamers were glued onto the other end of the kite. Each student was able to personalize their own kite with markers and stickers. Everyone had fun at the park that day flying their kites.

Picnic Theme Basket

Our picnic theme basket included: blanket, picnic felt food, dishes, serving containers, and books about picnicing. A real picnic basket was used to store all the items. Children had fun 'playing' picnic in the school room for the weeks leading up to our very own school picnic.

Eating our Alphabet

With this spring being pretty chilly, we've been having fun doing some extra baking for warm snacks. It has been extra fun using dough to shape out our letter of the week. Wax paper, with the letter drawn on the back side, has been great for helping us form some of the really curvy letters. The best part though, is eating our letter after its cooked.

Blue Jay

We made our blue jay birds by folding a paper plate in half and sealing off the edges. Then students cut out a circle head and fringe cut a triangle tale. Triangle beaks and a google eye was added. For the wings we traced and cut out each childs hand print. We choose a blue jay for our bird theme and for our letter of the week, J!

Bird Houses

During our bird theme we painted small wood bird houses for our feathered friends. We found the wood bird houses at Michael's Craft store and used tempra to paint.

Bread Dough Birds Nest

Our cooking project this week was an edible bird's nest. We used bread dough pressed into a greased muffin tin to shape our bird nest. Each nest got a dusting of cinnamon. After they came out of the oven we pressed down the center a little more with a spoon and let them cool. We also pressed in some dried chow mein noodles to make it look more like a real nest. After cooling the students were able to pick 3 gum 'bird eggs' for their nest. We found the gum eggs at the store during Easter and saved them for this project. A gummy worm was also added as a present from mamam bird for when her little chicks hatched. Each nest was gently wrapped up and taken home to share with family.

Mother's Day

We used red ink pads, torn green construction paper, and a little glitter to make these fun flower cards for our moms. Everyone got to draw and write a little message inside as well.

Planting Seedlings

Comstock Community Farm generously donated some seedlings that they had left over from their recent planting day. Students were delighted to put these little mini-plants right into the ground in our school garden. We even decorated some of the planting containers that the farm donated as well so that each student could take home seedlings for their own gardens. We are excited to watch the seedlings grow!

The mission of Comstock Community Farm is to feed healthy food to low-income individuals and families of San Benito county, particularly local farm-worker families, children and schools. The goal is to also provide an educational space for youth to learn healthy eating and how to grow food in an organic way that protects their health as well as their community and environment. Families, children and youth are invited to help out with weeding the garden, which includes 2,000 plants, preparing the fruit orchard, planting and more. For more information you can email: comstock.farm@yahoo.com

Bean Seeds

My how our bean seeds have grown! We started them out in our plastic bag green houses a few weeks ago. Once they had roots and little sprouts shootingu p it was time to plant in a cup to take home. Some also went in our backyard children's garden plot so that we can continue to watch them grow.

Gardening Theme Basket

Our gardening theme basket included books about gardening, shovels, seed packs, pots, garden gloves, bugs, hand lenses, flowers, and felt veggies. During the garden theme we brought this basket out once a week for the children to explore

Fire Department Visit

In May we learned about fire safety and were excited when the fire department came out to show us their gear and truck. Everyone got to see what a fireman looks like in his full gear and climb on the fire truck.

Coloring Eggs

This year we colored our eggs to use in our Italian Easter Bread. We drew on the eggs with crayon and then used a dye kit to color the eggs. Next year we hope to use a variety of homemade dyes!