Food Pyramid and Nutrition

We continued to talk about our bodies last week, focusing on the food pyramid and healthy habits.  We talked about the different food groups, and how we need different proportions of each one.  We talked about how some of the best tasting foods are not always the best for our bodies, but that it is not bad to eat them sometimes.  We talked a lot about fruits and vegetables.  We even did a lemon project where we made lemons that smelled like real lemons.  The kids each tasted some lemon juice, and most of them liked it and came back for more! 

For one of our centers, we looked at different foods and decided if it was a fruit or a veggie.

After we separted them, we turned over our fruits and vegetable posters, and checked if we got them all right.

For a vocab center, we played a fun game from Lakeshore called Shop and Match.

The object of this game is to be the first one to find all of the grocery items on your list.  You choose items from the bag, and if they are on your list, you put them in the proper food group on your tray and the first one to have all of their items is the winner.  The children really enjoyed this game.

The above center was one that we did to help us learn more about the different food groups in the food pyramid.  I had a container that was color-coded to match each color of the pyramid, and the children has many different pieces of food that they put into the correct container.  They did a great job deciding where each food item belonged!  I was impressed!

For a fine motor center, we practiced our cutting and pasting.  Kylie above just finished cutting out a healthy piece of food out of a magazine, and then pasted it to her picture.

We had a couple of math centers this week.  One was these puzzles above that Cy and Morgan are doing.  We simply count the items on one side of the puzzle, and then find the corresponding number to complete the second half of the puzzle.

We also talked about simple fractions and more, less, or the same.  The children had three different pizzas and I would make one pizza and have them make the other two to equal either more, less, or the same as mine. 

Another fine motor project that we did was our bean pictures.  We talked about how beans are a part of the meat and beans food group.  The children were really creative in doing this project.  They were asked to draw a picture of ANYTHING they wanted and then we traced their drawings with glue and they glued their beans to their pictures.  Look how creative and great their pictures were!

I did not help them at all!  Impressive!

A fun science project that we did this week was to see how much air that our lungs could hold.  To do this project, take a 2-liter bottle and fill it full of water.  Next, put some tubing in the liter and turn it upside-down into some shallow water so that none leaks out.  Then take the tube and blow into it.  As our air goes into the bottle, it pushes the water out.  We marked where each child's water level ended up on the bottle.  The children had a blast.

I used cleansing wipes and a new topper for each child to ensure that we were being clean and sanitary!! :)

We sang "On top of spaghetti" for our song this week.  Ask your child to sing it for you.  They thought it was hilarious.

On top of spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatball,
When somebody sneezed.

It rolled off the table,
And on to the floor,
And then my poor meatball,
Rolled out of the door.

It rolled in the garden,
And under a bush,
And then my poor meatball,
Was nothing but mush.

 So if you eat spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
Hold on to your meatball,
In case of a sneeze!

Thank you to Addison for bringing this creative, adorable,  and healthy snack for us so fitting for our week on nutrition!  The kids loved it!

We reviewed the letters F (fruits) and V (vegetables) this week.  We also learned about the number 18.

Next post:  Valentine's party and crafts!!  Stay tuned!

Valentine's keepsake

I just wanted to pass along a fun idea that we have been doing for the last several years in our home with the valentines the kids collect from their friends in class. My daughter likes to keep EVERYTHING, so I was excited when my sister-in-law gave me this great idea that she found in the family fun magazine a few years back.
                                           

A placemat!

All you need is some contact paper (found at any grocery store) and two pieces of either construction paper or cardstock. Take one piece of contact paper, sticky side up, and stick both pieces of contruction paper to it lengthwise. Add all of your valentines with glue or tape, and place a second piece of contact paper over top of the valentines, sticky side down, so that both pieces of contact paper stick to each other. Voila! Done. Now your kids can keep their valentines and you won't have to find them all over the house for the next several months. McKenzie made her first one in 2007 and we still use it! We LOVE this idea!

Our Bodies

Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes, knees and toes (repeat).....eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.  This song was a perfect start to our lesson on our body.  This week we talked about our bodies, both inside and out! 

We talked about our bones, and how bones and muscles help our body to be strong and give us shape.  Our skeleton also protects our organs.

We made our own skeleton using Q-tips. 

We talked about our different organs, and what each organs function is.  We each got to have a turn wearing our body vest and correctly placing the organs on our bodies.

For a math center, we used our "hands" to do some simple addition problems.  We hid all of the fingers, unfolded the first number of fingers, then unfolded the second number and counted them together to get the total.  The gloves were filled with flour and the kids loved the feel of them. 

For a writing center, we wrote thank you notes to the dentist office for letting us visit, and to firefighter Tom for visiting our school.

For a math center, we used lima bean manupulatives to count to ten.  I had them recite the numbers as they placed the beans on the stickers so they practiced both sequencial order along with number recognition.

We also had a vocab center where we had pictures of a boy with arrows pointing to his hands, and another one with arrows pointing to his feet.  Then we had different aerobic and non-aerobic activities that were done with our hands or our feet and we had to place them under the correct body part. 


We also talked about how important exercise is for our bodies.  Our bodies need food, water, and exercise.   We discussed how exercise makes our heart beat faster and ran around the room until we could feel our heart beating quickly.  We also had an aerobic center:

Where we stretched, did some sit-ups, lifted some weights and did some jumping jacks.  We were tired!

For a writing center this week we did stamping.  We had a column of letters that we searched for the matching letter and stamped it in the next row.  Then, in the last row we took a pencil and practiced making that letter. 

We also made our own body books to bring home to tell you about our bodies.  We saw some real x-rays and even a real cast from when my daughter broke her arm.   And, speaking of broken bones, stay tuned for next week as we learn about how to stay healthy and strong by following the food pyramid and maintaining healthy habits!

Community Helpers (Part 2 of 2)

We had a fun but very important week continuing our community helpers lesson.  We learned some very important safety tips.  We practiced dialing 9-1-1 and learned that we can call that number at any time if we are ever in an emergency.  Then, we talked about some different emergency situations.  One emergency we discussed was a house fire.  We talked about what we should do if our home ever catches on fire, and we even had our own fire drill in the school and climbed out the window just like we would if there were a real fire.  We learned to STOP, DROP, and ROLL if our clothing catches on fire, and we even had a visit from a real firefighter named Tom.

Firefighter Tom taught us some very important tips.  He told us that if we are ever in a fire, this is what we need to do:
Get low and Go!
Get out and Stay Out!
Don't hide, go outside!
We really enjoyed learning about the cool gear that he wears and how he helps people.  We even got to climb a ladder and save a kitten!

Some other community helpers we talked about this week were

Mailcarriers.  We even made our own mail bag to carry our letters in. 

This was a great fine motor skill because the kids had to lace all the way around the bag in order for their mail not to fall out.  Lacing cards are a great at-home activity as well.  It is something that is difficult for the children, but if they don't give up, they can do it!

For a vocab center, we played a lakeshore game where we had some different office buildings and sorted different items into which building they belonged.

For example, a toothbrush went in the dental office building, a backpack went in the school building....

We also talked about how community helpers serve others and we all work together to make our communities work.  A cashier helps us pay for our groceries.

We talked about letters h-o-t this week to spell hot, and also m-a-n to spell man.  We also counted counted up to number 17!