Reptiles and Amphibians

We were grinning from ear to ear this week, just like these cute turtles we made from an oriental trading co. kit. We had a hoppin' good time learning about our favorite frogs, turtles, snakes, and other reptiles and amphibians this week. 

Hop on over to our math center, where we placed the correct amount of frogs on their respective lily pad. 

And, put them in order from 1-10, then did a little hopping ourselves.

We worked on some of the those tough to remember letters this week. We first reviewed them, and then we stated the letter, stamped the letter, and lastly we wrote it. I had each child visit this center, so although their papers don't always make it home with them, each child practiced these letters this week. 

This fun sticker set from Oriental Trading Co. helped us learn the life cycle of a frog.....

And, these stacking blocks were a great hands-on reminder of their life cycle. If we couldn't quite remember, we stacked them from biggest to smallest, and the pictures helped us remember.

We reviewed our colors and counting with this topsy turtle game. He instructed us what color and how many of each stepping stone he needed to keep him from wobbling, and we did our best to keep him from falling. 

We had fun coloring at this center. These color changing chameleons were just the right reptile to practice coloring in our lines. These color changing markers were the perfect addition to help our chameleons change to just the right color.

And, this chameleon scurried around our room looking for food! We tossed them in as he scrambled by with his mouth open and ready.

Your kids are doing great practicing their name each week. Hopefully these frog faces are cute enough that your kids want to continue to practice at home!

Our leap pad frogs helped us with our numbers this week. We played number bingo with Tad and his friends!

We also practiced spelling 3 and 4-letter words with our boggle game. Even if they don't know every word they are spelling yet, the pictures help them to recognize it, and the letter recognition and picture correspondence are a great start!

And, although they may be scaly, slithery, and shed their skin, we embraced these intriguing creatures this week and learned some fun facts about snakes! We learned that they shed their skin a couple of times a year, that they don't have eyelids, and they eat their food whole. We used rulers to measure different snakes and practiced writing our numbers. We also used bubble wrap to represent snake skin. We had fun popping it, and when popped it looks a lot like the skin a snake leaves behind.  

We are still learning so much about our friends each week! 

Here are our stars of the week:

The adorable and imaginative Mackenzy

and 

this funny and fantastically cheesy friend, Liam!

But, that's not all! We also celebrated the big number 5 with this cutie pie!!

Happy Birthday Amelia!!

Our President's

I haven't gotten as many pictures lately because we are busily working on our assessments each day, but I am doing my best to capture your children learning, growing, and having fun!

We learned about some of the distinguished President's of the United States this week. This cute craft was a reversible craft. One side displayed George Washington, and then when you flip it over, Abraham Lincoln is sporting his famous hat. 

Now that we are recognizing our letters, we are getting better at forming words. This word search was filled with words associated with our country. Such as flag and stars, and it had a picture of the word next to it to help the kids know what word they were looking for. This worksheet came from here.

We practiced some more coin sorting and recognition practice. We will continue to decipher the names and sizes of each coin.

And, we recognized some of those faces on the dollar bills!

This scale helps us with some simple addition facts. Each side could be balanced by having the same number on each side. For instance, if there was a blue counter hanging on the number 6, it could equal out with one on the number 6 on the other side, or one on the number 4 and the number 2. 

And,

This handsome buddy was our star this week! Thanks for sharing stories with us Jackson!

We heart school!

We are having fun working on our addition skills each week. This fun umbrella craft below was a cute poem that helped us add our heart raindrops. I found this idea on pinterest here.

We are great at counting to number 20, but we are working hard on recognizing them by sight as well. These hearts each had a number on it up to number 20, and we looked at the number on the heart and said what it was, then used our math links to count out that number to see if we were correct.

We made some hearts out of playdough and cookie cutters. We had about 7 different sizes of hearts, and after we made them, we put them in order from biggest to smallest.

H is for heart! We had fun finding our hidden letter H in this worksheet by coloring the uppercase and lowercase letter H each a different color.

Your kiddos were creative in making some heart patterns with our heart stamps of different sizes and shapes this week. They were not directed on how to make their pattern, but just to make a pattern up on their own. 

When we talk about Valentine's Day, teddy bears and hearts come to my mind. And, this center has teddy bears with hearts on their bellies! To play this game, we drew a card from the stack, and then did as the card instructed. Most of them had us finish the chain with the missing number 5, 6, __. 

This bee mine craft turned out adorable, wouldn't you agree!?

And, check out our party games! This game below shows the kids trying to unwrap and eat 3 tootsie chews with gloves on their hands. It was a race between 3 friends.

We had a cupid arrow toss, and a heart relay game too!

And, our favorite part of the whole week! Passing out Valentine's to our friends!

We learned about 2 more superb stars this week!

Our friend Aicsenna!

and our friend Maci!