Ms Aja's Classroom

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Happy Birthday Joaquin

This morning we got to have music with Ms. Shelley. We sang Music Time, Shoo Fly, Ladybug, and other songs. We got to play the drums and move our bodies too. We love expressing ourselves through music and dance!

This afternoon we got to celebrate Joaquin’s birthday. It was an especially fun celebration because we got to decorate our own cupcakes. Chef Cavolo brought in different kinds of frosting to swirl on our cupcakes. Then we got to add cranberries, strawberries, chocolate sprinkles, rainbow sprinkles and/or cookie crumble to our cupcakes. We did interesting designs and artwork on our cupcakes. They were so delicious. Chef Cavolo brought enough cupcakes for us to decorate a special cupcake to take home to family members too. Yummy! Happy Birthday, Joaquin! We are so glad that you are a part of our classroom community.

View more photos from today in our March 29-April 2 Photo Gallery

Monday, March 29, 2010

Insect Explorations

Welcome back from spring break! I hope that you had a restful and relaxing time with your families. Your children had lots of great stories to share from their breaks.  It was great to see all of our friends again.

The last couple week we have been busy learning about insects. We did an experiment to determine what type of habitat walking sticks preferred.  We gathered natural materials from outside such as sticks, leaves, and grass.  Then we created different habitats for the walking sticks. We hypothesized about which habitat the walking sticks would prefer. Then we observed the walking sticks’ behavior to determine in which habitat they spent more time.  If your child participated in this activity ask your little scientist to describe the results to you.

We have been going on several bug hunts to find insects and bugs.  We found several! Some students even brought in special bugs from home.  Please keep sending in interesting bugs and insects for us to examine.

We have also been discussing different homes where insects and bugs live.  We will continue to learn more about bug habitats and homes and the difference between the two.

We have been creating sketches and diagrams of our insects. This week we are learning how to use digital cameras so that we can also document our scientific discoveries through photography!

View more photos in our March 15-19 Photo Gallery

Monday, March 15, 2010

Searching for bugs

This afternoon we spent some time examining our community garden. We dug up some carrots and began discussing what preparations we need to make in order to get our garden ready for planting.  While we were exploring we found a few worms in our garden. We decided that worms are not insects since they don’t have six legs, two antenna, three body segments, or an exoskeleton.

Learning about Insects

Before we started our unit on bugs we compiled a list of things we already knew about bugs. Here’s our list:
-Some insects have antennas
-Some insects have 6 legs
-Some have stingers
-Some are poisonous
-Some crawl around and some live on flowers
-Some can camouflage
-Walking sticks blend in with wood
-We should be careful with bugs
-Some bugs call for help

We also created a class list of questions we had about insects and/or bugs. Here are our questions:
-Where do bees put their honey when they are flying around?
-Do all bugs fly?
-Why do insects need 6 legs?
-Where do bugs hide?
-Do bugs hide from bad guys?
-Where do bugs put their food?
-Why do bugs have antenna?
-What do bugs eat?
-Why do insects wake up to get food?
-How do they catch food?

We started our unit by doing some research on insects. We examined real insects and we read nonfiction texts about insects. We learned that all insects share certain characteristics. All insects have six legs, two antenna, an exoskeleton, and three body segments (head, thorax, abdomen).

We created clay sculptures of insects making sure that each had six legs, two antenna, and three body segments.

We did a demonstration and discussed how insects have a hard exoskeleton.  This is different than humans because we have our hard bones on the inside of our bodies. We used hard, plastic eggs to represent insect exoskeletons and each insect had soft internal “guts”.  The exoskeletons protect the internal organs and help keep the insects safe.

We created large and small sketches and paintings of insects.  We made sure to label the body parts on our insects.





View more photos from last week in our March 8-11 Photo Gallery

Music Making Videos

Enjoy these short video clips from last week’s music makers session.

Making Butter

Last week our buddies came to visit us! As always, we spent time enjoying special books with our buddies. It’s so great to have “big kid” role models who love to read, just like us.

We have been talking about the states of matter with our buddies for the last couple of weeks. This time we got to observe matter change from one state into another. We put cream into baby food jars and used our muscles to shake the jars for 10 minutes. We were shocked to watch the cream change from liquid into a solid: butter. We tasted the butter on fresh baked bread that our buddies brought. Yummy! Who know that science could be so tasty.

View more buddy photos in our March 8-11 Photo Gallery

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Music Makers

Today we got to have a music makers session with Ms. Shelley! We sang Ladybug, This Train, Lil’ Eliza Jane, and This Little Light. We also got to play together as a rock and roll band. Each of us played a different instrument as we rocked out!

John Michael lost his first tooth this weekend!

View more photos from today in our March 8-11 Photo Gallery

Star Wars Art

Jack, Joaquin, Ronin, and Leo worked together yesterday and today to create an intricate Star Wars scene complete with pictures and words.

We started learning about bugs this week! In the atelier we examined and held walking stick bugs. We began discussing what camoflauge means. We also started examining both insects and bugs and we are in the processes of figuring out what characterizes an insect.

John Michael’s Story

Enjoy this story written by John Michael

A little squirrel was trying to get some food.

So I wanted to help.

So I got him some food.

Then when Ms. Aja said it was snack time, there was no animal crackers.

So we went to get some more animal crackers.

Last Week Highlights

Last week flew by! We have been working on using kind words with our friends.  We have developed a close-knit community and we love the time we get to spend with our friends each day.

We have also been discussing calendar concepts. We have been talking about the months of the year and seasons. Last week we worked on creating our own March calendars. We are working on writing our numbers all the way up to 31 and beyond. We love to label important days on our own calendars, such as buddies, spring break, soccer practice, birthday parties, etc.

During morning sign-in we are working on writing our first, last, and sometimes middle names.

During small groups and circle time we have been working on addition concepts. One of our favorite ways to practice addition and subtraction facts is by playing the Sum Swamp math game with our friends.

View more photos from our March 1-5 Photo Gallery

Monday, March 01, 2010

Happy Birthday Petey

In addition to our Dr. Seuss celebration today (see previous post), we also got to celebrate Petey’s birthday today! We gave Petey a beautiful card that we made and we sang to him. We ate yummy Cheez-Its and drank orange juice and chocolate milk. Happy Birthday, Petey! We are so glad that you are a part of our classroom community.





View more photos from today in our March 1-5 Photo Gallery

Dr. Seuss Day!

It was such an exciting day at school today! Most of the whales wore their pajamas to school to celebrate Dr. Seuss Day.  Buddies from the Community School came to join in our school-wide celebration. There were five different activity centers set-up around the school.  Kinders and Preschoolers stayed in small groups with their buddies to rotate to the different activity centers every 20 minutes. In the Creative Play room our buddies read beloved Dr. Seuss books to us. We got to hear a lot of old favorites and even some Dr. Seuss stories that were new to us.

In the atelier Ms. Rachelle read Bartholomew and the Oobleck to us. Then we got to make our own oobleck by mixing corn starch, water, and green food coloring. It was fascinating to explore the properties of oobleck. Sometimes oobleck behaved like a solid and sometimes it behaved like a liquid.

In the Dolphins’ room we made green eggs and ham for snack and we decorated Dr. Seuss hats.

One of our activity centers was playing outside with our big buddies. Our last center was in the Sharks classroom. We got to play Dr. Seuss word games and a Cat in the Hat board game.

In the afternoon we got to snuggle down with blankets and pillows and watch Horton Hears a Who. 

View more photos from our celebration in our March 1-5 Photo Gallery