Dd is for Dragons

This week, we talked about dragons, the letter Dd, the number 6, the color purple, and diamond shapes.  We also finished reading our second Bob Book, by Bobby Lynn Maslen.  Some children are catching on to how letters fit together to make words!  The other children are getting exposure, which sets them up for the future of learning to read.

Here are the children pretending to be dragons:

 

 

For centers, this week, the children drew a picture of what lives inside of the illustrated sand castle.  Then they had to tell an adult what they drew.  The adult then writes what they said at the bottom of the paper.  This is a part of early reading: the children see how their ideas and thought are translated into the letter symbols called words and (a) sentence(s).  The children also played with a castle, knights, a king, a queen, knights' horses, two dragons, and blocks to build walls or dragon perches.  I found that when the blocks were a part of the center that some children just played with the blocks and the others played just with the castle and characters.  We tried to encourage them to use their imagination and pretend.  I decided to take the blocks out of the play area and immediately, the children began to pretend!  It was like the blocks were a huge distraction for those itching to build!  It was amazing!  The third center was to practice cutting.

For art, the M/W/F class made dragon fire balls!  Their tool was a stocking sock stuffed with sand.  The sand ball was soaked in water and then dipped in paint.  The children took their sand ball and dropped it from a high distance onto their paper.  We did this outside in three small groups.  It didn't splatter the way I hoped it would, but that's okay, because the children seemed to enjoy it.  Next time, I'll add water to the paint.  The Tu/Th class were able to freely paint with water colors.  We'll keep using water colors for a while.  The repetition will develop expert water color painters.

The M/W/F started a new skit - "The Three Billy Goat's Gruff".  

On Friday, one group did math (matching numbers to a group of the same matching number of bugs) and the other group did science (motion).  When we have another three day week, the groups will switch so that one group does the activity they didn't get to do this week.

During one class' outside playtime, my 8 year old son's "Flat Stanley" was able to join in on the fun:

This week, we had a birthday celebration!

He's passing out goody bags and everyone is practicing good manners: "Thank you" and "You're welcome"!

That same class was able to release our last butterfly!

Does anyone see it?  I think it's that tan blur in front of the pine tree.

Here's one of our students wearing his Batman mask while reading a book during library time:

Next week is our review week along with our Halloween theme and field trips to the pumpkin patch and dairy farm!

*After reading this blog, you can click on a photo and then scroll through all of the photos in a bigger format, which give an up close view.