Wild Animals! Roaaaar!

Hi everyone! I hope that you all have had an amazing week!  We have been very busy this week talking about wild animals.  On Monday we talked about animals that live at the zoo and in the jungle.  Cherokee and Magdalen showed them pictures of a few wild animals and then they painted pictures using painter's tape to make stripes like a zebra!  When their paintings were dry we were able to pull the tape off and look at the cool designs they made.

On Tuesday we read the book, "Wild Animals Touch and Feel"!  The students really like this book because it allows them to use their sense of touch to explore the book in a different way.  Lately, they have been really excited about these types of books.  We talked about the different types of food that the animals like to eat and practiced peeling our bananas like a monkey.  We also practiced our monkey sounds and actions.  Finn and Naomi have been having some playdates in our class this week and should be starting full time any day now!  We are so excited for them to be a part of our group!

On Wednesday we sang about a trip to the zoo.  We talked about all of the different animals we would see at the zoo.  In addition, we made masks using feathers.  It was nice because we got to sit outside and enjoy the lovely weather while we worked on our project.  The students liked working with glue and also playing with the feathers.  It was also really fun because this was part 1 of a 2 day project.  We got to incorporate this into our Thursday activity.  

Thursday we had such beautiful weather in the morning that we stayed outside just a little bit longer than usual.  During circle time we read a few of our animal books and practiced our animal sounds and poses.  We talked about birds and how they fly in the sky.  They got to try on their masks and make silly faces at their friends.  We tried our best to poke eye holes for them to peek through, but we're not sure how well they could see out of them haha.  They still had a good laugh about it anyway.  We also sang a new song that Cherokee taught us!  Our friend Naomi has been practicing some playdates in our class this week also, and I wanted to highlight her putting her circle time mat away! Way to go Nomes! 

Happy Friday!  Today we did our regular Friday gig dance party!  We almost had a full group today! How exciting!  It's nice to have more friends for us to play with; fall has been all about meeting new friends and welcoming them to our room!  

This week we also started working with our Montessori materials.  This is very exciting for us and for the students.  This is such a valuable time in their life to learn and grow and it's so nice that we can be there to aid in that process.  The Montessori works are simple structures which focus on different areas of brain development.  Each morning we will be introducing a new work and allowing the students to try and master it.  We began this week by allowing one student at a time to come to the table and practice a work of their interest.  Everyone has shown so much intelligence!  It's amazing to see what they can do!  

Next week our theme is focusing on pets!  Please bring in a photo of a pet that you have at home or maybe even a neighbor has that your child may be familiar with!  We will be checking out a few pets that we have at school, and maybe even meeting some pets of the teachers.  

Reminder: Green Sprout will be closed on Monday, but there will be a Parent's Day hosted by Lizzie and myself.  If you would like to sign up please text me.

Have a great 3 day weekend!

xoxo
Sandy