Jan 14th 2009

Today we had soooo much fun!

Circle time: We started by singing our "Good Morning Song" then finding the date and saying the days of the week in English and Spanish. Then we went outside and said the Pledge of Allegiance. Our Word of the Day was patient. I asked them if they already knew what it meant and Lorien said "It means to hold your horses!" How cute was that! So I gave them the right deffinition. The Spanish word was Pensar which means To Think. It was much harder to get them to remember that one. They still remember Paloma. Then I had them go get their show and tell items. Darius showed us his Pen, it was huge! Lorien showed us a pacifier we found in the car. We forgot to bring her puppy! She told us that she used to suck on a pacifier and Vanessa just plays with pacifiers.

Reading and Writing: They read and wrote the words, Peel, Pen, Pest, Pet, Petal, Pig, and Pink. And for homework I gave them, Plant, Play, Plus, Polar, Pray and Press. Lorien did it as soon as we got home. I forgot to ask Darius if he had finished his!

Free Art: I got out the paints, paper, siccors, glue and markers. Lorien wanted to paint (I left her painting at Farah's house!) Darius made a baby and mommy picture that he cut out and glued together (which was left on the back of the sink!). Then I cut out some Pentagons and we talked about themf or a while. I asked them if they would like to make a pentagon neighborhood. Lorien dicided she wanted to, but Darius wanted to look at the Hermies and play the balance thingy (Digger). Lorien made one of her houses her Grandma's and one her Cousin Jaden's house.

Math: I gathered up the square and triangle magna blocks and asked them to each make piles of certain numbers and we sould count them together. Some equations include, 4 plus 3, 9 plus 7, 2 plus 3, 5 plus 5, and so on. Darius loved it! Lorien thought it would be hard until she realized we were just counting them all up after making the piles. She hasn't grasped the concept of counting in her head. Darius can count in his head quite proficiently.

Craft: We made puppets today! I brought socks for them and they picked out hair (yarn) and eyes (buttons). I sewed them on for them and glued in cardboard for the mouth. They tried them out.

Science: I went online and opened an e-mail I had recieved with pictures from National Geographic. We talked about all the cool things on our Planet Earth. The animals, the trees, the Ocean (Especially the Pacific) and the Volcanoes. There was so much more we could have talked about! We'll talk more about it when we get into Solar Systems! Yeah!

Reading: Phantom of the Prairie, Year of the Black-footed Ferret by Jonathan London Illustrated by Barbara Bash (Had some hard truths that could have been a little disturbing, but went over the kids heads, that or they understand that animals kill each other in the wilderness to eat!), Widget and the Puppy by Lyn Rossiter McFarland pictures by Jim McFarland, The Bears' Picnic by Stan and Jan Berenstain.

Closing Circle: We had our puppet show. We didn't plan anything so Darius' puppet decided to eat Lorien's puppet. They told us their names and had fun just goofing off on the "stage". We'll have to explore puppet shows in more detail later. . .