Sidewalk paintings

On hot days, one of our favorite activities is painting the sidewalks with water. The students are fascinated with their evaporating artwork.

Our Trip to the Pumpkin Patch Part 2

After all our fun at the park, we loaded back into the bus and headed to the pumpkin patch.

We followed our nice guide through the corn maze and over to a spot where we learned all about how pumpkins are grown.
Did you know there are male and female pumpkin flowers?

We were all enthralled.

It was a great day!


If you would like a picture of your child with his or her pumpkin at the patch, just leave a comment or send me an email at nbergenske@yahoo.com and I will send it on to you.

Our Trip to the Pumpkin Patch Part 1

On October 9, we took our first field trip to the pumpkin patch. We started out at the park where we ate lunch, then played.


Playing on the rocking thingy.

The monkey bars are always a favorite.


And the slides...



Climbing...

Digging...

And waiting in line.

Getting Ready

I am trying to prepare myself for the new school year. Here is a list of priorities...
1. Make sure classroom is clean and organized.... with all excess piles of "stuff" cleared away.
2. Put together and label items for students: cubbies, tool kits, seating arrangements, etc.
3. Get "Back to School" bulletin board ready.
4. Learn more about new Language Arts curriculum.... especially phonics component.
5. Figure out if any changes will need to be made to my schedule to effectively use new language arts program and also more "Words Their Way" activities. Print out new lesson plan pages if necessary.
6. Get "RESULTS" assessment binder prepared.
7. Choose first 2 weeks theme... will we do "Bearly Beginning" again or should we change?
8. Try to figure out how to more effectively use the yucky old Math Program we adopted.
9. Buy the new stuff you need, but make sure to get reimbursed right away before budgets are frozen or eliminated.
10. Look at FOSS science and see where the unit on "Trees to Paper" will fit with new Language Arts curriculum.

Snail Week

Near the end of school we have snail week. We collect enough small margarine tubs for each child to have a snail and a snail house to keep it in. We oberve, feed and clean up after our snails daily. We make paper snails, and do drawings of snails. We also do some math using our snails... we estimated height, length and weight then calculated the actual height, weight and length. We had a snail curcus where we found out if our snail could hang upside down, walk a "tightrope" (pencil), go over spikes (on a fork), crawl through a tunnel (toilet paper tube) and go over sand paper. On Friday, we had snail races. We made visors and banners to cheer on our racers. There were 4 heats with 4-5 students in each heat. The snails started in the middle of the track then moved to the outer circle. I gave a ribbon to each child saying "Congratulations! Your snail earned 1st (or 2nd-5th) in the race! It was a fabulous week!

Getting Ready for Butterflies

So next week we will be diving into learning about other insects. One of my favorite art projects are these stained glass butterflies. An adult traces the outline of the butterfly on 2 12x18 inch pieces of black paper, then cuts out the inside shapes. The students use starch to adhere strips of tissue onto wax paper, then glue the butterfly pieces onto the outside of it. An adult cuts the completed butterflies out when they are dry. I know it is heavy on the adult work, but they look beautiful in the windows!

Bees

In May we enjoy a funfilled insct unit. My favorite week of the unit is when we study bees. GEMS has a FABULOUS unit on bees called "Buzzing a Hive." It is really hands on and interactive, and makes a nice change for us in spring when we are all feeling a little wiggly. The first lesson is to make a paper bee with all the correct parts. We look at real, dead bees and a poster of a bee and then set out to make our bees together. Another day we make paper flowers with stamen that have pollen on them after we have used cotton balls to find pollen in real flowers. Later in the week we make cells for our big hive with things in them you would find in a real bee hive. I use soybeans for an egg, a white pipe cleaner for larvae, waxed paper for wax, yellow powdered tempura for pollen and yellow paint for honey. More in the writing and art area coming soon!