Plants & Gardening

What a fun week learning about the parts of plants, the life cycle of a plants, and what plants provide to us! We continued working on numbers 0-10 and ordinals...along with the letter Zz!

Thursday...
After reading a wonderful story by Eric Carle, "The Tiny Seed" We made some special food for our flying friends...

After adding gelatin, corn syrup, flour, and water we add the birdseed...

Mix...mix...mix!!

We had to then press the seed mixture into cookie cutters to make some pretty shapes!

These turned out so cool! Here is the recipe...I had many asking for it! It is simple, fun, and super cute!
http://www.saltwater-kids.com/2010/12/thrifty-gifts-bird-seed-ornaments-for.html

Independent Zz dot sheet! Great job sweet girl!

Next we learned about all the parts of a flower! But first we had to make it beautiful!

Learning can be so much fun!
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/84794405460918608/

Sweet friends!

I forgot to take more pictures of this activity...but we planted grass seed...The kiddos will get to watch it grow and water it! We talked about what a plant needs to grow: soil, water, sun...and seeds of course!

Friday...

Sweet Gumby! The adventures he is having are priceless memories!

They are great at sharing their experiences!

Time for a little bit of paint! Ok...lots of paint!

These 2 sweet buddies working together...that is beautiful in itself!!

After we painted to talked about the parts of plants and found them on this flower we got to plant. We also talked about what they needed to do at home to keep their beautiful flower alive!

Such beautiful items to take home to you!

Zz is for zippers...let's have zip the zipper races!

Everyone is a winner!

Talking about ordinals...and the life cycle of a plant. 

Hard at work! Don't worry...those are my scissors! They didn't use them!

Perfection! And his work is pretty good too!

Nope...you can't have a week without me sharing a fine motor task! This zebra needs stripes...but they have to tear the paper to make stripes. The smaller pieces they tear the harder it is! Their sweet fingers have gotten so strong since the beginning of the year! I am not sure if you remember...but at the beginning of the year the kiddos had so much trouble tearing paper...well...not anymore! I didn't assist any sweet kiddo!

Check out these zebras!!

This sweet face sums up our week! It was wonderful and fun! 

 Wow...I can't believe that this year is almost complete! We continue to LOVE school...and have so much fun! They have made so many friends and grown in so many ways!! Next week...Derby week and horses!

Pond and the circle of life!

Ask your kiddos the life cycle of the frog...and I am positive they will be able to tell you each stage! I was lucky enough to find giant bullfrog tadpoles in our pond and share them with these sweet kiddos! Mrs. Trina wasn't thrilled...but they were pretty cool! We continue to review numbers 0-10. I also introduced the letter Qq this week ...it is a tricky one...we also learned that U is its best friend!

Thursday:

Poor Gumby...he is exhausted! He had a slumber party with 17 girls! He sure did seemed tuckered out after that week!
Also...I now have 2 Gumby's floating around! I did the math and we had 6 kiddos who hadn't had Gumby...and only 4 weeks left! 

We read this wonderful and kind story with a great moral! "You can do anything you put your mind to!" So of course we then had to make our very own, Frankie Frog!

Just look at that intense face! This is an artist in deep thought!

The life cycle of a duck...which came first the duck or the egg??

pond creatures with tangrams! 

Adding frogs to our lily pads! This was tricky for some...We are really working on that 1:1 counting! You can practice this at home by incorporating setting the table for dinner! A fun way to make learning count!

She has her thinking cap on! So smart sweet girl!

Last week I mentioned having the kiddos trace their names...This will help them make the letters correctly...and work on Left to right writing. Write it in yellow marker and have them trace it! And just LOOK at this amazing pencil grip!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrXww4oZrsI

A bullfrog tadpole!

 Friday:

We examined some cattails! 

Sweet girl!

Making some Monet lilies for our lily pad!

These turned out so awesome! Check them out in the hallway!

We can't get enough of these water colors!

Great scissor grip buddy!

Putting the life cycle stages of a frog in order and talking about ordinal numbers (first, second, third, and fourth)!

She rocked this activity!
I am putting this in their portfolios for their cutting sample!

Imitation webbed feet! Why do some animals have webbed feet...we are going to find out!

first up!

We discovered that the "webbed" feet help animals like ducks swim better and faster! The baggie works like webbed feet and allows their hand to move through the water smoothly.

Another fun life cycle activity. We made life cycle wheels. 

We turned this science lesson into a math lesson too. We talked about ordinal numbers (first, second, third, and fourth)...we had to identify and locate the number on the wheel before we glued down our stage.

                                        

                                                            The kiddos were very proud...they loved the way the wheel turned!