Yesterday we had a great day!
We started out with “Londyn LaRae said Okay” by Nicholeen Peck. The kids totally get when to jump in and say”OKAY” with me. Of course I pause a bit and look at them (tiny clues!). I want to make them a little cardstock sign that will help them remember the five steps. I need to come up with something very visual that includes the words for those that read and don’t read.
We had art time moved from it’s old time for us(10:10-10:40) to 9:30-10:00. That works great because I only have one helper during first period. So Shirlyn came in and did a great project. I was impressed with the tiny amount of cleanup for such a cool painting project!
I lost the pic, but they Shirlyn had construction paper out for them, we (adults) drizzled circles of paint on their paper (they picked the colors and the where) and then we covered the whole thing with a double layer of plastic wrap. They got to finger paint without touching the paint! It was so cool to watch the colors move around under the plastic wrap! The kids hardly got any paint on themselves at all. I think I ended up with more than they did!
After art we had snack at 10:00 - oranges and cheese sticks.
Then we used some video’s. I don’t do a lot of this, but the marshmallow self-control experiment came up when we were doing marshmallow and spaghetti architecture last week.
They wanted to watch it twice. :)
Then we watched this bee video clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT6IQx26eHk
It starts out “It’s Winnie the Poohs favorite food…” That was my first clue that it might work for their age level! :)
We have been talking so much about bees lately. I wanted them to see some real ones close up. Turns out I was lying a few weeks ago though when I told them bees communicate by dancing. They actually communicate by pheromones! Shows that I am learning and that science is progressing every day.
We headed outside after that. It was chilly, but the sun was out so none of them complained. They played on the playground for about 20 minutes at least.
Inside we needed a calm down activity before Stephanie read The Bee Tree one more time and pointed out a lot about the art. She also needed to nurse her baby first, so I pulled out the kinetic sand. We need a few more boxes of this to actually accommodate everyone. I’ll pick those up this week with my class budget money.
There was an argument over the sand between two of the youngest. Some other dissatisfactions occurred, but those were easily overcome by the gentle suggestion that those that had a lot could share with those that didn’t. They were great! Most of them handed over a bit of their sand without a second thought! Love these kids!!
We did a clean-up. Brinley (our student helper) suggested that next time we use the sand over a blanket or sheet like we would with the LEGO’s. Brilliant Brinley!! Thank you! I will bring a big white sheet for the floor next time.
When Stephanie was ready we shooed everyone over the the blankets. The boys all complained when they saw that we were going to read The Bee Tree again. We (the mentors) had already decided earlier that day that it felt like this needed to be the last time. Now that was confirmed. I told them this would be the last time and that they didn’t have to listen, just follow the reading time rule which is silence. The girls circled up, but the boys either circled and then quickly left, or didn’t circle at all. After just a few minutes each of the boys was climbing on a Karate apparatus in the far corner of the room. They were trying to whisper and be quiet, but I could tell they just needed to be outside so I asked Brinley if she would help me take them out. We quietly got their shoes and went outside. I knew that Melaina had a gross-motor animal activity that she was going to do next, but I didn’t know how long Stephanie was going to be doing the book/art lesson.
It was freezing outside. Forty-five degrees in St. George with the sun shining is usually fine for kids with jackets on to play. It’s usually fine for me. But add the wind and I am miserable. The problem was that the kids were having a blast! Two of the scholar boys that didn’t have a class right then, came out with us and all seven of them were playing playground tag games. The big boys are so great with the little ones! I was grateful. I just stood back and watched, and re-zipped jackets as they came undone. :)
The boys and I went back in 20 minutes later, about 5 minutes before class end. I felt like we all needed to be in the classroom and help with any clean-up that might be necessary, plus I just wanted to be back inside where it was warm! :)
We walked into Emma just finishing Music Time. Emma comes every day at 12:40 for music with our class. I forgot. We missed it! We also missed being about to do Melaina’s animal game. Class ended with happy kids! That was the most important!
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Debrief
What went well:
- We had enough good to high quality activities for them.
- They are learning the five steps from Londyn LaRae (their parents need to know about this and since our Yahoo Group is not completed yet I haven’t sent anything out.)
- The quilt and open sleeping bag that we use for circle time are an important piece since our classroom is all hard floor.
- Moving art to first period was a great idea! It gave us more time second period when I have more assistants to help with more activities.
- moving art made snack time at 10 am which seemed more natural.
- They loved the movies and wanted to watch the marshmallow one twice.
- switching classrooms so that the younger kids could come into our (hardwood floor) classroom for painting worked pretty well since we don’t have a flatscreen in our room and they do.
- They loved the kinetic sand. It was a good transition activity. All inclusive, just pull it out and it’s ready. We are going to get two more packages of it and just keep it in our bucket all semester.
- The girls were very engaged in the circle time with the book/art. It was great for them.
- The boys needed and got adequate outside time. We saw their needs and fulfilled!
What didn’t go well:
- I did wish I had one more mom during the first period. I told the group that we might be changing things at the month switch so that we stay in the same classroom for the whole time (I requested this from Amy). It will make transitions with the kids easier. We will be able to read them better, each of the mentors will know what their day looks like as a whole instead of walking in the middle of it and wondering what happened last period. (Our class of core kids shouldn’t have periods, we need more continuity.)
- Need more kinetic sand/playdough stuff.
- We didn’t have any coloring pages for reading time today.
- We will only do books for two weeks in a row from now on, not three.
- Child “A” lost his temper with the Kinetic Sand and tried to kick child “B” in the face. He missed, and we grabbed him at about the same time (around the waist, not pulling by the arm. I just sweep him up by the waist when he needs to be removed because he can’t calm down fast enough to listen to my voice and stop what he is doing.) Have I said yet that we need more Kinetic Sand????
- Cleanup for the sand needs a sheet.
- We are still questioning the latter circle time with the book/art. Would it have worked better if we had not gone outside first? Was it just the fact that we had read the book two days already? We are going to try another book next week. We will also pay attention to the flow of being outside in the middle and see if that is really too disruptive or not.
- We are going to try to break up snack and have something small at 10 and something else during the latter book time. Eating something like a cheese stick during story will help them be busy.
What are we going to do next week? The Duchess Bakes a Cake
Assignments:
- Raquel - two small snacks
- Brenda - Duchess Bakes a Cake
- coloring pages
- Kinetic Sand
- flour and cornstarch mixture
- 3 cups of corn starch
- 1.5 cups of cold water
- 6 cups of flour
- Mix the cornstarch into the cold water until smooth(ish). Add one cup of the flour and mix in. Repeat until all of the flour is added to the mixture.
- Flour and baby oil - http://happyhooligans.ca/cloud-dough/
- Melaina’s animal activity (gross motor)
- Stephanie - Read “Duchess” book/have Art discussion
Proposed Order (of course this depends on the kids’ mood):
Story time
Art time
Small snack
Animal Activity
Stephanie’s read/art (small snack during this time)
Outside
Music
Fill in with Kinetic Sand/cloud dough and red light blue light etc where needed.
I am going to ask Melaina if she can do coloring pages that have to do with cake or Duchess’s or something. Hard topic for coloring pages I’ll admit. The kids also like the coloring pages that are just geometric designs. Maybe something that is a castle scene with swords and knights. The boys would like something like that.
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