All Things Egg Related

The past two weeks have been EGGciting!  Sorry, couldn't resist.  We have been focusing on oviparous animals and all things egg related!  We started our week off sorting various animals into the categories of oviparous and not oviparous.  I love watching the kids trying to figure out what does or does not lay eggs.  After we finish our graph we read the book, Chickens Aren't the Only Ones and change any animals we miscategorized over to their correct category.  Most of our week was spent discussing different oviparous animals.  We read the book, The Chick and the Duckling and created a venn diagram comparing these two animals. I was very neglectful that week and did not take any pictures!  I did take some cute pics of some of our egg related activities this week.

We made bird nests

The kiddos had to bring in an egg with a secret item in it.  The only rule is that is had to fit in the egg.  They gave four clues and let the other kids guess what was in their egg.  They did a great job with their clues!

The kiddos were challenged to bring in a hard boiled egg without it cracking.  Many of the kids got very creative.  One little guy even had his wrapped in styrofoam type paper, bubble wrap and then in more styrofoam!  We also painted our eggs.

  

We used these bags during our egg hunt.  The rules of the hunt were: you can only find 5 eggs and You have to collect the eggs in order. (they were numbered 1-5).  The kids had a great time.  I wish I could show pics, but I didn't get any that didn't show their faces! The chicks and ducks on the wall behind were made to go with our venn diagram comparing the two.

We also taste tested jelly beans, had several jelly bean stations and graphed jelly beans and so much more!  Once again I forgot to take pictures!  Can you tell my brain is on end-of-year overload?  I think we only have 25 days to go!

Alligator Bite?

I have a little kiddo in my room.  He is full of life and very dramatic.  He came in this past week with a large scrape near his mouth.  It was bruised and a little puffy.  I said, "Oh, R.  What happened?"  He proceeded to tell me that he had been looking for mushrooms with his dad in the wood and had gotten whacked by a branch.  I gave him a little sympathy and we went on with our day.  A couple of hours later I sent the kiddos off to lunch.  About 10 minutes later I am walking thru the office and I see R. sitting in the nurses office, patiently waiting his turn.  I said, "R, what's wrong?"  He looked at me, then at the nurse, and said (serious as a heart attack) " Well, you know I got bit by an alligator this weekend and I had to see the nurse."  The nurse got choked up trying not to laugh, and I barely got him back to the cafeteria before I bust a gut!  Another example of why I do what I do!

Focus Walls, Leprechauns and other Randomness

The past two weeks have been so busy!  I'm sure many of you can agree that things get busy in Spring!  I do believe there were several nights we ate dinner about the time the kids should have been getting into bed!  That's what I get for having all four of them involved in softball or baseball! Anyway,  I have several things from the past few weeks to share.  I'll start with our leprechauns.  I can't remember who posted these cute as a button little guys but I had to put them in my art station (center).  If any of you can remember who had this idea please post below!  The kiddos did a great job creating theirs - mostly unassisted too!

I also got out our phonics phones.  I have had these for years and always forget to get them out.  It has been a lot quieter in my reading corner lately!

We have been studying the life cycle of butterflies and frogs.  Here a few of our projects:

I often fill in the gaps around our word wall words with our projects.

We mixed yellow and blue to make the green for our frogs.  I love the variety of greens it gave us!

I also took some pictures of my "spotlight" walls.  These are my version of a focus wall.  Instead of one focus wall with all of our info. on it, I split it into several.  (I have a polka-dot/spot theme in my room - that is where the spotlight part came from) I thought I might have bitten off more than I could chew - but the kids love it!  Now I wish I had been doing this from the beginning of the year.  They help me make examples to go on each board and help me remember to change them to our next topic.  It has been neat to see them take ownership of these.  Here are some pics:

Our theme wall: this has been a favorite to add info. too!

Our language wall lists any words, letters etc.. we are working on.  I've seen the kiddos referring to it often!

writing wall

A close-up of our writing wall.

I should have waited and taken a picture of this after we created examples of symmetrical shapes to go with it! Oh Well!  Hind sight!

We'll keep adding to this one!

 That's it for now!  Hopefully this week will calm down a bit - but I won't hold my breath!