I Had a Little Turtle

Happy Thursday! Today we continued to talk about pond turtles. Our story was Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss. The children were excited to read another story by Dr. Seuss after discovering many of his wonderful stories before spring break.

We visited our final center for the week. Ask your child which center he/she visited today.

The first center listened to the story Splash! and helped to count how many animals were in the pond on each page. Then the children pretended to be frogs and hopped around the lily pads to collect pond animals. We sorted them, counted them, and talked about the quantities, using words like more, less, and the same.

The second center made suncatcher turtles. They continued to talk and reinforce the importance of a turtle's shell while working.

The third center sorted animals by whether they live in the ocean or the pond. Then they made green and gold glitter Gg's for their alphabet books.

Then we played.

This week the children were introduced to the nursery rhyme "I Had a Little Turtle." This nursery rhyme is traditionally one that the children struggle with, but it is an important one that they need to know. We made our own turtle finger puppets and used them to act out the nursery rhyme. When your child brings his/her turtle finger puppet home, see if he/she can use it to tell you the nursery rhyme. If your child struggles, say the nursery rhyme and leave out words. See if your child can fill in the words that you leave out.

The morning session ended the day with their party for earning 5 class BEAK awards. They were able to bring their blankets onto the carpet and enjoy popcorn while watching part of a movie. Congratulations to the morning session on their respectful behavior in the hallway and at the bathrooms! Keep up the good work!

The afternoon session listened to the story Turtle Splash!, which is a turtle counting story. They also enjoyed Scoot!, which is a story that introduces more animals that live in and around the pond.

The afternoon session also did the counting jar today. We counted chocolate kisses.

Next week will be a little different. Ms. Anschutz will be planning and leading the activities in the morning session for the entire week. Therefore, the activities in the morning session will vary from the activities in the afternoon session, but the children will still be learning about the same topic and covering skills that each group needs to work on. I will post two separate posts each night next week. One post will be for the AM session and the other post will be for the PM session. This is only for one week. Then we will resume back to "normal."

Enjoy the weekend!