We welcome Brandon Cruz to our afternoon class. He made himself comfortable right away, building with legos and playing games of Guess Who. The other children welcomed him warmly and we are so excited to have him! 

      We started celebrating The Person of the Week on Monday. We decided to assign our person of the week alphabetically by last name. Our person of the week will enjoy the privilege of being the line leader. Each Monday all the children will also make a page that will be collected into a Special Person of the Week Book. Children not only draw a picture, but they also write their own names at the bottom of the page and try writing the name of the featured person. The Person of the Week will also dictate the information for their All About Me poster, which will be shared with the group on Fridays along with the finished book.

      This week we celebrated Cleo Hahn as our Person of the Week. Cleo is a wonderfully outgoing and friendly person. She is 4 ¾, loves flowers, peanut butter and jelly, and the color red. If given three wishes, she would love to swing from tree to tree, to go down a water slide, and to teach a snail to talk! We really enjoyed getting to know Cleo better this week.

      Next week, we will be learning more about Kyan Hinderlie!  

      This Week in Review: 

Monday, January 11, 2010 

Today we talked about the habitats of Polar Animals. The children did such a great job remembering the animals we’ve already covered! We looked at pictures of animals and the children called out characteristics of their habitats. 

We read Brrr! A Book of Polar Animals and Crinkleroots’ Guide to Animal Habitats. 

Sharing today was interesting because of the children who shared today brought in books that started with our letter of the week “N”. Jack Twining Freeman brought in Night Pirates, Maggie Nordean brought in Fancy Nancy, and Cleo Hahn brought in a book called Nellie. The children so enjoy reading books that their peers bring to share!  
 
 
 
 

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 

Whales were the topic today. During circle time, Erin talked to the children about different types of arctic whales and how they eat. Whales are divided into two groups based on presence of absence of baleen. There are Baleen whales (skimmers) and toothed whales (biters). Baleen whales strain the water with comb-like baleen that are in their mouths instead of teeth. Some examples are the Blue whale and Humpback whales. Toothed whales, such as sperm whales, belugas, and orcas, use their teeth to capture, bite and swallow their food.  

Erin demonstrated the difference between the two types of whales by putting some Marjoram into a bowl of water and using a comb to skim the herb off the water. This is how the Baleen whales skim krill out of the water. She had another bowl of water with foam fish floating in it. The children were invited to use chopsticks to “fish” the fish out, showing the difference between how the two types of whales get their food.  

After the demonstration during circle time, the activity was made available to all the children in the sensory table. They really enjoyed this activity! 

Today we read (and sang) Baby Beluga, and Polar Life. 

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 

Today we continued our talk of Polar Animals. The children are really taking in all the information!  

We read Penguin Pete’s New Friends and Beluga Passage.  

For our art project today, we sprinkled powdered tempera paint on a piece of construction paper and gave each child an ice cube. As they children rubbed the ice cubes across the paint, the ice cube melted, smearing paint across the page. It was a total surprise to the kids and they loved mixing colors to see what new colors they could make!  

Thursday, January 14, 2010  

Today the kids experimented with the penguin matching cards and loved having their faces painted as seals or walruses!  

During circle time, the children remembered as many polar animals as they could and we wrote them down. We then took a vote based on their favorite polar animals. Although the kids didn’t totally understand the concept of “one vote”, we came to a consensus! Penguins and polar bears are by far our favorite polar animals! The children have learned so much about these animals and would love to share it with you, I’m sure!  
 
 

Friday, January 15, 2010 

It was rainy, rainy, rainy! We missed our chance to go outside in the afternoon so we played a game of alphabet bingo. The children did great, and we especially loved watching the children help each other figure out the sounds and letters being called. Our group really cares for each other and it’s so touching!  

Today we felt the kids had spent enough time with polar animals and got lots of silly books from the library. Throughout the day, we read Zathura, Super-Completely and Totally the Messiest, and Little Rabbits Loose Tooth. The last book was brought in for us by Cleo, who has her first loose tooth! It’s so fun to be around for these big moments in the children’s lives.  

Today was also free art day. This was perhaps brought on by Erin cleaning out our closet, and the kids could not have been happier. They just love when you put a whole bunch of random things on a table and tell them to go nuts! They immediately went for making crowns and I’m sure a lot of you saw the end results. We love their creativity!