Week 4- Papa Piccolo - Pet Care and Sardine Charts

Another great week spent learning about Papa Piccolo, the tomcat turned papa. Last week we were left hanging when the kittens accidentally ran away on a taxi gondola. Well, the friendly gondolier found them and brought them back to Piccolo! Upon their return Piccolo decided to name the kittens Marco and Polo! It was a happy reunion and Piccolo gladly gave up his bachelor life to raise and teach the kittens everything they needed to know. He even taught them to eat spaghetti?!?
We discussed how to take care of kittens. We discovered they need A LOT of the same things we need. They need to stay with their mom when they are young (Julian proclaimed that HE is staying with his mom until she dies!), they need love and cuddles, food, toys, comfortable beds, shelter, collars (we don't need these), and they also need to be told when they do something wrong.
After our stimulating conversation we made a graph with rainbow goldfish. We figured out which color of goldfish we had the most and least of with a little charting exercise.
And those who brought special friends to class introduced them before class was over. We met Dog, Duckie, Kai, Intrepid and a Transformer. It was great to see all these great "pets."

Next week we will be PAINTING!! So please don't come all decked out in fancy clothes.

Also, on February 12th we are going to have a Valentine's Day party. We are working on valentine pouches to use in our exchanging of cards. We would LOVE for all the kids to participate in the exchange!
Below is the class list:

Lily
Damsel
J.J.
Daniel
Eli
Julian
Naomi
Tayler
Parley
Josh
Vivian

I believe there is a field trip for the Rescue Heroes class that same day, so I will leave it up to you whether or not you want your child to participate in the card exchange if they will be on the field trip. I will gladly deliver their pouch of Valentines when they return.

THANK YOU!!! Your children are fabulous!

Sent from my iPad

Week 3- Papa Piccolo

Animals were on the agenda today. After the super amazing visit from Jumbo Jet and Scooter (and Kathleen), we headed to class and started reading our new book, Papa Piccolo. The book is about a carefree tomcat named Piccolo. He stumbles onto a box of kittens! They turn his life upside down! I don't want to give anything away because we weren't able to finish the book in class. Next week, we will see if Piccolo can find the poor little kittens.
We are also going to talk about how to take care of pets. So please have your child bring their favorite stuffed animal to class.
Thank you!!

Scooter the armadillo

Week 2 - Never Eat Soggy Waffles

Week two with our book, Katy and the Big Snow, took us into studying the compass. In the story, Katy shovels snow to the north, east, west and east. She was an extremely hard working snow shovel!
We identified N, S, W, and E on our own copy of a compass and learned that the phrase "Never eat soggy waffles" will help us remember the order they go in.
We each looked at our own map of the beautiful city of Port Orchard. We put stickers on the compass and then took a close look at the legend. We identified each symbol in the legend and marked map sites with more stickers. We found some excellent spots for camping and using the restroom!
We then put our compass skills to test and went on a little treasure hunt outside our school building. We went north, south, west, and east!!(all with the help of our compass!)
We found a treasure of cookies!!
With our few remaining minutes we each chose a mini car or truck and tried to build it a snowplow out of clay. Even some convertibles got snow plows:)!

Next week, we head to Italy (oh I wish) in our book, Papa Piccolo! It's a good one:)!!

Week 1- Katy and the Big Snow

We had a great start to the new semester with the book Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton.  The story takes us to the make believe city of Geopolis.  The city is hit with snow and more snow!!  Katy, the tractor, saves the day with her snow shovel.  

We talked about character, setting and personification.  This is the second book we have read by this author.  She likes to use personification.  We sure enjoy it!

We had a fun discussion about community helpers and their jobs.  We learned a couple of our classmates want to be police officers.

We then went over traffic signs and what they mean.  These kids are so smart and so close to passing the driving test!

Lastly, we created our own city.  Everyone was responsible for a block of our city.  We created jails, police stations, parking lots, hospitals, swimming pools, and much more.

When we finished our city we were surprised with a huge storm of cotton balls (snow)!  Katy came to our rescue and we set about rebuilding our city after the snow clean up.

Next week, we will talk about maps and compasses, and maybe go on a little treasure hunt.

Sent from my iPhone