Fire and Sand

Today we worked in our science center, scooping and pouring sand. We counted how many scoops it took to fill containers. We also explored in the sand and found treasure! In the big toys center we created structures with cardboard blocks for our firetrucks. We also cut a zig zag at the top of our "fire" paper. It looks so hot!!!

Fire Fighter Visitor!

Today we had a very special guest. One of our student's dad is a real fire fighter and he visited our classroom today. He told us a lot about fire fighters, let us check out his uniform (gosh, it has lots of pockets!), told us about his tools, and let us try on his jacket, hat and mask. He even went outside with us when we had a fire drill today. Thanks, Fire Fighter Chad!!!!

We also continued working on our dalmatians by cutting them out. Look for them to be in the hallway with our firetruck someday soon.

Snow in Austin!!

We played and played and played!

Fire, Fire Engine, and Hearts!

Check out our firetruck, it's hanging in the hallway! We created fire today by painting long strokes, top to bottom, with yellow, orange, and red. We also finished up the last of our heart shapes (also now in the hallway) and played in our "fire station". We made time for play in the snow!!! So exciting!!! See my next post for pictures!

Fun Firetruck Friday!

In morning centers we worked with cups. Some were plain white and some had hearts on them (our shape of the month!). We stacked them, compared them, counted them, put things in and under them, and even created bunnies!

We completed our firetruck today! We created a ladder by cutting lots of rectangles (two of them were really long) and gluing them together. We also added little oval shapes and pretended they were gauges, and square shapes to make lights. We took long strips of black paper and twisted it to created a hose. Look for our firetruck to be hung in the hallway by Monday after all the glue has dried.

This afternoon we managed some running on the track and playground time when it wasn't raining.

Have a great weekend!!!

Chinese New Year

We had a special visitor today at Zilker. It was a Lion Dragon!!! We all went to the cafeteria and saw an amazing performance.

We worked with Jabo and Julie in our Pre-K garden. Each of us planted a green onion. We talked about the roots, dug holes, put the onions in, then filled the hole back in with dirt. We watered them so they'd grow.

Back in our room we had just enough time to cut our pictures out and put them on the fire truck we've been making.

Whew! What a great day!

Our Fire Station

Today we drew and cut circles to make our fire truck wheels. We also worked in the home center (AKA the fire station) answering 911 calls and putting out fires.

Next week we'll have a real fire fighter visit our classroom!!!!

My intern, Ms. Leigh, will be taking over my classroom bit by bit as she nears her "total teach". Expect her to be taking on more teaching roles, and feel free to talk with her about anything you would have talked with me about. If you see me sitting at my laptop quietly typing, I'm observing her.

Fire Fighters!

We are fire fighters! We kicked off our community helpers unit this morning by finger painting a HUGE fire truck. We'll be adding features to the truck all week. In our home center we have a fire station. Today we got ready to go put out fires by putting on all our fire fighter clothes. We'll continue working on the color red and the heart shape as well.

Hearts!

We continued working on the heart shape today. We painted hearts with our hands and then we cleaned the table with shaving cream. During Handwriting Without Tears we created Mat Man. His body is the shape of the month!

A couple more pictures...couldn't resist.

We love hearts and shaving cream!

Today we continued our work with the heart shape. We worked with heart-shaped cookie cutters in shaving cream. We felt the way the heart shape curved at the top and came to a point at the bottom. Please check out our other heart work in the hallway. We have an enormous stuffed red heart and our Valentine's Day heart pouches.

Snowman and This Week

We wrapped up our snowman unit today, finishing our HUGE classroom snowman. He's fabulous!

This month we'll be studying community helpers, hearts, the color red, and many other concepts. We will be creating Valentine's Day pouches in the classroom. On Valentine's Day we'll do a Valentine exchange. If your child would like to bring Valentines to school on the 12th, that would be great. I have some old packages of Valentine cards if anyone needs them.

Our favorite "red" community helper is the fire fighter. We're lucky to have one of our parents who actual is one! He'll be visiting us sometime late this month.