Week 17: Letter Hh, star word 'a', snow~real and fake!

First, the BIG NEWS

in case you didn't see the previous post....

I am a grandma again!

My oldest daughter Shae gave birth to

Calla Lucile Tilson

on Thursday, December 27 at 11:52

In Indianapolis!

I was lucky enough to be able to drive to Indy during 

Christmas break for 4 days.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this little family!

So we are all back now...ready to learn!

Here we are with our Happy 2013 chart...

Some of the books we read this short week:

   

  

As you can see, our themes were snow and mittens.

We did a few "mad scientist" experiments with fake snow.

It is a cool polymer that expands to look and feel like

real snow...except it doesn't melt or feel too cold!

 We also grew some crystals

 as we discovered that real snow was actually made up of  

6 sided crystals.  Cool!

We learned how to cut out our own

6 sided snowflakes!  What fun!

Of course we had to bring in some real snow

to see how quickly it would melt.

Most of our predictions were for it to melt 

quickly or at least by the end of the day...but guess what?

Some of the snow was still not melted the NEXT day!

How "cool" is that?

We had fun graphing what we wore on our hands.

Looks like GLOVES won this year!

Thursday's centers included:

Mitten wreath focusing on patterns...

Beginning Sound Mittens...

( cute real mittens with fun things tucked inside)

Mitten Addition....

Mitten Friends (name writing)

And Mitten Greater Than ....

Oh, yes, we began a new free time activity

called the "Smartie Cart".

Kids are free to choose fun and yet to be discovered

learning activities from a designated cart when their work is finished, during choice, and/or rest time.

We just began to explore these education activities...

more to come next week!

Perhaps the most exciting development of the new year?

We finally took out our new markers!

HIP HIP HOORAY!

Thanks for sending 2 sets in in September.

Their excitement was hard to contain!

Hang on to your hats...we are headed to the beach!

We are slowly turning our room into a tropical paradise!

On Thursday, January 18 we are having our Beach Party Day...more to come later.

 Week of January 7-11

Reading: Letter Vv, star word "to", word families

Math: Geometry....shapes~comparison, symmetry, and solid shapes

Theme: THE BEACH!!!!

 Science: What are  Earth's Materials?

Social Studies: People at Work

Other News: Book Orders are due Thursday, January 10.
also
Be looking for a sign up sheet coming home soon concerning our
100th day (February 7) and 
our America The Beautiful (February 28)Workshops.
We will be needing volunteers on these two days from 1:00 to 3:00.
Thanks for helping if you can!