Week 4! Day 2!

We started today with our morning meeting. Today we had a lot of fun playing hot potato. We then jumped right into our topic exploration. Today we learned about the three different type of dinosaur diets. We learned that carnivores only eat animals, herbivores only eat plates, and omnivores eat both. We had three dinosaurs and the students helped decide what to feed the dinosaur based on its diet. We thought that the omnivore was the most fun to feed because it could eat mixed food like pizza.
We then had centers where students could move around at their own pace, work on different skills, and play with their new friends. This morning the students working at the clay and pipe cleaner station made beautiful bracelets. They practiced wrapping the pipe cleaners together to mix the colors.
During art we continued our topic exploration by making our own dinosaurs. When we glued our dinosaur together we made sure to leave the mouth open so that we could fill it with food. It was fun to see what everyone's dinosaurs would eat.
For story time today we read the Dinosaur Stomp! When our story was over we each took a turn to show what our best dance move is. We had a lot of wiggles and twirls!
After lunch we cooled down in the pool! Thank you all for a wonderful day today!

-Mrs. Cassie

Morning centers


Making our dinosaurs

Week 4! Day 1!

Hello all and welcome to the fourth and final session of summer school! My name is Mrs. Cassie and I am very excited to be the ELC teacher again this week. We have a busy and fun week ahead of us!
We started today by meeting our new friends in class and getting to know each other. We went around the circle and introduced ourselves and shared our favorite ice cream flavor with the class. Most of our friends like chocolate! We then jumped right into our topic exploration. To find out what we were learning about this week the students had to go on a dig! I hid clues inside the sand bin and students took turns brushing away the sand to find them. As we found the clues we tried to fit them together to find out what it is. After all five were found we realized that we will be learning about dinosaurs this week!
We then had centers where students could move around at their own pace, work on different skills, and play with their new friends. For centers this week students will have seven choices each morning. We have a clay and pipe cleaner station where students can create 3D shapes, a magnetic board station where students can work on letters and numbers, a kinetic sand station where students can have dramatic play with dinosaurs, a pattern block station where students can create dinosaurs using the blocks, a dabber station where students can work on fine motor skills by filling in the dinosaur, a maze center where students can work on proper pencil grip while tracing lines to get the dinosaurs home, and an open ended art station where students can use the tissue paper to create art of their choice.
During art we continued our topic exploration by becoming paleontologists! Dinosaur fossils were hidden on our paper and we had to use slow, soft brush strokes to reveal them. We loved looking around the classroom and seeing all of the different fossils that our friends found!
For story time today we listened to and then learned a fun poem called Twinkle, Twinkle, Dinosaur. Our favorite part was changing our voices to fit the different characters.
During math we played a game with our partner called roll and cover. We took turns rolling the dice and then coloring that many spots on our dinosaur. When all of the spots were filled we counted the colors to see who covered the most.
After lunch we cooled down in the pool! Thank you all for a wonderful day today!
-Mrs. Cassie

Digging for dinosaur bones!

Morning centers

Using watercolors to uncover our fossils!

Playing a math game with our friends! 

Week 3 Day 5!

Hello all! We had another fun and exciting day of summer school.
Today we started with our morning meeting where we practiced introducing ourselves and shared our best dance move with the class. We had some very unique moves, one of our friends did a cool roll on the floor. We then jumped right into our topic exploration by learning about ponds and creeks. We talked about the different animals we see, the different plants that grow there, and some of the fun things we like to do at the pond. We then found out that we were going to go to the creek later and we were all very excited. 
We then had centers where students could move around at their own pace, work on different skills, and play with their new friends. One of our favorite centers today was the magnetic shapes because we could build houses and ships!
During art we continued our topic exploration by learning about an animal that lives down by the pond. We tried to figure out the mystery animal by listening to clues, we figured out really quickly that the mystery animal was a turtle. We glued our turtle together first and then painted our shells. When we put them out in the hallway one of our friends said it looked like we made our own pond.
It was then time for us to walk down to the creek. We loved seeing all of the different animals down at the creek. We were very excited when we got to see a bright red dragonfly land right in the middle of the creek. On our way we were lucky enough to see some seeds blow right off a flower, we followed them down the path and wonder if they will grow next to the creek. Since it was so hot we all took our shoes off and put our feet in the creek. It was a wonderful way to end our fun week learning about animal homes.
Thank you all for a wonderful week! :)
-Mrs. Cassie