What a Successful Year!

3B, we did it! We have completed the school year. Wow!

To finish the year, we played some difficult games and you all did a fantastic job of rising to the challenges. In the beginning of the week you all did an excellent job of using the clues that you were given to figure out the shapes that the clues were for. You got circles and ovals and squares and triangles. Friends, you really know your shapes!

Next we did a numeral recognition and color scavenger hunt. You have gotten so good at these types of games. You should be so proud of how your numeral recognition has come along.

Finally, we combined our love of scavenger hunts and clues games to create a new kind of scavenger hunt. You were given clues about items around your homes and then sent off to find them. When you brought them for us to see, we let you know if you got it right. You got all of them. Be proud, 3B, you deserve to be!

 

Friends, you have made this school year – despite the challenging circumstances – so great! You were all so important to our group as a whole. You all helped make this class as special as it is. We are so impressed by how much each of you has grown in countless ways. Your development has been, quite simply, amazing to watch throughout our time together. We appreciate all of you so very much. We wish you the absolute best in everything. And, we hope that we see all of you incredibly soon. Great big hugs to you! Thanks for making this year truly wonderful, we love all of you.

Happy summer!

So Many Shapes and Sounds and What Is A Name Jumble?

This has been a great week, friends! You all handled the challenges we gave you marvelously. Take a bow! We have seen so much growth in the 3B class all year, and this may be even more true as we wrap up the schoolyear than at any other time. We are so impressed, 3B. We hope that you are all very proud of yourselves. You deserve to be!

To begin the week, we returned to practice shape recognition, something we have done much of this year, but was something we had not visited for a bit. Well, we would never know that it has been much time because of the way all of you recognized your shapes so well. You even spotted the multiple triangles and the rhombus and trapezoid. The next day we followed this activity by playing a clues game in which we gave you clues about shapes, and you had to figure out which shapes we were giving clues about. Once again, you get almost all of the shapes without seeing them. We even included a heart into the mix and many of you got that shape even though we had not been practicing it. Very nice detective work, 3B!

Another day we enjoyed a letter sound game in which we tried to figure out which item on the table began with a certain letter. As we navigated the sounds of such letters as G, S, T, M, P, you focused and put great effort into the game. It started off quite tricky, then, before long, you really developed an understanding for how the game worked and you began to match the shapes to the sounds to items faster and faster. This game was great fun for us to play with you.

Finally, we played Name Jumble, and all of you gave your confused teacher so many excellent strategies as to how to fix your name until it was spelled correctly. After many mixed up attempts of upside down, backwards, missing, extra, and out of order letters, you used your letter recognition and budding vocabularies to make sure that all of your names ended up just as they should have, which is to say: spelled correctly. Yay!

Thanks for a fun week and have a great weekend!

Afternoon Activities - 6/15 - 6/19

Monday - Finish Three Little Pigs Books -or- create an illustration based on your favorite book

  • The book we have made prior weeks on Fridays -or- printer paper to start a new book

  • Markers/Crayons/Pens, etc.

  • Marker/pen to begin text

Tuesday - Telescope Making

  • Paper Tube (or similar), or rolled piece of paper

  • Rubberband

  • Decorating Materials - markers, stickers, tape, etc.

Wednesday -  Our Final Dance Party of the Year!

  • Dance, Dance, Dance!

Thursday - Free Art

  • Whatever art materials you’d like to use

Friday - Tea and Monster Truck Party and Hangout - Eating, Dancing, Art 

  • Decorate remade cookies or cupcakes -or-

  • Make art projects showing our favorite part of the school year 

  • Any medium the friends want to work in is perfect

Numbers and Bookmaking and Kite Making, Too!

It’s been another busy week in 3B! We had a great week with all of you, so thank you so much for all your focus and laughs and wonderful participation.

Last week we spent a few days thinking about characters and stories to write about them. This week we decorated the covers and set you free to work on the rest of your books as you choose to. We are very excited to see what stories you come up with for all those creative characters you chose. Maybe on Monday we can do some sharing of our stories? We are looking very forward to hearing about, and seeing, all the adventures you come up with. Keep us posted, please!

You all should be so proud of yourselves for the way you recognized so many numerals and counted so many dots during our Mathematical Simon Says game. You all recognized every numeral we showed you, and then you did such great jobs at coming up with fun things for us to do when you were Simon. We jumped and clapped and kicked and pretended to drink water, and we had a blast playing this game with you!

Lastly, how much fun was Field Day? What a great way to end the week! You all jumped and moved and danced and more, and it was a very good time. We are so glad that all of you had so much fun, too.

During the afternoons this week we enjoyed making various art projects with you. It was fun to collage our homes, because each of us approached the project with our own vision and created our homes just the way we wanted to. It was perfect, because our visions for this project were as unique as each of us in 3B are.

Kite making was very fun, too! It was great to see so many of you join us for this activity. Each of you made such excellent kites. We wonder, have any of you flown your kites, yet? How did they fly? How fast did you run to get them to fly? We’d love to see some pictures if you have them.

Have a great weekend everybody. Thanks for a great week!

Afternoon Activities - 6/8 - 6/12

Monday - Loose Parts Self-Portraits

  • Cardboard

  • Material Ideas - buttons, nuts, bolts, paperclips, string, pipe cleaners, etc.

Tuesday - Telescope Making

  • Paper Tube (or similar), or rolled piece of paper

  • Rubberband

  • Decorating Materials - markers, stickers, tape, etc.

Wednesday -  Movement - Freeze Dance, Hokey Pokey, Goldfish Song

  • No Materials Needed

Thursday - Landscape Painting - Paint what you see when sitting outside -or- paint what you see through a window/door

  • Paint

  • Brushes

  • Paper

Friday - Bookmaking/illustration/Writing -  Three Little Pigs -or- Art project of your choice

  • The book we have made prior weeks on Fridays -or- printer paper to start a new book

  • Markers/Crayons/Pens, etc.

  • Marker/pen to begin text

A Week of Illustrating and Bookmaking

This has been a great week with you, 3B! It was so fun to hear you come up with your characters last week and see many of them take shape on the page this week. You had so many great ideas for your characters, anything from storybook characters to pirates to monsters and penguins. Many of your characters came to life and we are looking forward to the adventures you have in store for them next week when we illustrate our stories of them.

To do that, we undertook the making of books this week. We had a good time constructing the books with you and your special grownups. With so many blank pages, we hope that you are thinking of some of the things we’ve noticed in our readings these past couple of weeks; namely, what do your characters want, and how will your characters get what they want? Ooooh, we are very excited to see and hear your stories next week!

In the afternoons this week we had a great time with a variety of projects. We made birdfeeders for our little feathered friends early in the week. That was so much fun, despite being more challenging than we believed it would be. That’s part of the fun though, right? Of course, we made a lot of artworks, too. We painted and drew and cut and glued, to come up with many different types of art projects throughout the whole week. And, as we love to do so much, we danced and danced! Regardless of the number of friends at the dance party, it is always such big fun!

Thanks for a great week everybody. Have a great weekend!

Afternoon Activities - 6/1 - 6/5

Monday - Collage Of Your Home

  • Any materials you want to collage with: cardboard, food boxes, newspaper, magazines, construction paper, etc.

  • glue

  • scissors

Tuesday - Science - Kite making

  • Construction paper

  • Scissors

  • Writing/Drawing Utensils

  • Decorating Materials

  • String

Wednesday -  Freeze Dance and Dis-Dance Party

  • No Materials Needed

Thursday - Landscape Painting - Paint what you see when sitting outside -or- paint what you see through a window/door

  • Paint

  • Brushes

  • Paper

Friday - Free Art -or- continue working on your Three Little Pigs book

  • Any Art Materials You Choose

Creating Characters, Choosing Clues, Making Art

What a great week, 3B! We have had so much fun with you as you have decided which characters you are going to use as we begin our stories next week. What a wonderful array of characters it is! We have world famous characters in the likes of Snow White and Transformers, a number of your favorite stuffed animals, and even our very own Ms. Debbie. Yay! Great choices, 3B.

Once we had most of our characters in mind, it was good fun to read Click, Clack, Moo – Cows That Type with you and discover what the cows want in the book, which is electric blankets. Then we examined how the cows go about getting those electric blankets; withholding milk and eventually trading their typewriter. Great job with figuring those thongs out, friends. Remember, this weekend, think about what your characters might want and how they can try to get what they want. These can be anything at all.

It was so fun playing the clues game this week, too. You all did a great job of picking items from your house and giving us clues, so we could guess what it was that you picked out. You took the time come up with great ideas for us. You provided excellent clues using texture, movement, color, sounds, and more to help us guess. Great job, 3B, your clues are getting so good!

In the afternoons this week we had fun doing so much art with you. We started the week by starting or continuing our cardboard sculptures. These were made with (my favorite) repurposed cardboard. It was fun building these with you and seeing the great ideas you shared with us. Later in the week, we simply took out any art supplies we wanted to use and created any artwork we chose. It was fun to see animals and monsters and art creations that were simply made for the joy of creating artworks. Thanks for a great week, friends!

Reminder: In honor of Memorial Day, we will have Monday off. Enjoy the long weekend! See you on Tuesday.

Afternoon Activities - 5/25 - 5/29

Monday -  Off for Memorial Day

Tuesday - Science - Plastic bottle bird feeder

  • Clean, dry plastic bottle

  • Thumb tack

  • Sharp scissor

  • wire/string/twine

  • birdseed 

Wednesday - Dis-Dance Party

  • No Materials Needed

Thursday - Water color painting (or food coloring with water)

  • Watercolors/food coloring mixed with water

  • Watercolor/sketch paper

  • water

  • brushes

Friday - Book Making/illustration/Writing - - Three Little Pigs

  • The book we have made prior weeks on Fridays -or- printer paper to start a new book

  • Markers/Crayons/Pens, etc.

  • Marker/pen to begin text

What A Fun Week of Learning Games and Art!

3B, you did a such a great job of completing all of your challenges during our Morning Meetings this week. To begin our week together you got all of the drawings that Ms. Debbie created as she tried to stump you during Pictionary. Some of them you got right away, and some of them you really had to focus on to figure out, and you all did a great job!

When we played the disappearing game on Wednesday, you got every item that was hidden from you. We started with only a few items, but soon it was clear you needed more of a challenge. Even when the challenge was five items, with multiple items disappearing, you got every single one. Great job and excellent focus, friends.

To finish the week, we played another game where things went missing. This time it was letters from the alphabet. Once again, you handled all the challenges we gave you as you focused and solved each problem. You should all be so proud of the ways you took on these challenging games and achieved al the goals set before you. Very nice, everybody.

In the afternoons, we had a great time blowing colorful bubbles through straws to see how big we could build our bubble towers. Some of them got very tall, indeed. They got so tall in fact, that they were tickling our noses.

This week we had such a fun time as we all created whichever art projects we wanted to with paint or any medium that we chose. It was great see what the afternoon friends created as they painted princesses and cut and decorated hearts.

Thanks for a great week everybody. Have a wonderful weekend!

Afternoon Activities - 5/18 - 5/22

Monday - Finish cardboard sculptures from last week  - or start a new one

  • Cardboard - cereal/food boxes or thicker cardboard, or both

  • Scissors

  • Paint

  • Paint brushes

  • glue - like Elmers

Tuesday - Science - DIY Musical Instruments

Kazoo: 

  • paper towel or bathroom tissue tube

  • wax paper

  • rubber band

Shaker: 

  • tissue box

  • beads/beans

  • paper

  • tape

Wednesday - Dis-Dance Party!

  • No materials needed

Thursday - Free art

  • Any art materials you want to use, this is completely up to you!

Friday - Book Making/illustration/Writing - - Three Little Pigs

  • The book we have made prior weeks on Fridays -or- printer paper to start a new book

  • Markers/Crayons/Pens, etc.

We Feel So Appreciated!

Thank you for a great week, 3B! To begin, we want to say thank you again for all the heartwarming artworks, videos, and kind words at the start this week. It made us feel so good, warm, and fuzzy, so thank you, once again, very very much. We appreciate all of you too, all the members, of all ages, who make up our wonderful 3B family.

Another great activity that we had so much participating in this week was the letter hunt. It was great to share in the excitement so many of you had while we hunted for the letters as they passed by on the screen. Your letter recognition is growing and growing, friends. We couldn’t even trick you once! Give yourselves a big pat on the back for how much each and every one of you are growing and learning every day. You should all be very proud!

In the afternoons, two projects that we were especially engaged in were collages of our families and a new type of self-portrait. We loved using photographs or repurposed scraps of paper to create collages of our families. Some were silly and some were done with meticulous attention to realistic detail. Each of the projects turned out great.

For the self-portraits, we simply took printed pictures of ourselves, folded them in half, adhered them to a piece of paper and proceeded to draw the half that was folded under. Everyone displayed wonderful focus and determination as the portraits came to life in all of their color and detail. The afternoons have been so full of great art projects. If you have yet to join us, please do.

Have a great weekend 3B families!

Afternoon Activities - 5/11 - 5/15

Monday - Art/building - Create collage sculpture pieces (this project will be completed over two Monday afternoon sessions)

  • Cardboard - cereal/food boxes or thicker cardboard, or both

  • Scissors

  • Paint

  • Paint brushes

Tuesday - Science - Color Bubble Making

  • Jar

  • Dish soap

  • Food coloring

  • straw, or similar, like the body of a ball point pen

*This should be done one a towel or paper towels or in a baking sheet or similar. The bubbles overflow.

Wednesday -  Movement -  Dis-Dance Party!

  • No materials needed

Thursday - Free Painting 

  • Paint

  • Paint Brushes

  • Paper

Friday - Book Making/illustration/Writing

  • The book we have made prior weeks on Fridays -or- printer paper to start a new book

  • Markers/Crayons/Pens, etc.

Feelings, Masks, Math, and Eggs

Hello families. Well, another virtual week of 3B is in the books and it was a fun week! We thought this would be a great week to go back and talk a bit about feelings with the 3B friends. This is a subject we cover quite a lot to start the year, something we visit and explore to let the children know that all of their feelings are valid and that we should all be comfortable talking about how we are feeling in the classroom. Now that we are all navigating our shelter-in-place lives, it feels as though we may have entered another schoolyear altogether. We are happy that the 3B friends have acclimated to our new situation so well. We also want them to remember that 3B is still their space and they can always talk to us just like they could in the classroom.

We enjoyed a fun math game in which the children helped roll a die, practiced their number recognition, counted the dots, then found a corresponding number of items from home of a chosen color. This seems like a lot of layers for the class to attend to, but all of them completed the challenges with smiles and energy. This is a great game to play at home, too, if you’re looking for an activity to do.

Our afternoon sessions were, once again, fun and full. We spent an afternoon with repurposed materials making a variety of masks from cardboard, paper scraps, and drawing on them. It was great to see how each child created a mask all their own and the great pride they took in showing their masks off after completing them.

Another afternoon, we delved into science by submerging a regular chicken egg in vinegar. Each of the 3B friends hypothesized what would happen to the egg by the time we looked at it two days later. Many of the friends hypothesized that the egg would actually be soft, as it was, and many felt that it would change colors or sizes. The brown eggs did, in fact, change color. They became a shade or two lighter. A couple of the friends popped their eggs and noticed that the yolk and egg whites had changed too, they had gotten thicker than usual. This was great fun for all of us!

Have a great weekend!

Afternoon Activities - 5/4 - 5/8

Monday - Art/building - Collaging family portraits

  • One regular sheet of paper

  • Paper scraps for collaging

  • Glue stick/glue

  • Markers/Crayons/Pens, etc.

Tuesday - Science - Coloring white carnations or celery - Scientific method

  • Food coloring

  • A few white carnations or celery branches (one per color)

  • Cups or glasses (one per color)

Wednesday -  Movement - Movement Songs and a Book (time permitting)

  • No materials needed 

Thursday - Cooking/recipes - Cucumber and carrot cups and dip

  • 1 large  cucumber (to use as a cup)

  • 1 carrot and or celery branch to cut into sticks

  • Hummus or other dip of your choice 

  • Spoon

  • Sharp knife

Friday - Book Making/illustration/Writing - 1/2 Self-Portraits on Portrait 

  • One portrait printed out (if possible) to be cut/folded in half - any size will work, though 8x7 or larger may be best 

  • Regular piece of paper

  • Tape or glue stick

  • Markers/Crayons/Pens, etc.

Happy Families, Happy Earth Day, Happy Week of the Young Child

Wow, what a fun and busy week for us 3B! This was Week of the Young Child and it was fun to share in so many unique morning activities with you. We explored music, food, teamwork, artwork, and our families. Thanks for making this week such a special week. It is so nice that we are finding our stride as Virtual 3B! You all should be so proud of yourselves!

As we get to spend so much time with our families, it has been very nice to share in all of your families with you. As we talk more and more, we see that families can mean so much more than simply moms, dads, bothers and sisters. As our explorations of family have continued, 3B friends have been adding aunts, uncles, cousins, great grandparents and pets. To each of us, family means something a little bit different than it might to someone else. We are happy to celebrate all of our 3B families, whatever that may mean. Great job this week drawing family portraits, sharing photographs, and helping us to in displaying how many members each of your 3B families has.

In honor of Earth Day this week, we engaged in many activities to help us to remember to take care of the Earth because the Earth always takes care of us. Todd Parr’s Earth Book was a wonderful way to read about some of the ways we can help take care of this planet we all share. It was great to see how many of you enjoyed creating handprint-flowers with special grownups on Work Together Wednesday. All of you worked so well together, indeed.

One afternoon, we especially enjoyed our nature walk show-and-tell activity. You brought so many great natural finds to share with friends. The flowers were all beautiful, and it was great to see such unique finds as twigs shaped like letters and a bright patch of moss. Your focus was incredible as we turned our show-and-tell into an observational drawing session in which all who participated created great works to be proud of.

 

Have a great weekend everybody!

 

Link for Morning Meetings next week: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HtfcIKQz6kcTgIWxy5pAsLYKEGDRQY3qrYpjxdTa_js/edit?usp=sharing

 

 

Afternoon Activities and Materials - 4/27 - 5/1

 

Monday - Collage Mask Making - Using old cardboard and/or other types of paper and materials you can collage a mask.

 

Materials:

•           Cardboard and paper cut into various shapes

•           Markers/Crayons/Pens, etc.

•           Glue/glue stick

 

Tuesday - Science - Egg in Vinegar - Scientific Method

 

Egg exploration using senses

Predictions - What will happen to the egg in the vinegar?

 

Materials:

•           Egg

•           vinegar

•           clear jar

 

Humpty Dumpty - Movement game

 

 

Wednesday - Dis-Dance Party

 

•           No materials needed

 

 

Thursday - Check on Eggs (from Tuesday) & Make DIY Model Magic

 

Materials:

•           1 cup baking soda

•           1/2 cup cornstarch + additional for kneading

•           3/4 cup cold water

•           food coloring (optional) -   5-10 drops depending on desired color 

 

 

Friday -  Continue Illustrating - The Three Little Pigs

•           The book we have made prior weeks on Friday -or- printer paper to start a new book

•           Markers/Crayons/Pens, etc.

Alligator Seder, Shape Scavenger Hunts, and Families, Too

It has been another great week for 3B! We are so happy that so many of the 3B friends are so happily engaged in, and laughing so much during, our virtual Morning Meetings! It seems that many of us are finding our new grooves. Thanks to everybody for helping keep us entertained and smiling!

After recapping Easter from the weekend, we got to explore Passover to begin our week. We had so much fun listening to Alligator Seder and Frogs Here, Frogs There song. It is always nice to explore the holidays that we hold dear, or holidays that may be new to us and shine a light on something wonderful for us to learn. We would like to thank Ms. Rachel for providing us with her lovely reading of Alligator Seder and the songs we were able to share. Thanks Rachel!

Because we are spending so much time with our families these days, we thought it would be fun to explore what families are and what families mean to us. Ms. Debbie made a great chart of us and we used it for counting and naming our family members who are with us every day right now. This is only the beginning of our focus on families, so continue to think about what family means to you. Are pets family? Even fish? Who knows? We all have our very own unique definitions of family, and this is just how it should be.

3B, you did a great job with your shapes recognition and scavenger hunt this week! We tried to trick you with some tough shapes, but you named them all and you all found items to match those shapes: books for squares and rectangles, scissors and game pieces for triangles, dishes and wheels for circles. There was no tricking 3B! Maybe next time, what do you think?

 

Have a great weekend 3B families!

 

Reminders:

Next week we will be returning to our afternoon sessions as well. Remember, they will now be at 2 p.m. instead of 1 p.m. We hope to see all of you there.

Next week is the Week of the Young Child. Because we will be celebrating the young children in our lives, we will be doing some fun activities and games. These will require some simple materials. Below is the list of activities and materials needed. We are looking forward to another great week!

 

Morning Meeting Activities - Week of the Young Child

 

Monday - Music Monday -

 

•           Freeze Dance, Move to the Beat, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes

•           If time - Read - Giraffes Can’t Dance

 

Tuesday - Tasty Tuesday

 

•           Let’s have breakfast or a favorite fruit snack together and verbally share in what we are eating

•           Q: What’s your favorite fruit?

•           What do you love about it?

 

Wednesday - Work Together Wednesday/Earth Day -

 

•           Flower hands

Materials:

•           Markers/Crayons/Pens, etc.

•           Paper

•           Scissors (if have and will be with the child or trust to use alone)

 

•           If time - Read - Todd Parr’s Earth Book

 

 

Thursday - Artsy Thursday -

 

•           Family Portrait Drawing

Materials:

•           Markers/Crayons/Pens, etc.

•           Paper

 

Friday - Family Friday/Special Person’s Day

 

•           Share Family Portraits - Drawn (on Thursday) and real family photos

•           Continue with family Chart

 

 

Afternoon Activities - 4/20 - 4/24

 

Monday - Puppet Making - Pig/Wolf

 

•           Paper for wolves and pigs

•           markers (or similar) for decorating

•           Glue or tape

•           Popsicle stick/pencil

 

Tuesday - Nature Walk Show and Tell

 

•           Go on a walk around the yard/neighborhood/park and collect leaves and twigs, take pictures of flowers or trees, and share your nature walk treasures with the group. These can also be things you already have in the house: stones/geodes, leaves, plants, bamboo, etc.

 

Wednesday -      Friend and Family Portraits -

 

•           Markers/Crayons/Pens, etc.

•           Paper

•           Scissors

 

 

Thursday - Make Pesto

 

•           2 cups fresh basil leaves

•           1/2 cup (freshly, if possible) grated Romano or Parmesan cheese

•           1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

•           1/3 cup pine nuts (can substitute chopped walnuts or sunflower seeds)

 

Friday - Continue Illustrating - The Three Little Pigs

•           The book we have made prior weeks on Friday -or- printer paper to start a new book

•           Markers/Crayons/Pens, etc.

 

Cookies, Tornadoes, and Easter Eggs

            We had another fun, active week in Virtual 3B. Thanks so much for all your help and participation, 3B families! This was a week full of cookie and Easter egg counting games in which the 3B friends helped us to count chocolate chips in Debbie’s cookies and Easter eggs in Debbie’s crafty Easter basket. The 3B friends are continuing to develop their numeral recognition and counting skills the more we practice. We have really noticed a difference in these past couple of weeks. The children get faster at these skills as they become more automatic, which is so fun to watch! We played the clapping, tapping, stomping pattern game, in which the 3B friends were given a pattern to replicate, was more challenging, but still a lot of fun to play. It was our first time, so next time will it should be easier. We’ll play it again soon. Remember, you can play similar games to all these at home if you choose to, as well.

            In the afternoons this week we had a blast making marionettes out of easy-to-find household items. Debbie created these from scratch, and they we so much fun to both make, and to watch the 3B friends make also. Another simple activity we participated in was making tornadoes in a jar. These were simple and entertaining to put together. (The supply lists can be found in the weekly blog and in an email each week if want specifics.) In addition to being tiny tornadoes, they can also act as calming jars. Enjoy!

 

Reminder:

This week, in observance of Passover and Good Friday we will have Thursday and Friday off. Next week, April 13-17, we will meet for Morning Meetings only. There will be no afternoon sessions. We will continue to post activities for you to do at home each weekday, regardless of live meetups. Please continue sharing the activities and projects our 3B friends are engaging in at home. We will share the with the rest of the 3B community. On April 20, we will resume our normal V3B schedule. Have a great long weekend!

 

 

 

 

A Great Week of Fun Activities

It’s been a great week of 3B friends showing teachers and friends all kinds of fun treasures from their homes. These include new items for cooking, all sorts of amazing toys, and so many great art projects. We love when the children show us these things, as they are a way for us get to know each of the 3B friends a little better each day as we navigate our new digital world together.

This week, we engaged in a number of activities that garnered excitement from our young learners. We had a blast as we worked on cognitive and recollection skills, as well as motor skills and creativity, through the animal game in which the teachers and children took turns providing clues about an animal we’d thought of while the others guessed. The friends came up with many great clues showing their comprehension of the activity. Additionally, the children guessed every single animal that they were provided clues for. Way to go 3B!

The scavenger hunt was a way to work on numeral recognition and counting, while also providing the children a chance to share personal items from home. Again, the class did so well at this activity as they excitedly called out the numerals on the cards, helped count dots, and brought the correct number of items count with the rest of us, such as “five books”.

In the afternoons, we had a blast building structures out simple “blocks” made of paper. These came out to be squares, triangles, circles, and rectangles from the side view. The children engaged in teamwork while building the “blocks” and then created some wonderful structures with their paper building materials.

We also made Fluffy Cloud Putty out of conditioner, cornstarch, and food coloring. The children were very excited about how soft and light the putty was. It was very similar to play-dough, and also very different. Please, come join us in the afternoons if you are free. Even if your child simply wants to hang out.

Updates:

-       We are going to explore smaller groups for Morning Meetings next week to see how they work when we can give a little more attention to each friend. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HtfcIKQz6kcTgIWxy5pAsLYKEGDRQY3qrYpjxdTa_js/edit?usp=sharing

-       Meeting of Grownups – Without being able to see and speak to the special grownups of 3B much, Debbie and I would like to touch base, if you care to, to see how things are going on your end and discuss virtual 3B a bit. This will be on Monday or Wednesday at 8 p.m. and will be relaxed and brief. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BqtsZVP1CVeETsmoN2HsLNAs4MhojxaoR-p6dcyFCeE/edit?usp=sharing

-       In consideration of Passover and Good Friday, we will not meet Thursday and Friday next week. We will still be posting daily activities to occupy the 3B friends if you’d like to use them.

 

Have a great weekend!

Week Two: A Virtual Success!

Well, we have made it through the second week of our virtual classroom. Thank you 3B families for a great week. Things are getting smoother!

We had so much fun this week as we played the Hopping Frogs game that Debbie created. It was a great way for the children to practice math in many ways: counting the dots on the “dice”/flashcards, counting the frogs hops, as well as numeral recognition as the frogs hopped their way along the board. This is a game that can easily be done at home too. Simply put twelve strips of tape on the floor, write the numbers 1-12 on them, and use two dice to guide children as they hop from strip to strip of tape.

Many of you joined us in the afternoons (1p.m. M-F) this week for story and/or activity time. Thanks for participating! It was very fun to make trees form repurposed materials, make play-dough, and test gravity with you. Again, these activities can all be repeated or tweaked to be done at home and keep the 3B friends entertained. Play-dough will hopefully entertain them independently for a long time. Soon, we’ll be making slime, and we’ll try DIY Model Magic, too!

 

Here is a list of activities and suggested, though flexible, just use whatever you have at home, supplies for our afternoon sessions next week:

Monday - Building  with strips of paper and/or cartons, various boxes, and other household materials

Potential building materials:

•            Strips of (semi-)sturdy paper, such as construction paper -or-

•            empty cartons/food containers (small juice/milk containers, clean yogurt cups, cleaned juice boxes, etc.) that can be affixed to each other to create structures

•            glue/glue sticks/tape

 

Tuesday - Planting seeds - soil or damp paper towels or cotton balls

•            seeds - collected from home, or store-bought

•            soil  -or- paper towels/cotton balls

•            jar for planting  -or- plastic bag that can be taped to a window that gets some sunlight throughout the day

•            water

 

Wednesday - Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (sing around at different speeds) / Dance Party

•            No materials needed

 

Thursday - Fluffy Cloud Putty

•            2 heaping cups of corn starch

•            1 cup of conditioner

•            food coloring

 

Friday - 3LP - Bookmaking, using cover from 3/27 if they have it

Materials:

•            Printer paper - 5-6 sheets

•            Construction paper - one sheet for book cover (if you have on hand)

•            Stapler

•            Drawing materials (if we have time to illustrate after putting our books together)

 

Reminder: The Google Classroom is up and running. There you’ll find a number of books read aloud, a class movement playlist, and an ongoing list of activities for your children at home. An email was sent via BMS administration on 3/15, detailing how to access the classroom. Enjoy!

 

Reminder: Monday we will be meeting individually with the 3B friends. We miss them and want to spend some one-on-one time with them. Please choose a time if you would care to take part.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xsbs1RXOUcLlSRX3mshqEaaMAg6K0JVb-pYJETw-9-o/edit?usp=sharing

 

Thanks for everything, 3B Families. Have a great weekend!

Great Job in Our Virtual Classroom 3B!

Wow, what a week! We send out a big thank you to all of you for such a supportive and engaged week of Morning Meetings to begin our virtual 3B time together. We know this has been quite stressful, so thank you all for being so attuned and helping us keep our 3B routines intact as much as possible. Remember, next week we will begin having daily group time for reading and an activity at 1 p.m., for those who want to, and can, participate. We will be sending a list of activities and necessary supplies each Friday or Saturday.

This week was full of fun activities and the 3B friends did great as they all began to settle into this new routine together. We got to practice our numeral recognition and counting together during Roll the Die for Math Fun! (Google Classroom 3/18/20), and we began working on rhyming. Rhyme recognition can be a challenging skill to learn. We will be further practicing and honing our ears to recognize them more easily with rhyming books and songs. Soon, the 3B friends will be having a blast with it. Be sure to check out the Cat in the Hat read aloud in the Google Classroom, too. Upcoming, we will post more Dr. Seuss, and other, rhyming books as well for the children to enjoy. Be sure to look at all the activity suggestions for the 3B friends if you want some new ideas for how to keep them engaged. We’ll be posting two new ideas every day in order to keep everybody busy—and sane. Thanks to those of you who have submitted pictures of the projects, we love when these come in!

Let us know if we can help you somehow, or if you have any questions or ideas, please. Have a great weekend and thanks again for a wonderful week!

Pigs and Math!

We have enjoyed a week full of fun math activities, both planned and organic. The children are continuing to grow in their abilities to count and recognize numerals. Even building with Legos, which is great fun for the 3B friends, is a form of math and engineering. The group has been hard at work (play) in all these areas this week as we have played Simon Says; counting out loud each time we tap our noses or hop up and down. We have played a form of numeral Bingo, a game that Debbie made up and we will continue to play more and more as we move forward. And, many times during the week, we practiced our numeral recognition when lining up on the red, numbered stars before leaving the classroom. As we continue to enjoy these games in the weeks ahead, we will surely see our burgeoning math skills grow even more.

It is amazing how much 3B is into the Three Little Pigs. When we read stories throughout the day, one of the Three Little Pigs stories is almost always requested, then cheered for. Our interest in this traditional story (and the versions based on it) continues to flourish. This week we have continued making our own versions of the houses – straw, sticks, and bricks – from cardboard and other classroom materials. We are almost finished and are excited to see how the 3B friends will utilize them in play and storytelling going forward. The excitement with these begins next week! 

The friends are so taken by the Three Little Pigs right now, that some of them are even making presentations to the class based on the story. Conor spent one morning creating drawings of each of the three houses and pigs, then shared his artworks during Morning Meeting. Grayson brought in his new copy of The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig and “read” it to the class while Debbie held up the classroom copy and showed pictures. Presenting like this helps the 3B friends to take more ownership of their place in the group and to feel that their voice is being heard, both of which help to develop self-confidence. Additionally, these types of experiences further enhance the importance of stories in their young lives.

We Have Had a Very Fun Literacy Week!

Because 3B loves learning and enjoys reading stories so much, it’s only natural for the 3B friends to have a blast during a week of literacy activities. The 3B friends have been taking turns this week feeding the ever-hungry Letter Bird, reading stories, of course, and then spending time acting some of the stories out during Choice Time.

In addition to feeding the Letter Bird all the letters from the alphabet, some of the 3B friends spent time with letter stamps and letter stones as they mostly searched for letters from their names or other letters that they are familiar with. Games like these are an excellent opportunity for children to learn new letters too, which always gives them great pride.

Reading books is business as usual for 3B, and this week was more of the same. Our favorite book of the moment is The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, which was read in the classroom at least five times this week. They love this story! We are reading a variety of versions of the Three Little Pigs, including the traditional version, and the class loves all of them. It is fun for them to see that a story can be written in many ways with many different characters. This knowledge will hopefully help them to feel confident in authoring (dictating) some of their own stories soon.

In a way, 3B is already writing their own stories when they act out the Three Little Pigs in the classroom. While 3B’s versions of the story are pretty true to the books we are reading in class, there are some small differences, such as the number of pigs or wolves. It is fun to see the class act out books because they all have such a great time doing it together.

Reminder: We are going to the Slime Museum - Sloo Moo Institute - on Wednesday, March 11. We will be leaving the school at 9:20 and returning for lunch at 11:40. The cost is $38 per child, however, chaperones are free with the children. Yay! We are looking for one chaperone per child, if possible. If not, let us know and we are happy to work something else out. If it is easier, feel free to meet us at Sloo Moo that day. Please return the attached permission slip for your child with the $38 (cash or check) by Monday, March 2nd. Thank you very much!

Permission slip: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lAACKdW5_LN3xAK89c1bJXvnCybUgcXTfau7jBULkq8/edit?usp=sharing

Reminder: Buckle My Shoe will be closed a week from today, Friday, March 6, for staff development. There is no school that day. Thanks!

Reminder: Parent teacher conferences will be Friday, March 13. Please find the link to the sign-up sheet here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BrPH-ofq2OC1hOn_t8aSIMlXTNRnz4B6GcZcKGLf9lw/edit?usp=sharing

A (Short) Week of Patterns!

This week in 3B we have been working on patterns and pattern recognition. We have used shapes and colors and blocks and lines, and the class has had a fun time trying to figure out what comes next in each of the patterns. Patterns can be a tough concept to grasp, so we will continue to practice it at times, potentially enabling the children to begin noticing patterns in the world around them on their own.

Pattern recognition is early math skill that is important because it will help children in the future to recognize relationships within math problems, as well as notice regularities and irregularities. Patterns can also help a child with learning to read text when they’re ready, while also being a useful tool in everyday activities such as building.

For now, the 3B friends simply enjoy trying to figure out patterns as game.

 

Have a great weekend!

A Week of Hearts and Friendship and Bucket Filling

Happy Valentine’s Day! We have had a full week of talking about friends and friendship and what it means to be a friend to those around us. The timing is perfect as we have two new friends, Ela and Conor, who have joined us in the past couple of weeks, yay! When new friends come into a classroom of established friendships and routines, it can be difficult to adjust to that newness, whether you are the new friend, or you have to adapt to the someone new in “your” space.

In addition to creating so many types of hearts (heart crowns, painted hearts, “stained glass” hearts) this week, we also began reading Have You Filled a Bucket Today. This is a great book about what it means to be kind to others, all others, no matter who they are or where they’re from. It talks about how each of us carry within ourselves a bucket that, when full, means we are feeling good, when empty, or “dipped into”, that means we are feeling bad. This is a great concept for children to think about as it provides a visual for them to relate to their interactions with those around them. Parents and loved ones, you also have buckets, and you can use this tool at home for helping the children think about their words and actions when need be.

We hope that all of you enjoy the “stained glass” hearts that the 3B friends made this week! They are made to hang in windows and catch sunshine. We hope that these little tokens of love bring some extra warmth to your home. The children had a great time making them. You’ll see some new photos of them creating these artworks below. Enjoy!

Thank you for a wonderful Valentine’s Day breakfast today! It is always great for the children to share their second home with the ones they love. Remember, we love to have you visit the room anytime to read stories or lead activities. Just let us know that you want to visit us during our school day, and we will get you all set up! Have a great long weekend. See you on Wednesday!

Link to Have You Filled a Bucket Today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EuemNAo6XE

Squares and Rectangles and Rhombuses and…Trapezoids and Spheres?

Yup! This week in 3B we covered a little bit of new terrain in the realm of shapes. We continued to get used to the idea of the “diamond” shape as its mathematical name of rhombus. We looked at rhombuses on the dry-erase board, as small pieces used in puzzles, and on the top of one of our bubble wands for our bubble science experiments. ‘Rhombus’ is quickly becoming a familiar word in 3B!

During our bubble exploration, we incorporated various shapes by using bubble wands with triangles, rectangles, rhombuses (of course!), and more on the top. We asked the children what shapes the bubbles would be when blown from the wands with different shapes, to which the overwhelming response was that the bubbles would be the shape on top of the wand. Naturally, all the bubbles came out round, which gave us a chance to begin learning the name of yet another shape that we know well; the sphere. Most of the children know the shape of a bubble as a circle or a ball, of course, so we enjoyed introducing the vocabulary of, and trying to pronounce, sphere. Fun stuff!

Lastly, in our exploration of shapes this week we found yet another shape name to introduce. In 3B we have a set of puzzles with geometric pieces that we commonly use. Using this set as part of our shapes focus, we took out a trapezoid and asked if anyone knew the name of the shape. While none of them knew the name, they were very happy to learn it. There were some giggles in the group at the word “trapezoid”. Later in the day, some of the friends held up tiles and said, “It’s a trapezoid, Adam!” 3B loves to learn!

Reminders:

Monday is picture day for Buckle My Shoe! We will be taking a class picture and individual pictures as well. Siblings will also get pictures taken together. Can’t wait to see them!

Valentine’s Day is next Friday, and we will be celebrating with a potluck breakfast in 3B from 9-10. We are looking forward to having as many of you as special guests as we can. There will be food and a group activity. Tereza will be sending out the food sign-up sheet this weekend.

Have a great weekend 3B Families!

Recipe Week! We Explored Recipes and Ingredients All Week Long.

This week we have used recipes to make some very different types of things. We want the children to know that recipes are for more than cooking, even though cooking is wonderful. Our recipe explorations have led us to making play dough, bubbles for our bubble science experiments, and finally to dessert tacos to end the week. While the terms ‘recipes’ may typically lead us to think of food, this week we engaged with recipes and ingredients that made a wide variety of fun things.

Early in the week, 3B wanted to make play dough, so we got out the flour, oil, water, and more and made some wonderful that is a wonderful shade of green. The children get to see firsthand how these simple, separate ingredients can come together to make a recipe they truly enjoy using and exploring. The play dough we made has kept, and will continue to keep, us entertained for many uses. It’s easy to go out and buy play dough, which is fun, however, when they take part in making it, the children are rewarded with the pride and fun of helping to have made something from just a few simple ingredients. 

Using water, corn syrup, and soap, 3B made bubbles this week for the bubble experiments we have been conducting in the classroom. This is our second time making these, as our first batch went bad after a few days. Hopefully these last as long as the play dough and we can have some seriously fun science fun with them!

For our final recipe of the week, 3B made some delicious dessert tacos. These were actually more like breakfast tacos as we used pancakes for the “shells” and filled them with vanilla yogurt, and fresh strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. The group happily gobbled them up after we blended all of the ingredients for the pancakes and Debbie made the on the electric griddle. These were so good. Most of the 3B friends were even asking for seconds and thirds!