Fun Here and There!

We're off to a late start this weekend. I hope you enjoy hearing about our week. Hip, Hip, Hooray, once again the children discovered a butterfly when checking the butterfly cage Monday morning. Everyone knew with no dots on the back wings of the butterfly we had a female monarch, and the children were delighted. Since we wanted the butterfly names to rhyme the children named this butterfly Flitter which rhymes nicely with Glitter. We went to the Butterfly Garden in the afternoon but before we got a pictures our butterfly flittered off to Mexico. Luckily I took one of her in the release cage. Each day this week the children sorted and tallied pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters with a friend. This would be the perfect time for your family to beginning collecting coins in a jar so you to may patriarchate in this nifty activity. Of course, the class is just beginning to learn the names, values, and characteristics of the coins. Children frequently confuse nickels and quarters. We all know quarters are larger, although I think quarters are smaller now than in the nineteen fifties. Anyway, quarters have ridges around the circumference and nickels are smooth. The class found that strategy to be quite helpful in distinguishing the two coins. Hopefully you heard about our terrific explorations at the Milwaukee Public Museum. The children were comfortable exploring the insects and drew pictures and wrote insect names on their clip boards. The Vivarium was a busy place as most children attempted to attract the lovely butterflies. Fiona, was a real expert at attracting these beautiful insects and Abigail had a blue morpho try to land on the her blue hand band more than once. Our last stop was a teacher directed lesson on the metamorphosis of a butterfly followed by several interactive activities. Many thanks to the chaperones who were outstanding teachers to their small groups. You enhanced our trip immensely! Tuesday, the children used written research from their clipboards to reflect on the trip and as they wrote their scrapbook entries.The class continued to add to the Life Cycle of a Butterfly by making caterpillars and chrysalises. They also painted and labeled their storyboards. The children used The Egg Carton game to review the recognition of letters and their corresponding sounds several times this week. I was amazed at how often children go to the counter, retrieve Alphabet Bingo, and play the game for most of activity time without any intervention. The children ran with their buddies before the Fun Run this Friday. Please plan to join us at the Berm around 2:10 so you'll be ready for our send off. Check our class site on the portal for the map. The children are eager to participate in Spirit Week by wearing crazy socks on Tuesday, dressing inside out on Wednesday, wearing sweat shirts on Thursday, and blue and gold colors on Friday. Alert, another male butterfly, Twitter, left for Mexico amid gusty wind Thursday afternoon. Currently we have three more chrysalises waiting to emerge. Hope to see you on Friday!