ask me about wednesday, april 17, 2024

Today we had a great read aloud called Taco Falls Apart, by Brenda S. Miles.  This book is about a taco who feels so much is expected of him.  He starts to have negative thoughts and begins to fall apart.  Luckily, Nacho comes along and helps Taco to understand his negative thoughts shape his behavior and feelings.  This is a really great book with lots of good information in the back for caregivers to think about and ideas to use when working with children.  It's great for adults too!
We studied pictures of a dam and lodge built by beavers.  We studied the rodent's external features and discussed how these help the beaver to build and swim in the water.  This is an amazing animal to watch!
We also started our new science unit that focuses on how plants and animals change the environment.  Our first lesson is about zoos and how they provide appropriate environments for the animals to live.  We looked at photographs of more traditional zoos, and took a quick trip on the safari at Disney's Animal Kingdom.  We were able to see how the environment replicated where the animals would live in Africa.  The children will be able to look at and read many books about different animal habitats over this marking period.  This unit is always a favorite of the kinders!
We went to art and were surprised to find out we didn't have a substitute.  Instead of dividing the children up and sending them to specials with the other classes they had already been to this week, we went back to the classroom and did guided drawing with the amazing author and illustrator Grace LIn.  I hope the children showed you their work.  I have done these guided drawings with kids in the past, and this group was the easiest to work with because they were perisistent, followed along quickly, and didn't get upset if their animal didn't turn out the way they wanted the first time.  I was so impressed by their drawings!  I'm going to put the vidoes on our Google classroom, but I will also put them below so you can draw and see the videos as well.  Grace LIn is an author your children can grow with because she writes both children's picture books and chapter books.  We skipped through most of the parts of the videos where Lin introduces chapter books she has written so we would have time to draw more animals.  

Have a great evening!
​Miss Wolfe