Pictures from the scrapbooking time

Here are the pictures of the children working on their scrapbook pages after the "End Of Year" ceremony. It was a pleasure to watch all the children interacting with their families as they made a project that reminded them of lots of activities we did throughout the year! Thanks again for a wonderful year.

The end of the year

It has been an amazing year working with the children! Everyday was filled with fun and excitement as well as many learning opportunities for both the children and myself. We have had a great time getting to know each other and making strides in our knowledge.

I would actually like to thank the children for helping me through the year. No matter what they always amazed me with their knowledge, with their caring attitudes towards others and with the interesting things they would tell me! These children really have grown this year. Last Friday there was someone in the classroom who was looking at some of the pictures posted on the wall. She knows many of the children and was commenting about how much the children had grown since the beginning of the year (when many of the pictures were taken)! When spending every day with the children, you do not always see these changes, however, by looking back at the pictures, their writing, their letter knowledge and much more, it becomes very noticeable that they grew in many ways! I can't tell you how enjoyable it was to experience these growths with them! It is always great to see the "light bulb" go off in a child's head when they grasp a new concept. I watched this happen many times this year. It may have come as a child learned that they could pedal a bike or swing on the swings without being pushed. It may have come as a child counted to a new level or was able to read more letters than the day before. It may have shown up as a child read something they had never read before. No matter how that light bulb went off, every child had their chance of showing me the bright light (and the excited smile) when this happened.

It was really enjoyable to watch all of the children work with their parents on their scrapbook pages at the End Of Year Celebration. It was nice to see the thrilled looks on the children as they were able to show off their pictures and their progress, as many children wrote on their pages as well as cut out the pictures and glued them on! The love and excitement that was felt in the room was amazing.

I also want to thank all the families for the wonderful gift they gave to me at the celebration. It is absolutely beautiful and when I wear it I will definitely remember how special all of your children are and how much they have meant to me! Thank you.

I really hope everyone enjoys there summer! I hope that Mussie, Miriam and Tyrus all continue to grow and enjoy their education as they move on to first grade and Kindergarten. I know you will all do great as your educational adventures take you further!

Thank you again for an amazing year. I know that normally pictures follow my posts, however, due to some other "end of year" activities for my family, I will have to post pictures on Sunday or Monday. I will do that soon as I have some lovely pictures of the children making their scrapbook pages with their parents!

Wrapping things up

A look at this week:

It is really hard to believe that the year is almost over. The school year went by so quickly. This week we continued our focus on medical professionals as well as started wrapping things up from the year.

Monday a few of our friends made it to the zoo for the wrap up on their long animal theme, as well as their end of year field trip. It turned out to be almost perfect weather and the children really had fun. They were so excited to see the animals and we made it through most of the zoo before they started complaining that they were hungry!

On Tuesday we were back in the classroom and continued our current theme. The students enjoyed talking about eye doctors and dentists. In home living the children took turns being the patient and the eye doctor and the patient had to read the eye chart as the doctor pointed to it. We also talked about how people who are blind read. Then the children had the chance to feel what braille feels like by using a sensory alphabet book. On Thursday some of the students wrote their names with dots to represent braille dots and then we added dots of glue so that they could really "feel" their names!

The children really enjoyed the activities that used the toothbrushes. In art we painted with toothbrushes and dental floss. This was really a fun way to paint. In the block area we used mirrors to look at our mouths and then tried to build our mouths out of blocks. And on Wednesday all the children received a toothbrush and we talked about how often we brush our teeth and then they used the mirrors to practice brushing their teeth. While this was going on, we also practiced our cutting as we tried to cut the line from the stethoscope to the heart that was drawn on a paper.

We also wrapped up a year long project by measuring all the students again. We saw how much they have grown throughout the year in inches and apples. Everyone also took a turn standing on the scale to see how much they weigh (just like at the doctor's office). Then they wrote their height, how many apples and their weight onto a piece of paper.

Listening In:

The zoo was really fun. However, more fun then just being at the zoo was hearing the comments that some of the children made throughout the trip.

At first, just the excited squeals were fun as they saw the animals. But even better than that was when Avery was looking at an animal and said, "we are seeing real live animals!" And Tyrus was thrilled with the dinosaur displays that were around the zoo. While looking at the dinosaur closest to the elephant area he started squawking a little and then looked at me and said, "I am communicating with him." And the dinosaur was programmed to occasionally make noise so it really seemed like he was responding back to Tyrus.

Looking Ahead:

Next week we are going to be enjoying our last few days of school. We will be making special folders to bring home all the art work and our work folders home. We will continue to practice for our graduation/end of year celebration. And then of course, we are going to have a fun celebration at 11:00 on Wednesday!

Making paper toothbrushes

Can you see this shape?

Checking out the polar bear that is swimming in the water!

A nest full of Gan Eagles

Looking at the elephants

Figuring out the letter "g" in braille

Painting with a toothbrush

Cutting on the line

Looking at our mouths so we can brush our teeth

Making braille dots

Is There a Doctor In The School?

There were many different doctors here at The Gan this week!

A look at this week:

Although we were closed on Monday, we still had plenty of fun time learning this week. We started our focus on Community Helpers, really focusing on the medical field. We spent time using the doctor kits in Home Living and the children were even able to put on the Doctor coat and pretend to be a doctor. This was fun since they had the chance to check out the tools doctors use as well as pretend to write in a patients file and keep track of their patients!

In the block area the children decided that they could build a hospital or a doctor's chair. Even though blocks is normally a favorite, the children seemed to enjoy the other activities even more this week. At art, we made chalk x-rays and then had to write what we took an x-ray of! In Math we pretended to fill a prescription by putting corn kernels into cups to match the number on the cups. In writing we used hair gel bags to trace the letters that you can find in many common doctor words, such as: doctor, nurse, office, chart, healthy, sick, shot, medicine, and x-ray.

For science this week the children played with water as they filled the liquid medicine spoons and droppers with water, trying to fill them to a specific amount. On Tuesday we made doctor bags. The children were able to pick their color bag and then they "sewed" it together. After that they had the chance to label their bag with "Doctor ________'s Bag." On Wednesday the children made watercolor x-rays. They thought it was neat that they painted the water colors onto a piece of white paper and an x-ray popped out (this was white crayon pre-drawn on the paper). They also made band-aid letters, trying to make the first letter in each of their names!

Listening In:

On Tuesday when I introduced the new topic I asked the children if they had ever been to the doctor's office. Of course they all had! I loved the one response I got:

"When you are leaning back in your chair and somebody is doing homework and somebody else is making dinner you fall and have to go get stitches. That is when you have to go see the doctor."

Looking Ahead:

Hopefully the weather will cooperate and next week we will be able to go to the Oregon Zoo on Monday! The children are still very excited for this trip and have been asking me to tell them when we are going. However, after the trip there on Monday, we will be back to our regular learning on Tuesday. We will be continuing with our community helpers by looking at dentists. This week we will be talking about clean teeth, looking at our teeth in mirrors and also using toothbrushes to do some creative art and writing!

Reminder: It is hard to believe that the end of the year is almost here. It has been a very fun and educational year for the children (and myself)! We will be having an end of the year program and graduation (for those going to Kindergarten and First Grade) ceremony on Wednesday the 16th. We hope to see you all there.

If you would like to schedule a time to come in and talk with me about the progress your child has made throughout the year, please let me know your availability and I will schedule you in. I normally like to do these conferences at the end of the school day (about 12:05 or so), once the other children have gone for the day.

Music and Me from last Friday. The children are learning about the different instrument families and this week was about the percussion family. They really enjoyed playing all the different instruments!


Busy at work, tracing words, counting beans and even doing some water play!

Watercolor x-rays!

"I don't feel so good Doctor!"

Making a chalk x-ray

Band-aids are good for more than just covering cuts...you can make letters out of them too!

Writing on her doctor bag

Water play with medicine droppers

Sewing doctor bags

Dr. Lizabeth at your service!

"We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo..."

A Look At This Week:

We had been hopeful that the weather would be good and we would be able to go to the zoo this week to help us end our discussion on animals. However, the rain has been here and we were unable to go. We are hoping that June 7th will be much better weather and we will be able to get to the zoo then. It will be a fun end of year field trip!

As for in the classroom, we continued to have our own zoo. The first thing that children noticed was the change in our home living area. It became a zoo itself. The pictures that we had been using over the past couple of weeks were put up on the wall and on the kitchen items and cages were put over them. So when the children went into the home living area they were taken to a pretend zoo instead. They had the chance to use binoculars to get a little "closer" look at the animals this week! The best part was when Jayden went into home living and looked back at me and said, "is this the kitchen?" I answered, "yes." And he responded, "no it isn't. It has animals. It's a zoo!"

On Monday we tried an experiment using grape juice, baking soda and vinegar. Since one of the books we focused on this week was "The Mixed-Up Chameleon," we took pictures of chameleons and colored them. Then we cut them out and glued them on to paper and drew scenery. Then we painted them with dark grape juice. When they dried we added either a baking soda and water mixture or some vinegar to our chameleons and watched them change color. We then add these mixtures to small cups of grape juice so it was easier to see the reaction. The vinegar ones turned a greenish-blue and the baking soda mixture turned pink. The children enjoyed seeing this. And although it was not as noticeable on their chameleons after they dried, the crayon color really turned bold after having the mixtures put on!

For math this week the children used the pattern blocks, with no pattern cards, to make snakes. This helped introduce the book, "The Greedy Python." It was fun to see what different pattern snakes the children could come up with!

In blocks the children continued to build a zoo. It is always neat to see what different creations they come up with when they work with different friends. In writing we talked about what animal we would like to be if we could be any animal. Then we had to draw a picture to go with it. The animal zoo was still available this week for the children to play in as well. And in art the children took a pre-colored chameleon and had to draw a background to match the color of the chameleon. Then the children wrote a sentence about where the chameleon was!

Since we did not go to the zoo, the children have been working on making the zoo animals out of hand prints. We are trying to make a book of the animals we will see in the order we will see them. It has been a fun project to work on, especially since they were disappointed in the weather!

Listening In:

While Miriam and Mussie were in home living pretending to be at the zoo they had a little discussion that could be heard around the room!

Miriam: There is a monkey on the tree. I will let you out.

Mussie: No! (pretending to lock the cage back up) Chk, chk.

Miriam: There's the baby polar bear.

Mussie: He needs to stay in there. He's a cub. Remember baby bears are cubs.

It was nice to hear them take something they have learned and use it within the conversations that they have on their own!

Looking Ahead:

Next week we are starting our theme on Community Helpers. We will be starting with a topic that the children have been displaying in the play area as they pretend that someone has been hurt and has to go to the hospital. They use the underneath area of the play structure as the hospital and use the white pipes to make different doctor tools. So we will be starting out with talking about medics. The children will be making band-aid letters, using an ambulance toy in the block area and using doctor tools in the home living area!

Please remember we are closed on Monday, May 31 in observance of Memorial Day.

Coloring chameleons
Cutting out chameleons
Still cutting!
Putting grape juice on the chameleons
Writing about where her chameleon lives!
Making a pattern block snake

Writing about animals

Building a cage for the lions

Animals and Garden Beans

Animals and Garden beans...what do they have in common?

A Look At this week:

They were both discussed during this short week! We were closed Wednesday and Thursday this week so there was not nearly as much going on. However, we did continue our discussion on animals this week. In math this week we focused on our pattern block animals. It is always interesting to watch how each child comes up with different ways to use the pattern blocks to match the animal cards! For our language development the children were able to use the animal zoo again. They have really enjoyed learning about animals that start with each letter. It has also been fun to listen to them using more animal names in the classroom. On Monday there were a few children that were really excited to talk about ostriches. In home living we pretended to be a parent as this goes with the book, "Does a Kangaroo Have A Mother Too?" This book as well as "Slowly, Slowly, Slowly Said the Sloth" were our main books, as well as Eric Carle books. In blocks the children continued to build a zoo. For art this week the children created animals out of playdough.

With our reading of "Slowly, Slowly, Slowly Said the Sloth" we talked about fast and slow. We played a game where we followed a leader who had to do something either fast or slow. The children enjoyed trying to come up with different ideas of what to do! They also had the chance to walk (to go get their lunched and wash their hands) slowly, just like a sloth.

We had a very nice discovery this week! While watering the plants on Tuesday, I noticed we had our first garden bean! Then we noticed another one growing as well. After letting the children look for this great discovery, we picked the large garden bean and sampled it! Although our garden may not look the prettiest, it did work and that was the exciting part.

Listening In:

This is the discussion that took place while talking about the garden bean. Most of the conversation took place while outside. The children first came out, not sure what we were going to look at but the conversation quickly led them to see!

Tyrus: Oh, poor plants.

Morah Amanda: What are we growing?

Levi: Corn.

Morah Amanda: And?

Mussie: Garden beans.

Levi: The cantaloupe is not going to even grow.

Morah Amanda: What do you think I saw when I looked at the plants while watering them?

Mussie: The corn is growing tall.

Morah Amanda: What else did I find? One of them we will leave there and you can show your parents.

Mussie: I think everything is growing.

Tyrus: I see a bean!

Mussie: That's just a rock.

Morah Amanda: What is this? (pointing to a bean)

Tyrus: A bean!

Mussie: A garden bean!

Miriam: Our garden bean is growing.

Mussie: That is yum!

I picked the large bean and we went back inside.

Morah Amanda: Tell me about the garden bean.

Miriam: It grows.

Lizzy: Do we get to eat it?

Miriam: I see dark.

Levi: There are peas inside it.

Tyrus: I see the seeds.

We break the garden bean into pieces and taste it.

Morah Amanda: How does it taste?

Class: Good!

Morah Amanda: What taste did it have?

Mussie: A bean taste.

Tyrus: A lemon taste.

Levi: A pea taste.

Lizzy: I don't want to eat it anymore.

Looking Ahead:

Next week we will be finishing our study of animals. We are going to use a few more Eric Carle books as we finish up. One of these will be "The Mixed Up Chameleon." We will be doing a science experiment with trying to change a chameleon's color as well as we will write about what animals we would like to be. Hopefully the weather will be nice so that we can still take our trip to the zoo, a perfect way to end a three week study of animals!

Making an animal with pattern blocks

Moving as slowly as a sloth

Searching for garden beans

There is a garden bean on the bottom third of the picture

Tyrus and his zoo

Writing a page for Avery's special birthday book

Pretending to be a mommy

Making playdough animals

Playing the movement game

Avery is enjoying her birthday cupcake