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End of the Year Celebration

Tonight we had our End of the Year Celebration.  It is always bittersweet for me as I'm excited that the kids have gained the confidence and skills needed to move on to Kindergarten, but also sad that I'll no longer be a part of their daily lives.  No matter how close you are with your students, the relationship always changes when they are no longer "your kids," and that's so hard to take when you love them almost like your own!  Regardless, the kids did a great job performing tonight, and everyone enjoyed the slideshow of pictures taken throughout the year.

Click on the link to enjoy the show!

2012-13_slideshow

Farm Week

Farm Fun!


The Farm theme is always a favorite it 4K!  The kids had a great time playing with
 the barn, animals, and tractors.


We learned that that milk comes from cows, and that a lot of the foods we like to eat, like ice cream and cheese, are made with cow's milk.  We used some of that milk to make our own ice cream!

We put a baggie of milk inside of a larger bag filled with ice,

 

Added salt to make the ice work better,

 

Shook, and shook, and shook, battling tired arms and cold hands, then were finally
 excited to see that liquid milk change into solid ice cream!

 



 

We also made butter by shaking cream and a pinch of salt in a little jar.

 

We sampled our butter on a piece of toast, along with scrambled eggs, and thought it was delicious!

 

 

 

The highlight of our week was a trip to the farm!  We visited Glacier Ridge Animal Farm in Van Dyne, WI.  We saw some of the traditional farm animals along with more exotic animals like zebras, camels, and bison!

 

 

The kids were very excited about getting to feed the hungry animals!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a great time, thanks so much to all the parents who came along!

Jobs People Do / Fire Prevention

This week was the perfect time to introduce the kids to our dress-up clothes, as our theme was "Jobs People Do."  They had a great time dressing up and showing off!



After learning about different jobs people do and talking about what our moms and dads do for their jobs, we had a "Career Day" in 4K.  Students came to school dressed for the job they might like to do when they grow up.  We had a nurse, ballerina, dental assistant, fire fighter, police officer, mail man, farmer, and vet. 

 

 

 

We experimented with water and pipes in our sensory table after talking about the jobs plumbers do,

 

 

 

 

 

and of course, we spent quite a bit of time talking learning about the jobs firefighters do and fire safety.  The highlight of the week was a visit from the Alto Fire Dept!   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stop, Drop, and Roll!

After seeing the real fire trucks, we made the edible version for snack.  Yum! 

4K Students also enjoyed playing with play dough and other manipulatives as they learn about letters and numbers. It's exciting to see how much they've already learned in just a few weeks! 

Colors

4K Kids loved learning about colors!  We did lots of different
activities that centered on both color identification and the "magic" of
color mixing.  Here you see some of us playing with colored shaving
cream, mixing primary colors to make new colors.


 

We matched colors on the computer while practicing basic computer skills,

 



 and had a "Crazy Colors" dress up day. Some of us went all out! :)

 

We explored colors and color mixing using transparent colored items and light.  The kids were amazed to see what happened when we put blue sticks inside the red tube!

 

 

 

Mixing colored water with eyedroppers to create new colors is always a favorite!

 

 


Another fun way we played with color was by performing a science experiment.  Students poured milk onto a plate to cover the bottom, added several drops of food coloring in different colors, then watched to see what happened to the colors when they touched the milk with a dish soap soaked Q-tip. They were amazed when the colors started "dancing"! 

 

We enjoyed reading the classic book,   Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
then making our own Brown Bear books. 

 

 

Another color book we read was  Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes.  This is always a favorite! You can listen to this very fun story by clicking here: http://harpercollinschildrens.com/feature/petethecat/audio/pete-the-cat.mp3

We made our own Pete's with different colored shoes.  This was a pretty tough project as it required the kids to really pay attention and follow directions, but they did GREAT!

 


"Playing" with our food was another way we learned about colors.  We played a color matching game where we rolled a die with different colors on each side and had to match the color that was rolled with the fruit loop and dot on the rainbow before eating the cereal for snack.

We sorted colored goldfish crackers onto a graph,

 

 

 


and we worked on different fine motor and life skills when we cut, scooped, counted and then enjoyed a "yellow" snack of banana pudding parfaits.

  

 

Along with learning about colors, we also had fun playing!  This road set has been a favorite and some of our boys were so proud of the road they built.  I've shown them these pictures I put on the computer so now they ask me to take their picture whenever they make something they are proud of :)