Autism Awareness is in April

As some of you know I have a special place in my heart for Autism.  April is a month that the wonders and curiosity of Autsim is talked about more in the media.   Here a link to learn more or to donate for research.  http://www.autism-society.org/about-us/national-autism-awareness-month/

Butterflies and Chickens! Which came first, the egg?

This is the time of year when our classroom has an influx of wildlife.  Every year we watch the butterfly cycle from caterpillar to adult butterfly.  We've already read many stories about this so the children will be excited to see it come to life inside our butterfly cage.  I ordered the caterpillars online and they should be at school soon.

Chicks, chicks and more chicks.  We will also start our Egg to Chicken experiment.  A local mom and grandma donate eggs and the incubator for our kiddos to start the 21 day journey. 

These two activities are a great way to discuss our Earth and Conservation.  I love this time of year.

Butterflies were ordered from www.insectlore.com .

Who Took the Cookie From the Cookie Jar?

Alas we have come to the time of year when I bring out the popular story "Who Took The Cookie From The Cookie Jar". Spring is around the corner and animals are coming out of hibernation.  The story has many. This cute story has so many opportunities for Math and Science teachable moments as well as all the Language Arts aspects as well.


We will use the poem to discuss sentence conventions and structure.  The rhythmic pattern of the poem is perfect for emergent readers.  We know that memorization is a building block to fluent readers some day.  

I have a large cookie model I made from canvas. We will use this for our vocabulary words and math activities this week.  Educational researchers tell us that children's brains best remember and learn when we give them a visual way to compartmentalize the information.  Simply by displaying and interacting with manipulatives on the cookie will help them to make the needed connections of the concepts we teach.

Monday: I will start the lesson by placing pictures of all the characters from the story in front of the children; a raccoon, snake, beaver, frog and ants. Next I will show them the front cover of the book and read the title. Then each child will get to make a prediction using tally marks (math integration) of the animal they think took the cookies.  We will "picture walk" the story and then read the story.  This lesson will be  a spring board for the week's lessons of sequencing and comprehension as well as sight word and rhyme word reading.  I'm looking forward to it.  At the end of the week we will make some cookies...healthy..gluten free, whole wheat..of course! :) .