The Earth...

We started our morning meeting our new letter R friend...

 We took turns pretending the hands-on letter R was a "Rocket."  We started the letter R's on the letter R on our alphabet rug.  We said the /r/ sound as we pretended to blast off into space....

 We placed our letter R flower on the floor somewhere else in the classroom...

 

 We flew the hands-on letter R over to the letter R flower and landed.

For our song we sang...

"If you live on Earth, clap your hands.

If you live on Earth, clap your hands.

If you live on Earth, the third planet from the Sun,

If you live on Earth, clap your hands."

(Sung to the tune of "If You're Happy & You Know It.")

I asked the kids to remember a time when they visited a new place.  They all chimed in with vacation spots that they have been to.  I told them that some people have imgained that there are creatures that live on other planets that want to visit Earth.  These beings would be called aliens!  I explained that TV and movies have shown aliens to look a certain way, but that really no one is certain what an alien would even look like.  We made alien headbands for our craft, and I encouraged them to think creatively about what they would like their alien to look like.  

 I asked the kids to pretend they are visiting the Earth for the first time.  We discussed what they would like to eat, how they would talk, and how they would move.  This definitely brought out the silliness in them...

What types of things live on Earth?  I explained that the Earth is special because it is the only known planet that has life. 

We brought our letter R cards outside...

 R is for rabbit, and a rabbit is living.  I asked the kids to point out living and nonliving things in the yard.  It was fun to hear the birds chirping again!  Spring is definitely near and new life will start to show all around us!

A tree is living...

 Our picnic table is nonliving...

 Leaves were a bit confusing for some of us.  Leaves that are on the ground are nonliving, but leaves that are still on trees are living...

 Rocks were also tough.  

Rocks are a part of nature, so they are often thought of as living, but they are not...

I had the kids line up and take turns rolling a die...

 A rabbit is living!  We hoped like a r-r-r-rabbit the same number of times we rolled on the die...

 We could see that some of our friends could hop longer distances forward because they are taller and they have longer legs...

After we came inside, we set out our nap-time pillows on the blue carpeting in the music and movement room.  We pretended the pillows were land masses and the blue carpeting was the water.  We learned that rockets must take off and land on land. 

 We pretended to be r-r-r-rocket ships by taking off from one land mass and landing on another...

 After we settled down, we took out our world map and foam stars.  We took turns tossing a foam star (rocket ship) onto the map.  We identified if it landed on the water or the land...

 The kids played our living vs. nonliving science game on the computer while I prepared lunch...

 In our literacy workbooks today we playing rhyming Memory...

 We also colored the matching pictures in our math workbooks...

 Mother Goose recommended the Planet Earth/Inside Out book for today.  I borrowed it from the library, but it was not suitable for this age group (way too lengthy and scientific).  I decided to read the kids my Aliens Love Underpants book.  We love this book!

In the afternoon we went outside for a second time and played with a new stomp rocket in the cul-de-sac...

 These rockets really soared!

 We drew orbit paths around the sun on the driveway with sidewalk chalk!

 The kids realized they could tilt the stomp rocket so it shot forward...

 They tried to hit the sun on the driveway.  They imagined the sun and orbit paths were a target...

 Whoops!

 The weather was so warm by this time we got to take off our hats and mittens!  It was beautiful!