The end of our space unit!

On Tuesday morning we were so excited to see REAL fog!!!!  We remembered learning about fog earlier this month!  I made sure everyone saw the fog outside, but I am a little disappointed with myself that we didn't actually go outside to experience it.  Mornings can be a bit hectic making sure everything is prepped and ready to go for the day, so I really didn't even think of it until later.

 What is is this sweetheart doing, you ask?  She is pretending to make donuts on her imaginary wall kitchen!  Seriously, how cute is this!?!  It just proves that kids don't need a lot of toys!  They are so good at pretending and acting things out!

 Would you like a donut?  $1.00 please...

On Tuesday we completed our space unit by talking about observatories.  I explained that astronomers can see things far away in outer space by using telescopes and other instruments.  These tools are often kept in a building called an observatory.

 Right away in the morning we completed a color-by-letter observatory picture in our literacy workbook...

 We also played another fun version of Memory with space cards from our math workbook.  The kids had to try to get all the matches without getting the sun card.  If the kids got the sun card they pretended to be burned and their game ended prematurely. 

Tuesday was the last day of March!  We counted all the way to 31!  

We discussed what month will be next.

 I taught the kids the rhyme "Star Light, Star Bright!"  We changed the words a bit to this...

"Star light, star bright,

seven stars I see tonight.

I wish I may, I wish I might,

have this wish I wish tonight."

I changed the number seven to a different number each time we recited the rhyme for each new friend.  They had to point to the matching number on our number line before sharing their wish with the group...

 Mother Goose provided us with a "Brain Box" that had all the basic concepts we learned about this month on it (Letters: Rr, Ss, & Zz, Star Shape, Color Yellow, and the Number 7).  We took turns rolling the cube...

 Then we looked for items in the room with a paper towel telescope that matched what we rolled on our Brain Box...

 We reviewed the phases of the moon with this activity.  The kids had to match the piece to the right spot on the moon sheet...

 We also worked on our fine motor skills by using tweezers to sort mini star erasers...

At the end of every month we complete a page in our scrapbook!  At the end of the year the kids will take their book home and have a keepsake to remember all that they learned about.

 It is exciting to look ahead and see what we will be learning about next!

Our book for the day...

 The kids also colored and read a mini emergent reader book titled, "I Know About Stars."

We made an Easter craft!  We painted our hands for bunny ears...

 I printed a picture of each child and drew whiskers on their face.  I attached their photo to a small paper plate and they added cotton balls for bunny fur...

 We assembled our bunnies on a "Hoppy Easter 2015" piece of paper provided by Mother Goose Time...

 They look so adorable on the wall!

We started an egg experiment!  We put a whole egg in a cup of vinegar.  In a few days the egg shell will completely dissolve!  The kids hypothesized what they think will happen.  Most of the kids think the egg is going to disappear.  A few think the egg will hatch!

Rocket Ships!

On Monday we learned about rocket ships!  I started circle time with this book.  I asked the kids what they know about rocket ships.  They were surprised to learned that the rocket boosters separate from the space shuttle after it blasts off.  They were also surprised to learn that rocket ships land on Earth with wheels, much like an airplane!

I set out our letter cards we learned from this month (Rr, Ss, and Zz).  We pretended to blast off and land on the different letter "planet" cards as we sang, 

"Climb into the rocket ship,

The rocket ship, the rocket ship.

Climb into the rocket ship,

We're going to the (Moon)!"  

(Sung to the tune of "The Muffin Man.")

We switched the word "Moon" for other planet names or the names of the letter card we landed on.

I took out new CVC word puzzles!  We worked on these together as a group before I set it out as station to explore with.  I encouraged the kids to pretend the hands-on letters were rocket ships.  They could blast them up in the air and land them on the word puzzle card.  We tried all the letters in each spot and identified if the word we created was a silly word or a real word.

We were given new bilingual books!  

The kids cut apart the picture cards and glued them on the right page.

 We found a comfy spot and read our book with a friend!

We designed our own rocket ship!

We had fun placing star and planet stickers on our rocket ships...

 

 After we completed our rocket ship craft we danced with and twirled our rockets around as we listened to the song, "Blast Off" on our Mother Goose Time Blast Off to Space CD.  This was another favorite song of the kids for this month!

We reviewed what a constellation is with these constellation stars...

 I gave the kids a flashlight and had them shine the light through the card.  I encouraged them to count the stars they saw on the wall!

 Our books for today!

 We even had a rocket ship for snack time!!!  The cottage cheese was supposed to be the smoke!

In the afternoon I set out pattern blocks and a rocket ship and letter R pattern block card...

 I copied the same pattern block card on a piece of transparency paper.  The kids used the translucent pattern blocks to create the same picture on our light table!

 The kids also had fun making their own pictures with the pattern blocks!  This cutie has BIG news to share!  She is no longer in diapers!!!!  Yay!  Also, her parents just found out that she will be having a BABY BROTHER this summer!!!!  Congrats to the whole family!!!!!!

 I bought this AWESOME science experiment at Michael's! 

 We went outside and filled the base with baking soda and the top with vinegar.  It blasted higher than the trees!!!!  The great thing was that we were able to reuse it and do it over and over again!  What fun!

We also worked in our math workbook.  We cut and pasted rocket ships on our page by listening to the positional words in the directions...

Our literacy workbook activity...

We completed our journals!!!!