We had a wonderful time with our special friends and grandparents on Friday.  The Lemur room was packed!  We had over 30 visitors to our classroom!  Thank you to everyone for coming and playing along with BINGO and interviews.

Next week is our big show!  We spent a lot of time this week practicing our lines and song and moving around on the stage area.  We can’t wait to show you all of our hard work and collaboration.

Treehouse Small Group Activities This Week:

Monday
Performance practice – We all met in the Koala room to practice moving around in lines and how to stand still on a line.  Very tricky for pre-k!  This might be the hardest part.

Tuesday
Performance Practice – The big screw ball lifter…Everyone had a turn practicing to use our giant screw shaped ball lifter.  See previous post for photos.
Pizzeria Math – Our farm turned into a pizzeria…Students practiced adding 2 numbers together to get 10.  One child was a customer and ordered a pizza with 2 kinds of toppings adding to 10 (3 peppers and 7 pepperoni).  The pizza maker needed to make a felt pizza with exactly those 10 ingredients.
Brown Bear Book – Students worked on more pages for their Brown Bear Book they are making with Ms. Ryan

Wednesday
Performance Practice – We practiced our songs and decided to drop one song!  We love Twist and Shout but we felt like it was too much.

Thursday
Performance Practice – Each team practiced their lines together
Book Bag Check-in – Students read a book from their book bag and books were updated
Pizza Pie Chart – Students created a “pizza pie” chart…they first made a tally count of how what kind of pizza was their favorite.  They then turned that data into a bar chart.  They then turned that data into a pie chart.

Friday
Grandparents and Special Friends! – We did 2 treehouses with our visitors 🙂
BINGO
Interview questions

A HUGE thank you to Mr. Eisfeldt who prepared an incredible presentation for the Lemurs about farming.  Mr. Eisfeldt works for Case Agriculture who makes massive farm machinery.  He also brought in fantastic coloring/activity books for each student to take home and a very cool CASE model tractor that is already the most popular toy in the classroom.  Look for photos in a previous post.

We learned all about yeast this week as we made some bread from scratch.  Like the chemical reaction we created with volcanoes, we created a chemical reaction by feeding dry yeast some warm sweet soup (warm milk and honey).  This made the yeast bubble up and expand, allowing our bread rolls to raise up in the oven.

Treehouse Small Group Activities This Week:

Monday
Writing – How to Harvest Wheat Book – We finsihed up our writing project, creating a “How to” book for harvest wheat.  The finished books are hanging up in the classroom.
Math – Game – Harvest Time – Students learned how to play a new cooperative game, Harvest Time.  Students worked together to plant seeds before Fall came and then harvest crops before Winter came.
Performance – Scenery Painting/Practice – Students painted green leaf scenery for our performance.  I worked with partners to practice lines.

Tuesday
Reading – Sight Word BINGO – Ms. Ryan helped student practice high frequency words with a fun game of BINGO
Math – Rainbow Dice– Students rolled dice and added the sum to color in on a rainbow sheet.
Performance – Props – Students practiced using their props for the show

Wednesday
Science – Baking Bread – We all baked bread together and enjoyed the results with butter and honey!  I included the recipe for “kitty rolls” in your red folders.

Thursday
Reading – Book Bag Check-in – Ms. Ryan read book bag books with each student and updated with new books.
Math – Rainbow Tens – We began learning about numbers that add up to ten.  We used a rainbow to see the connections.
Performance – Practice Lines – Students practiced lines for the performance.

We began a new unit this week to study farming and farm machinery!  Our climber was transformed into a “functioning” combine tractor and our playhouse is now a big red farm stand.  The Lemurs had a lot of fun pretending to harvest wheat during center time.

We learned to appreciate how farm machines like combines make farming so much easier.  We processed some real cut wheat by hand.  We  removed the grains from the stalk by beating the wheat with a block.  Then we separated the wheat berries from the husks by “winnowing” the grains with a fan.  The husks are lighter than the berries.  So when poured slowly in front of a fan, the husks blow away while the wheat berries fall to the ground.  We then grinded the wheat berries with bricks, producing a small amount of flour.  We used the flour we made to make some play-doh…the recipe called for 5 cups of flour, so we needed to supplement with store-bought flour!

Treehouse Small Group Activities This Week:

Monday
Reading – Clik, Clack, Moo – Ms. Ryan read student Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin.  Students then used letter tiles to create their own words.
Math – Farm Stand Addition – $1 – All of the fruit and vegetables at the farm stand were priced as $1, $2, or $3.  Students were given 10 $1 felt bills and a shopping basket.  They needed to use their addition skills to spend their $10.
Science – How a combine work – Working together as a team, students learned how to work our climber combine.  One student fed pom pom wheat into the front header, another pulls all of the wheat inside, another filled a bucket with the wheat, another pulled the bucket up by a pulley, another poured the wheat down the chute into a wheel barrel.

Tuesday
Reading – Independent Literacy Folders – Preparing for independent work in Kindergarten, students learned how to use literacy folder games to work on alone or with a partner.
Math – Farm Stand Addition – $10 – Today all of the fruit and vegetables at the farm stand was priced as $10.  Each Lemur was given 10 $10 felt bills to go shopping.
Science – Harvesting Wheat by Hand – Threshing

Wednesday
Reading – Word Rings – Students reviewed words on their word rings
Math – Farm Stand Addition – $5 – Today all of the food was priced as $5 and students were given 10 $5 felt bills to go shopping.
Science – Harvesting Wheat by Hand – Grinding

Thursday
Reading – Book Bag Check-In – Students read the books in their book bags with a teacher and bags were updated.
Science -Making Play-doh and Mixing Rainbow Colors  – After making a large batch of play-doh, we divided the dough into 3 balls and dyed one red, one blue, and one yellow (primary colors).  Each child was given a small ball of each primary color and then used them to mix secondary colors.  Resulting in a nice rainbow of colors to take home 🙂
Writing – How To Harvest Wheat Book – Students began to create a “how to” book sequencing the steps to harvest wheat by hand.