We began our last unit for the year…pond/wetland ecosystems.  We live in a community surrounded by lakes, ponds, rivers, and marshes.  The Lemurs will be learning how the plants, animals, and insects in this environment are all interconnected.  On May 23 we will have our field trip to the Crabtree Nature Center where a naturalist will take us for a tour of the pond and we will get to experience what we are learning first hand.   We are still looking for 2 more volunteers to come!

We also began learning about a new genre of books…mysteries!  The Lemurs LOVE mysteries!  It is a great way for them to think about problem/solution structure of stories.  We began with Inspector Hopper...a crime solving grasshopper.  And Young Cam Jansen…a series of mysteries about a young girl with a pho
tographic memory.  You can find these books at your local library…they make excellent read-alouds for this age group.

Treehouse Small Group Activities This Week

Monday
Brown Bear Book – Green frog page – Ms. Ryan is working with students to recreate the book Brown Bear Brown Bear by Eric Carle.  Each day they will work on a new page.  Today they ripeed and glues green tissue paper to make a green frog.
Intro to Beekeeping – I read students the book The Beeman by Laurie Krebs.  We discussed how bees create honey and beekeepers collect the honey to sell.  After we all tried some clover honey ourselves, students played in our playhouse that has been transformed into a beekeeper’s hut with costumes and tools.
Intro to Fishing Pond – Our climber has been transformed into a fishing pond as we begin studying wetland ecosystems.  Mrs. Swanson showed students pictures of common lake fish, such as bluegill, bass, sunfish, catfish.  Our little pond has been stocked with some pretend bluegill.  Students used fishing poles with magnets at the end to catch the fish. We have a “catch and release” policy in our pond. 🙂

Tuesday
Brown Bear Book – Purple cat page – Using purple dot markers and black pipe cleaner whiskers, students created a purple cat.
Math – Symmetry Game – Students used pattern blocks with a pattern to create symmetrical designs.
Full Body Portraits – No potato people!  We worked on drawing pictures of ourselves that included all of our body parts…head, neck, belly, shoulder, arms, legs, feet.  This is a tricky transition for pre-k students who like to draw people as potato-like circles with lines coming out.  These drawings were cut out with black paper and used in our shadow pictures hanging in the hallway.

Wednesday
Shadows and Settings – We took a short field trip to the sidewalk to say hello to our shadows.  We noticed how the sun needed to be out in order for us to see our shadow.  We then went inside and created a “setting” for our people drawings to go into.  The requirements were that we needed to include a light source like the sun, and we needed to create a ground large enough for our shadow to fir onto.  See these great pictures in the hallway.

Thursday
Book Bag Check in – Students sat with a teacher to read current books in book bags and update with new books.
Mothers Day cards – “You are my Sunshine”  Students made cards to give their mother’s on Sunday.  Our moms make us happy when we are sad…students learned how to write “Mom, I love you” inside their cards.  Many students continued to write this on many more cards and all over the whiteboard.

Friday
Brown Bear Book – Goldfish page – Students got a fine motor workout as they used orange crayons to color in the goldfish page and add orange glitter glue details.
Math – Monster Squeeze 100 – We have played this game many times this year.  Using a large number line…one student thinks of a number and the others guess the number.  The student says the number is “too high” or “too low” and moves the monsters at the end of the lines to close in the range.  Students must guess the number before the monsters close in to the number.
Pond Life – Plankton – We began creating our pond study book with the smallest creatures in the pond…phytoplankton and zooplankton.  We watched the hypnotizing video The Secret LIfe of Plankton.  Incredible videotography shows us the weird and wonderful shapes of this microscopic world.  I brought in some lake water from my backyard along with some snails. Students coulds see tiny plankton and algae swimming around as the snail vacuumed it up.