M is for Mitten and G is for Groundhog recap

Our Mitten week last week went SO well! We followed mostly what I posted. Little Mister did not come back, so we missed him. He wasn't back this week as well, so I may have to do a follow up call.

I DID do the "snow playdough" and it was a serious hit. I wasn't sure I had the consistency right, but I read further on different blogs and found somewhere that said that it was crumbly, but would hold its shape once compacted.  Which is what this did. I also read somewhere that someone used baby oil instead of baby oil (but I wasn't using my baby oil, so this seemed to be a good use for it) I also used baby oil gel, which at first I thought compromised the consistency, but then I realized my playdough was just the way it was supposed to be)

Today we did Groundhogs

I got a tracing page, a coloring page and a groundhog craft all from first-school. Because I was doing a rather truncated version of school today, I found this fantastic website that had cute ideas, but I really didn't use anything from there. However, it gave me great confidence in my decision not to send Benjamin to state funded pre-k next year.  I have already done a bit of research and plan on writing a post dedicated to the research behind this decision.

We are getting better at reading and when I went to the library last week I found three books in the library on Groundhog's day. I was super thrilled! The two we used were:


This was very cute with a recurring phrase the kids could repeat (which I love!)


Cute, but a little over-long for 3 year olds. However, it did provide the vital information that I never remember that if the groundhog sees it shadow and hides that means  6 more weeks of winter, but if it stays out, then spring will come soon. It was a story of a raccoon that ran a skiing lodge. He didn't want spring to come soon, so he kidnapped the groundhog. I paraphrased heavily. I would have been better at paraphrasing had I read it beforehand. But this week seemed to be really tight for time.

Hopefully next week will be better - I plan on doing H is for Hearts! Yay for February holidays! It makes planning all that more easy!

M is for Mitten

Not a whole lot of time, so mostly links will comprise my post today
http://www.atozteacherstuff.com/pages/235.shtml
very easy - make two mittens that are alike

songs
http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/songspoems33.html

more songs, including:

Colorful Mittens
(tune: Six Little Ducks)

Colorful mittens for me and you
Red ones, yellow ones, blue ones too.
But the one pair of mittens that rhymes with fellow,
They're my favorite mittens, they're the color yellow!

Replace with other rhyming pairs such as:
red/bed
bean/green
sink/pink

~ Author Unknown ~

* you can also cut out a mitten on the front of a file folder (like you would if you were making a stencil).  Then inside the folder place a sheet of construction paper the color of each "mitten" and as you sing the song/say the rhyme you remove the sheet of construction paper on the front.  This makes the mitten change colors to match the rhyme.  Once you've done the rhyme several times, you can pause before saying the color word and removing the paper to see if your students can provide the appropriate color using their rhyming skills.

The Mitten
(tune: The Farmer in the Dell)

The mole is in the mitten.
The mole is in the mitten.
Mi-mo the merry-o,
The mole is in the mitten.

The rabbit is in the mitten.
The rabbit is in the mitten.
Ri-ro the rerry-o,
The rabbit is in the mitten.

found at the Virtual Vine
and of course, the kidzclub flashcards and it looks like they just added mittens - SCORE!
and of course our lanterfish tracing page - I think I am going to do mountain - and it will be off the library again, since my computer is still dead.  Dead dead.
Thank you to Peter for today's post
I really want to do more math, but I guess that will have to wait until I have a working computer - whenever that may be