Making Friends

We started out our month of Friends & Feelings talking about Making Friends! Even our youngest students understand just how important having and being a good friend is. One day we made Friend Puppets. Some kids made clothes for their puppets and some just used markers to color on it. and some only put eyes on them. We just let them do it however they chose. 

An Invitation to Create activity was the I Am Special Tree. They each started out with their hand/arm as the trunk and branches. Then they had to decided what kind of tree to make. We were given large red circles so once they were finished with the trees they all wanted to add the red circles to them. 

There were several students out this week. I am going to give the other students an opportunity to complete this activity because it is one I want to have in everyone's portfolio. I will be putting together a special combination of activities for each child to have at the end off the school year. Each week I will pick one or two things to add to it. 

Experience Curriculum offers several resources that we can download each month. It is only available to those who have purchase that month's curriculum. One off them is 20 coloring pictures that go along with each day's theme. We change up what we use to color them with. Sometimes it is crayons, colored pencils, markers and sometimes water colors. We use this as a transition activity so teachers can get the next big project ready while they color. We talk about the days topic while they are coloring the picture. 

We have so many different learning activities that the children work with while we are helping other students in the upper grades. Our kinder and first grade classes sit at the big table and we take turns instructing and guiding each student where they are. We don't make them rush to be caught up or ahead of other students. 

We had our first graders use the Word Building Blocks to spell their spellings words or any word they wanted. When they needed help, we would assist them. I think they enjoy this was because it is similar to actual lego blocks. It is great because the red are vowels and the blue are consonants. I think it is great when they want to know why Y isn't red since "sometimes y" is part off what they learned. I have to remind them it says "sometimes" not always.

Next week we will be talking about Feelings. We will also be talking about how the children can help others understand what they are feelings and healthy ways to deal with it.