End of the Year!

Week of June 1, 2015

Getting Ready to Visit the Ocean!

It is so hard to believe we are entering our second to last week of school! This year has flown by!

We are going to spend our last two weeks preparing for our transition to summer and a new classroom in the fall. We will have the chance to play in Transition Beach in dramatic play, learn about sun safety, and read about many different ocean animals. One of the books we will read this week is another to connect with our author study. We will read Eric Carle's "A House for Hermit Crab."  We follow the hermit crab as it makes friends and decorates its shell - its home. Finally, he is too big for his old shell and decides to give it to a smaller hermit crab before finding his new, bigger shell. We will connect this with discussion of the students and the way they have grown, introducing the idea that they are bigger now and ready for a new, bigger classroom in the fall. We will celebrate all the things they have learned and all the new things that they can do!

Some of the vocabulary we will introduce and review this week includes beach, ocean, sand, seashell, swimming, ice cream, sandcastle, lifeguard, sunscreen, towel, life jacket, crab, fish, and seahorse.

Another of the books we will read this week with the theme of growing up is a beautiful story by Eve Bunting. This is a video read-aloud of Little Bear's Little Boat that was likely recorded as a student project. Feel free to skip ahead 30 seconds past the intro, as the graphics might make you seasick :) Enjoy!!

http://youtu.be/yATm5y3EPTE

Week of June 8, 2015

Have a Wonderful Summer!

This year has flown by! It feels like yesterday that we were all wondering how that first day was going to go, and now here we are, ready for our last!

We will spend this last week of Transition preparing for transitions. We will make the transition to summer by learning about the beach and the ocean. Children will play with sand and shells in the discovery table, lay out beach towels and lounge in beach chairs in dramatic play, and share of their experiences with the ocean! We will also continue to discuss the idea of going to a new classroom next year, which we introduced last week. We connected this idea with that of a hermit crab getting bigger and finding a new shell as well as Big Bear building a new, bigger boat in Eve Bunting's book Little Bear's Little Boat. We are also focusing on all the ways we have grown! Just like Big Bear could do things, like build a boat, that he couldn't do when he was little, the children have learned to do lots of things, now that they are three, that they couldn't do at the beginning of the year when they were two!

Some of the vocabulary we will introduce and review this week includes beach, ocean, sand, seashell, sandcastle, swimming, lifeguard, sunscreen, towel, life jacket, crab, and fish.

Music, Month of June

I cannot believe the end of the year has come up so quickly!

Looking back from September, it is clear to me how much my students have grown. They are singing as a group and sometimes even individually! I have even been able to introduce a simple partner dance which we have enjoyed as we move to the music. 

We have had a really good year of growing and learning and I think many students will remember some of our songs through the summer.

We always end our classes with the simple song, "Good bye Music, goodbye music, goodbye music...we'll see you again next time." Now we will sing "..see you again next Year!"

Have a great summer!