Animals in Winter

Group Meeting:  This week, we are going to learn about animals getting ready for winter.  We will be learning the words adaptation, migration, and hibernation.  Today, we watched a video about adaptation.  We learned about animals that prepare for the winter by changing their coats and storing food for winter.

Small Groups:  The activities for this week are listed below as well as the schedule for today.
Activity #1 (Red Group)  The children played a game called "Oh No!".  They passed around a box that had letter cards inside along with a few cards marked with the words "Oh No!".  If they picked a letter, they identified it and kept it in their lap.  If they picked "Oh No!",  they had to return all of the cards to the box.  At the end, the child with the most cards was the winner.
Activity #2 (Yellow Group)  The children were given a "do a dot" squirrel.  The numerals 1-20 were printed on the dots.  The teacher would pick a card and call that number.  The children used bingo daubers to stamp that number on the squirrel.
Activity #3 (Green Group)  The children used a balance scale to weigh a few school supplies.  On one side of the scale, a school supply was put in the cup.  On the other side of the scale, the children placed plastic bears in the cup to make the scale balance.  They counted the bears and recorded it on their paper.

Story:  The story for today was Time to Sleep by Denise Fleming.   In this story,  Bear notices that it is getting colder.  She realizes it is time to crawl in her cave to sleep.  But before she does, she must tell snail.  Snail notices that there is frost on the grass.  It must be time to sleep, but first she must tell Skunk.  The story progresses with each animal telling another that it is time to hibernate.  Ask your child to tell you which animal is at the end of the story.

Large Group:  The children went outside to the Outdoor Classroom.  We don't do that often in November!

Letter Learning:  We have started learning about the letters again.  This time we will use alphabetical order.  Therefore, today was Aa.  We are using dry erase boards on which to print the letters.

Snacks:  The morning snack person was Tula.  She brought blueberry bagels, cream cheese, and juice.  The afternoon snack person was Shelby.  She brought bananas and milk.  Thank you, Tula and Shelby!