Goldfish, & Guppies, & Frogs, Oh My!

"It's on the LOG, IT'S ON THE LOG!!!" exclaimed H.P. dashing about the room hands waving. The other children excitedly zoomed to the terrarium to see our new tree frog nestled comfortably inside the little log. This is important, you see, because we've been singing a song about a log and a frog. "On a log, Mister Frog, sang his song the whole day long: Glump, Glump, Glump, Glump." While our frog doesn't sing (he's particularly quiet), we sing a LOT and the frog is just one of our musical topics. The little hopper in our classroom is a White's Tree Frog and we have him visiting us for the next two weeks.

But the frog isn't the only creature in our class right now. We've also been studying goldfish and guppies. We've observed both types of fish and discussed the parts of the fish -- eyes, fins, scales, tail, mouth, gills. One student, M.T., even reminded us that the top fin is called the dorsal fin. We've talked about the different sizes of the two types of fish, watched them swim, and even painted pictures of them.

Amidst all the excitement over the various creatures in room 106 we've also been working hard to practice our letters and numbers. Last week "Mm" was the featured letter -- we practiced writing it, named things that started with it, and even made a new class book, "Our Mm Book" to send home with different students each night. This week we studied "Rr" and created a book about things that begin with "r". We also read books including, "Mary Wore her Red Dress" (based on a folksong), and "Only Six More Days" by Marisabina Russo.

In math we've been counting fish, counting days of the week, talking about the calendar, and exploring with interlocking cubes. On the first day of the week little hands got tired and some friends were frustrated, "I can't make what I want to make..." The cubes have little holes on five sides and a connector on the remaining side. They do require some hand strength and determination to fit together, and sometimes they can be hard to pull apart. But each day the students worked a little more with the cubes and by Friday were making all kinds of spaceships, people, color patterns, and candy canes ("This one costs ten dollars" said O.H. to which N.B. replied, "Well, mine's 25 cents." ...Price wars in kindergarten... but I still bought both!). During this exploration they are having fun, but also working on important skills such as strengthening fine motor skills, improving problem solving strategies, and honing spatial awareness. Later in the year we will make patterns they have to visualize and copy, but for now it's all about exploring.

So with the frog, goldfish, guppies, letters, numbers, playground, painting, snacks, resting, singing, centers, computer labbing and such we have been very busy this week. So rest up, Moore's Marvels, because we have a whole new slew of activities and fun again next week. Rock on!!