Hakuna Matada !

Everywhere you looked there were wild jungle animals today!

This game that Malia is playing is called " Hanging Monkeys." You roll the dice and add or take away monkeys as the dice calls for. You have to balance them . The green tree top is only held on by a magnet.

Andrea returned with her binoculars to look for more wild animals.

This is the "Elephant" game. They use the elephants nose to pick up ring on the floor.

The kids loved retelling the story/song of the five little monkeys today with my playset. Sometimes even I forget the awesome teaching aids that I have .

Randy and Andrea are talking. His face looks mad but he wasnt. She was telling him that he can speak spanish just like her grandma. We asked her what her grandmas name was and she said Andrea - just like hers ! Yesterday I went to a training on ESL ( English Second Language ) and how to teach children that come into our classroom speaking a language other than English. The speakers suggestion was to always speak in english to the child. I am not sure that I agree with that statement. Randy does speak a minimal amount of spanish and uses it to help the kids coming in feel comfortable and at home. I think him doing this starts a relationship with those children that even I can't bridge.

Jungle Sensory bin.... hidden animals everywhere. Another sensory activity was the playdoh.

We also played a math game today. I had pictures of monkeys with numbers on their chest. Each child chose two cards . They told us what they number was and then fed their monkey that many small bananas. What I found interesting was that many of them could not only count to the number but also use one on one correlation to feed the monkey the appropriate number of bananas. But... many of them did not recognize the written numbers. One way you can reinforce this at home parents is simply by pointing out numbers . They are everywhere. On your cell phone, on the tv remote, on menus..... Try it and play it as a game, the kids will catch on really fast.

During circle time we sang our jungle songs- including going on a bear hunt. We read an Eric Carle book called " From Head to Toe." The kids mimicked the movements of the animals . Today we also read " Giraffes Can't Dance." We found out they can. We heard that anyone can dance... sometimes they just need different music. After reading the book we went on a " listening walk" and listened for the music outside such as the wind whistling through the trees or birds singing.

Here is a link to the story if you would like to read it. Giraffes Cant Dance

We had a busy day- almost done - hang in there. Remember the books we have been reading about social issues such as picking your boogers or mouths the erupt like volcanos ? Today we read a new one called " Personal Space Camp" This book explored what our personal space is. How much of a comfort bubble do we really need ? The book suggest the size of a hula hoop but also points out that just like bubbles we blow, every ones bubble is different. This book, like all the others was excellent. I love Julia Cooks books!