Estimation ....we just dont get it yet

The halloween fun has already begun...

Sharpening fine motor and math skills can be fun !

Gross motor ( large muscles) - tossing a pumpkin in the can.

Geneviette and Rosanna built a pet shop. Rosanna is the pet ! :)

Emeri holding our pumpkin to try and guess how much it weighed. Estimation is an important skill but one that usually just comes with experience, not teaching. Today we weighed a few of the kids and talked about the numbers. Then we compared the pumpkin by holding it and each took guesses of how much it weighed. I got numbers from 5 to 105. The correct weight was 12.4 lbs.

With all the excitement about building going on we are lucky to have someone here painting our house . He is doing an excellent job. The kids were able to sit and watch him work for a while today.








Today .. as always was a good day.

Construction !

Today has been a fun day! I LOVE mondays ! If you are a teacher and want to beat the Monday blues, make that the day you change our your materials. You DO change them out, right ? :)

Today we started learning about " People who build our community. " I took out several new toys all with a learning goal in mind. Below you have Rosanna playing with a different set of blocks than is normally out. With these blocks she is " constructing" but she is also using her fine motor skills for picking up those blocks ( that will make her a better writer ) . She is practicing balance and control as she stacks the blocks. She is using her imagination to build.

Kayla is playing with Addams IPad. I love the game applications that are on an IPad. Kayla is playing a color by letter game. As she touches the letter it reinforces what that letter is to the child. The kids LOVED this today. So much so.. that we had to make a sign in sheet for it.

Noah is hammering. It looks like a baby toy , right ? As you pound one nail the other one pops up. The children really studied this today for cause and effect. You also see a tray for random nuts and bolts. These are used to screwing things together but we are using them to strengthen those fine motor skills!

Safety FIRST ! :)

Here we are combining a little Halloween fun with building tools. The kids are hammering golf tees into a real pumpkin. This was one of the favorite centers today.

New Puzzles !

Working under the table

Checking out the screw driver.

Our pumpkin is about covered with pegs !

Children learn more when you can relate what you are teaching them to something they already have a little knowledge about . Who build a house ? Who built THREE houses ? The three little pigs. We will build more on this story as the week progresses. Today we read a short version of it and then did an emergent reader. We also talked about 1st , 2nd and 3rd ! ( ordinals )

We really did have a great day! Parents, make sure you get the note about the party on Friday from your cubby. Also, we have a facebook group now that you can post in and I will be posting a few things there are well. It put in a lot of dates that you will want to mark on your calendar.

DONT FORGET - Tomorrow night ( Tuesday at 6:30) is our Little Builders Workshop at Lowes.

Happy Monday... :)