We have started our Dinosaur Unit this week! I am so excited to get involved in all the fun activities! The children printed these amazing signs with our letter sponges. We are working on mobiles and when they are finished I will post some  pictures.
Below are some pictures of sentences the children wrote after reading Can I Have a Stegosaurus Mom Can I Please?

    We will play a lot of learning games at the centers. Below is a math center. The children roll the die and then put that many small foam dinosaurs on the dinosaur board. The child that fill their board first wins the game. I got the boards from http://www.kellyskindergarten.com/                                        

                                           

100 Day Continued

Today we did some more 100 Day activities. The children used balances to weigh their collections. They put their bottle of items in one side of the balance and added teddy bear counters to the other side it was balanced.

                                       

100th Day of School!!

Our 100th Day of School was a blast! When we came in this morning we sorted our bottles of items into sets of 10. Then all 6 classes paraded around to see everyone's collections. There were some interesting items! When we got back to the room we sang our Zero the Hero song  (I will post pictures of Zero the Hero tomorrow because my battery is dead in my camera) and then read a story. We then went to centers. The children made a 100 Day necklace out of Cherrios and Fruit Loops by making sets of 10 to 100. One center activity was to roll a die with a partner and color in numbers on a 100 chart. Another center was to color 100 pennies and glue them to a piece of paper to make $1. We will write about the money paper tomorrow and I will take pictures to make a slide show for you to watch. The last center was a drawing acivity, the children drew what they look like now and what they will look like in 100 years. Here are some of the drawings.
                                 
                                    
                             
                                    

                                       
We will be doing more 100 day activities tomorrow so come back!

Money Fun

Our class has been learning about money! The children need to identify a penny, nickle, dime, and quarter. They also need to be able to tell the value of each coin and count groups of coins. We started our unit by reading a poem I found many many years ago called My Jingle Jangle Jacket ( I would love to give credit but have no idea who the author is). We then deocorated a paper jacket cut out with water colors and hung paper coins from it.

                         The children loved this activity and are ready to learn more about money! The following pictures are of some games and center activities that I have made. The first picture is a sorting activity. The second picture is a penny counting activity.

   I have glued coupons to a file folder and then written the amount of money that you would save if you used that coupon. The children need to find the coins to make that amount of money.

   I have a tub filled with rice (children love to play in rice!) and I burried play coins in it. The children find the coins and color in a space on the graph for each coin found.

  We have turned our kitchen area into a store. We have play money, cash registers, purses, grocery bags, grocery items, balances to weigh food, and much more. The children go to this center during our math rotations.

                          

The children enjoyed the addition games I put at the center today! I have made a lot of matching games with cut out shapes. I write an addition equation on one shape and the answer on a matching shape the children match each answer to the correct equation. When they finish with their center we rotate so that everyone gets to work with each center.

                        These activities give the children rote practice after we have learned the process of addition. The children know that addition is putting 2 groups together to make 1 larger group.

                           

In math we are learning how to add. Our whole group activity after instruction was to roll dice and put goldfish crackers into an egg carton to find the answer. Each egg carton has the numbers 1 - 12 written in order. Each child is given 12 goldfish crackers. We roll one die and the children put that many goldfish in the egg carton. We then roll the other die and  the children pick up that many crackers. Then as a group we add the fish to the carton in order. Where we land is the answer to our equation.
                                                    

The next step will be for the children to do this at a center and after working the problem they will write the equation and answer on a piece of paper.