Animal House Visit, Planting Seeds and Milking Cows

 Alpha students enjoyed a visit from some interesting friends from Animal House. They learned about each animal's characteristics and habitats while seeing them up close, even touching them if they wished! This Boa Constrictor is one of the largest and most beautifully colored snakes in the world. They live in warm places and use their flicking tongue to smell the birds, lizards and frogs that they like to eat!

  Our cute little buddy, the tortoise, eats meat , but especially enjoys vegetables and fruits such as watermelon and broccoli.

The ferret was playful and funny to watch as he curiously sniffed the children's shoes with his great sense of smell. They were a bit smelly themselves, because they have glands that secrete oil when they become frightened.

The chicks or "farm birds" were so soft to touch. It was hard to believe that at six months old the chicks lay their first egg and then everyday after that. Some of the other friends that visited were the hedgehog, the baby bearded dragon, the scorpion, the savannah monitor and the ball python.

The boys and girls love to hold the flag up high when it is their turn to be the frog of the day. They show respect to our country by placing their right hand on their hearts while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. The children were recently introduced to the October number calendar and have discovered a repetitive color pattern in the frogs representing each day. They also enjoy "sky writing" the "O" for the beginning sound of October and the days of the week.

Painting with the color orange at the easel has been lots of fun! Painting jack-o-lanterns, designs or a big orange oval make the children feel quite proud!

Not only can the boys and girls make Mat Man with lines and curves, but they can make letters and spell their names!

Learning about the many types of animals on the farm has been keeping the children quite busy these days. They enjoy comparing the features of animals such as the pig, goat, sheep, horses and cow. This week they have been learning about the two different ways to milk a cow, by hand or machine. They have been observing pictures in books showing how this process works. While reading the book, "It Looked Like Split Milk" by Charles Shaw, the children tried to guess what the white shapes on each blue page might be. One looked like a rabbit, another a bird or was it really just split milk? Then they each experienced what it might be like to milk a cow by hand, as they created their "spilt milk" paintings!

"The Carrot Seed" by Ruth Krauss, told the story of a little boy who was determined that the carrot seed that he planted would grow, despite what his family thought. He planted his carrot seed, made sure it had water and pulled the weeds everyday. The children in Mrs. Mundell and Mrs. Samuel's Alpha classrooms planted yellow squash and green pea seeds in their playground garden, after pulling the weeds and preparing the soil.

After all of the seeds were planted, they gave them a big drink of water!

After planting yellow squash seeds in a cup, the children predicted whether they thought the seeds would sprout in the garden or in the cup first. They recorded their prediction by in a bar graph. We counted the bars. 9 friends predicted we would see sprouts in the garden first, and 6 predicted the cup. The children will be watering both daily as they make their observations!

Some other books read this week:
"David Gets in Trouble" by David Shannon
"Too Many Frogs" by Sandy Asher
"Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" by Bill Martin,Jr. and John Archambault
"It's Pumpkin Time" by Zoe Hall

Upcoming Dates:
10/19 & 10/26 Exploring
10/23 Picture retakes
10/31 Halloween Parade (8:30) / Fall Festival (9:45 dismissal)