Alpha Friendly Frogs: Spiders, Exploring Vegetables and the Pep Rally

What are the characteristics of a spider? Are they insects or arachnids? After reading
"The Very Busy Spider," by Eric Carle and a great discussion about spiders, the children practiced pre-cutting skills by tearing paper strips for their spider's legs.

After counting to make sure they had 8 legs, the boys and girls helped Mrs. Mundell staple each leg to the spider's abdomen.

Next they practiced using little dots of glue to add different color ovals to their spider, sometimes creating patterns!

In Music, with Mrs. McIvor, the friendly frogs pretended to be spiders as they moved about the classroom using their eight legs!

All sorts of Halloween bags were discovered in the dramatic play area including pumpkins, ghosts and even spiders!

After closely observing our beautiful class fish, the children shared their different observations with the class. They enjoyed watching him swim about using his brightly colored fins and tail to move about in his fishbowl environment. Then we made a list of possible names on chart paper after making the beginning sound together. Finally we voted, remembering to vote only once. The name, "Singy" won with the most votes!

How many spoonfuls does it take to fill little jack-o-lanterns with rice? Which holds more rice, the green cup or the jack-o-lantern?

Creative thinking was quite apparent as the children used the many shapes of the colorful windowpane blocks and small plastic shapes to create structures. A quite complex airport airport and beautiful pieces of art were examples, just to name a few!

Then a velcro block airplane came in for a landing!

Each week, the children enjoy Mrs. Gootson coming to read a book to them. "What If?" by A. H. Benjamin and Jane Chapman was about the farm animals at Buttercup Farm. They were worried that when a kangaroo came to their farm, it might take their jobs away. Then they learned what a kangaroo can really do!

During Exploring on Friday the children explored vegetables from the garden. They used their five senses to explore how their many interesting characteristics! They even enjoyed a vegetable snack.

Not only did the yellow bell pepper have many tiny seeds inside, but it had a very unique smell.

After putting on some garden gloves, the children shucked the corn of it's husks and corn silk.

Which is longer the celery or the corn? After making predictions, a ruler was used to measure the length of each one.

The texture of the cauliflower felt a little different from the broccoli.

Discovering the tape measure was fun, too!

The children used the different vegetables to make gorgeous prints!

"I say green, you say gold!" "I say Shorecrest, you say Chargers!" The boys and girls learned the Shorecrest cheer, made shakers and building with green and gold foam blocks.