Food, Health and Hygiene Fun & TWO Friday Freebies!

My first ever parent teacher conferences are over and I survived! They actually went really well. Although, as many of my parents said, I talk to them so much anyways it wasn't like they were hearing anything new. What can I say? I'm so proud of their kiddos and constantly have to let them know about it! :)

Our theme this week was all about Food and Health with a little bit of Hygiene. Overall the week went a lot more smoothly than I expected, being that I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off finalising details for conferences, putting together invitations for Pies with Grandparents next week, and trying to pick a holiday song for our class to sing at the Holiday Program because, as the office keeps kindly reminding us, Christmas is JUST AROUND THE CORNER. Makes me exhausted just remembering!

Anyways, here's a look at some of the fun art, writing center, dramatic play, math and science stuff we did this week!

Art:

Vegetable Soup Stamping



This was so much fun (and a great way to use some leftover veggies from a stew I made)! First, we talked about what do you eat soup from, a plate or a bowl? Then we discussed what shape a bowl is, since this week was the kickoff of our Shapes math unit. The students then attempted to draw a circle for their vegetable soup bowl. After that they vegetable stamped away!

Literacy:

Traffic Light Colors Food System Shared Writing

After reading Eat Healthy, Feel Great! on Monday we worked on this shared writing all week during our morning meeting. We brainstormed different foods for each category (Green Light Food being very healthy and good to eat, Yellow Light Food being slow down and don't eat too much, and Red Light Food being stop and don't eat it!) 

We have been practicing listening for the beginning sound in words and identifying the letter that makes the sound, so the first letter is what most of my students wrote. Some of my more advanced students, however, wanted help sounding out the whole word, so they were allowed to write more if they wished. And I drew the pictures! :) Afterwards I hung the anchor chart in the kitchen for them to use as a reference while concocting in the kitchen.

Letter V Awareness Time

We spent some time with Letter V.  We practiced writing V in the sky, making the /v/ sound, and brainstorming words that start with a /v/ sound, such as violet, volcano, etc.  Then we practiced handwriting with this cute Letter V: Vegetable tracing sheet from First School!

Halloween Candy ABC Environmental Print Book

This, I must say, is one of my best ideas ever. Well, the idea actually comes from Kids Count 123, but I can't believe how well the project and the timing worked out with my PreKinders!

The weekend before Halloween I sent home the request for candy wrappers (my parents are used to this; I have used environmental print in the classroom since the beginning of the year. We call it Word Detectives!) But, as time went on, I despaired of ever getting enough candy bags back to compile our book. As it so happens, every student had returned their candy wrappers by Wednesday this week, which was perfect because Wednesdays are what we call "Word Detectives Wednesdays" AND we were also talking about unhealthy food! We read The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food to jumpstart the conversation. Afterwards, I met with my small groups to help them sort their candy wrappers by the beginning letter/sound. Once sorted, they searched for the appropriate letter page to glue their letter onto. 

Voila! A new classroom library favorite!

Science:

Clean vs. Dirty Hands Experiment

Alas, this is the only part of the week that backfired. Last Monday, in anticipation of this week, we passed a piece of bread around and touched it with our dirty hands right after centers. Then, we washed our hands using the cute song below (click on the picture for the FIRST of my Friday Song Freebies) and touched the bread again.

We sealed the bread in Ziploc baggies and met in our science groups to discuss. I asked questions such as, "What do you notice about the bread now? Is it the same or different? Do you think it will stay the same? Why/why not?" They recorded their observations in their science journals.



  

Fast forward to this Monday, seven days later. The bread is STILL the same! First of all, how gross is that? How many preservatives are in white bread anyways? Secondly, how am I supposed to demonstrate the importance of hand washing when the science experiment is an epic failure? Well, like true scientists, we recorded our observations and revised our predictions. Here's my favorite one:

Hopefully next week we see some results! Next year we are going to do the clean vs. dirty hands apple experiment instead!

Math:

This week was the introduction of our shapes math unit, starting with 2-D shapes. We were mostly consumed with coloring and doing the activities in the student book version of Favorite Shapes (from Pearson's Big Math for Little Kids), but we found time to go on a shape hunt mission. Check out this great Secret Agent Shape song from Harry's Kindergarten:

Dramatic Play:

Shopping at the Grocery Store & Cooking in the Kitchen

Throughout the week our Dramatic Play Area served variously as a kitchen and a grocery store. My kiddos practiced shopping for and cooking healthy food, along with identifying healthy recipes in some cute recipe books for kids. I found some great additions to our Kitchen at Walgreens for only $5 each- a blender and a toaster!

Somehow I hadn't noticed before, but while being treated to my tasty stew I saw that my students were pretending to eat food off the table and disregarding utensils such as plates, spoons, forks, and cups. I asked to be served my stew in a bowl and pondered what I could do to remedy this apparent lack of table manners! :)

I found the idea for these cute table setting placemats here, and decided to make some of my own to help remind my students to use their silverwear while at Dramatic Play. I used the actual dish and silverware from our kitchen to trace the placemats, then covered them with Contact shelf paper for durability. We read How Do Dinosaurs Eat their Food? by Jane Yolen, one of our favorite authors, to start the conversation about why and how we eat with table manners.

Much better!

Here are some of the great books we read this week or had available at Listening Center:

  

Lastly, check out this super cute and super fun song entitled "Oh Do You Eat Your Vegetables?" We had a blast singing this song all week! Click on the picture for the freebie!

Thanks for visiting and I hope you all have a great weekend!