Happenings With Hemme - Blog

Happenings With Hemme

Farm Week

4/13/2018

MY FAVORITE WEEK is here...FARM week!!! I just had to post a few pictures of the farm and our family on the farm. There's nothing better than raising kids on the farm.

Enough about me...we started our week brainstorming what we already knew about the farm. I love finding "real" pictures and showing them on the Smart Board.

3 Year Olds graphing their favorite farm animal.

4 year olds graphing their favorite farm animal on the Smart Board!

Our blocks are way more fun with farm animals.
You could hear the animal noises all the way down the hallway.

We got our eggs on Thursday. They should hatch this coming Tuesday! We introduced our eggs and incubators with charting.

We practiced color identification with the chick. I think we said the word yellow 50 times today. Then we cut our chicks out. Lots of fine motor practice!

Am I A Farm Animal sorting activity. We did this as a class and talked about why or why not the animal would be on a farm.

Do I Belong on a Farm Smart Board Activity!!

The afternoon class sang, "Old MacDonald" then chose their favorite farm animal to put on their very own farm.

These farm stories were completely student done. They were able to arrange their farm with whatever they wanted. Then they even wrote their own stories.
Very creative.

Sing-A-Long

4/13/2018

Our Spring Sing-A-Long was so much fun. The kiddos loved having their families watch them perform. Check out our video at the bottom.

www.wevideo.com/view/11135709100

Springtime

4/5/2018

I love Eric Carle books.
"The Tiny Seed" is a wonderful introduction to this week.

We made flowers for our family dinner.
The 3 year old class made shape flowers. Completely student made.
The 4 year old class made fine motor flowers and even wrote their name.

We had to make these cute butterflies.
How to Make:
*Color coffee filters with markers
*Spray with a water bottle (the colors will bleed)
*Let dry
*Create your butterfly by tying a pipe cleaner around center

education.com is a great partner with Early Childhood education. This next activity the students LOVED. I think their flowers had too many petals, if that's possible.

We made our own "Name Flowers" next.
The almost Kindergartners are getting really good at their names.

"When Spring Comes," is another cute read aloud to put up on the Smart Board.

We colored, cute, glued, and ordered flowers by size.
These skills have come a long way!

Springwater Field Trip

3/26/2018

Our Field Trip to Springwater was one of our favorites! The students were able to tour all the greenhouses, learn all about flowers, and they even got a little dirty planting flowers.

Rainbows

3/14/2018

We busted out the chains this week. The 3 year old class really enjoyed them!

"A Rainbow of My Own," is a cute book. It's short and sweet and kept the kids interested the whole time.

Both classes charted their favorite color of the rainbow.

We did LOTS of fine motor practice this week. Then we asked lots of WH questions.

The 3 year olds got to do a little finger painting.
Each child counted out gold coins and glued them on their paper.

We went on a name hunt in the morning class. Every student had their name written on each color of paper. This was a fun listening and following direction game.
Most of the students can recognize their name by now.
For those that couldn't, this was great practice.

Rainbow write with our names was fun. I did this during small group/center time. As the student colored the letter, I was questioning them. "What letter is that?" "What sound does that letter make?" "Who else's name starts with a ___?" (These WH questions are important especially when they go to Kindergarten.

Our science experiment that was a bit of a fail...

What you need:
5 clear cups
1 bag of Skittles
warm water
Dropper
Tablespoon

Steps:
1. put a few Tablespoons of warm water in each cup.
2. place __ Skittles in each cup (in order of the rainbow)
2 red, 4, orange, 6 yellow, 8 green, 10 purple
3. let them dissolve
4. with an eye dropper transfer the colors to another clear cup, starting with purple.

***If this works correctly all the colors will stay separate and look like a rainbow. The reason why this happens is because the more dense liquid goes to the bottom. The liquid with more sugar=more dense. ***

The students helped count out the Skittles. We used words like more, less, most, few.

This is what the experiment should have looked like. Oh well, all scientists fail at some point...right?!?

The kids were very encouraging.
"It's okay Mrs. Hemme. We can try again tomorrow." -Cory, 4 year old

RAINBOW HUNT time. This was a scavenger hunt that the students LOVED.
There were 9 clues to find the rainbow with treasure.

St. Patrick's Day

This book brought up so many ideas and imaginations started flowing. I loved the conversations that came after reading this book!

We did a little bit of St. Patrick's Day learning. These are 2 Smart Board learning activities. As always, anytime I use the Smart Board the students LOVE it!!

Both of these activities were number practice. Above-they were dragging and dropping the correct number of coins in the pot of gold.
Below-they were matching the number to the correct quantity.

Conference on the Young Years

3/13/2018

I conquered a fear this past Friday....PUBLIC SPEAKING. I've been told by my coworkers for years to SHARE my knowledge of technology. So I listened and did. It was a bit terrifying, but I'm so glad I did it. There were so many other teachers with questions and they loved my ideas. I have made some great connections through my presentation. I can only hope that my next presentation isn't as scary.

Dr. Seuss Week

3/2/2018

We began our Dr. Seuss week with HAT day!
We read the famous "The Cat in the Hat," then made our own hats.

The 3 year old class worked on patterns and identifying the
colors red, white, and blue.
The 4 year old class worked on recognizing the letter of their name.

Tuesday was WEAR YOUR FAVORITE COLOR day!
The kiddos were so excited when their friends were wearing the same color.
This YouTube video is always a favorite.
There is a song that goes along with each color and mood.
The kiddos really get to dancing.

The 3 year old class graphed their favorite color.
*We are working on using full sentences when answering questions.

The 4 year old class shared their favorite color and told why it was their favorite color.
*We are working on WH questions with these students.

Next was WACKY WEDNESDAY!!

Thursday was CRAZY SOCK day!

Our last dress up day was RED, WHITE, and BLUE day. We had a very fun-filled day!!

This is a really neat SMART Board activity that goes along with the story. The 3 year olds were so excited to touch the SMART Board. We practiced our counting skills too.

Our whole class activity involved goldfish crackers, a fish tank, and counting.
This required lots of listening and following directions.
Any activity that involves food always goes over well.

Our ALMOST Kindergarteners counted fish and matched them to the correct number. They did this without much help. WOW!

We even had a special visitor!! Thanks Dr. Seuss (Dr. Lorenz) for stopping by.

Podcast

3/1/2018

I've had a parent ask about our "Number Rock!" Apparently their child sings this song at home. So here it is folks, our NUMBER ROCK!!

This is part of our morning routine/calendar time. My hopes are by the end of the year every child will be able to count to 20!
That's one of the reasons why we sing this song EVERY morning! ENJOY!

*The kids had so much fun "recording" this for their parents.
I think we will definitely be doing more "podcasting."

number_rock_2.mp3
File Size:	828 kb
File Type:	mp3

Wild Animals

2/22/2018

We started this Wild Animal web at the beginning of the week and kept adding throughout the week. I love that I can do things on chart paper and also on my
Smart Board. I also love that these are REAL non-fiction pictures of real animals.
It makes it that much more real to the kids.
The only thing that could be better is if we actually got to go to the zoo.

We graphed our favorite wild animal.
Then we counted and identified the MOST and LEAST.

Animal Cut/Glue Activity!! Wow, we practiced with scissors and glue today!
I was so impressed at their progress. I can't believe these 3 and 4 year olds.

wild-animal-tracks.pdf
File Size:	511 kb
File Type:	pdf

Education.com reached out to us and gave us this FREE download!! We talked about different animal tracks. The students got to match the correct tracks to the correct animal and even played in playdoh with pretend animal tracks.

www.education.com/download/worksheet/96611/wild-animal-tracks.pdf

Zoo Animal or Pet?

I made this cute Smart Board game and the 3 year olds LOVED it. It was all about memory and identifying animals. I will have to make many more of these games.

Each student chose their favorite wild animal. Then they drew a picture and told me all about it. I wrote exactly what they said. Super cute!

We ended our week with Zoo Animal BINGO! This game required listening skills, following directions, LOTS of patience, and animal identification.

Valentines

2/12/2018

Look at these cute hearts!! They are getting good with names. No help needed.

These ALMOST Kindergarteners are still working hard on their letters. We played a fun Valentine's game where we matched uppercase and lowercase letters.

The PM class practiced their fine motor skills. They tore paper and glued it to their heart. We focused on color recognition and following directions.
Then we talked about all the people we love.

How Many Hearts Can I Hold?
We guessed, then counted.

Our Valentin'es pictures turned out so cute.
The morning class counted and then blew kisses to the people we love.
The afternoon class counted and then glued balloons on their paper.

We made Valentine Name Caterpillars! Each caterpillar had a special pattern too.

Our class Valentine parties were extra sweet!
We enjoyed a somewhat healthy snack and took turns passing out Valentine Cards.

Happy Valentine's Day to all the people we LOVE!
Grandma Kay is one of those people.