week 3

Dear Families,

This is our third week of school, and our second week learning about farms.  This week we are talking about what a garden is, comparing the similarities and differences between gardens and farms, and learning about how products get from the farm/garden to the store, and then from the store to our houses.  Here are our books for the week.
  


Monday-        OT group, 1:1, Speech group
Tuesday-        Decorating apples, sequencing a chick hatching story
Wednesday-   Counting farm animals, sorting apples by color
Thursday-       Sorting big and small apples, making apple trees
Friday-            Speech group, Daily living skills


-The Barnyard Buddies

week 2 2012

Dear Families,

We are in our second week of school, and for the next two weeks we will be learning about farms.  The concepts this week are; What is a farm, What are farms for, and why some animals live on a farm.  We will be reading Eddie's Garden and Farmer Duck.  
                                               

Work for the week:

Monday        1:1 work, OT group & identifying "different" in an array of
                        three & speech group
Tuesday        All about me graph (large group activity) & cutting paper to
                        decorate pigs
Wednesday   Color and shape ID activity & using tripod grasp to color and 
                         crinkle paper to decorate apples
Thursday    Sorting animals that do and do not live on a farm & sorting red, 
                       green, and yellow apples
Friday       Speech group & Daily Living skills (using utensils)


-The Barnyard Buddies

First week of school 2012

Dear Parents,

We had a great first week of school!  This week was spent getting to know our friends and learning about what the routines and expectations are at school.  We read The Kissing Hand and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  We did some informal assessments at work time to see where are skills are at cutting, matching and labeling colors and shapes, sorting groups by attribute, writing grasp, dominant hand, name recognition, and matching letters.  We record current performances in all of these areas, so that when we plan future lessons, we are able to differentiate instruction more appropriately to address the individual needs of all of the students.  

Here is our class schedule:

8:25-8:40        Arrival time
8:40-9:00        Playground
9:00-9:10        Bathroom
9:10-9:30        Work time
9:30-10:00      Choice time
10:00-10:15    Circle time
10:15-10:35    Snack time
10:35-10:45    Story time
10:45-11:05    Small groups
11:05-11:25     Music
11:25-11:30    Dismissal

We have two work times during the day, one "work time" and one "small group".  Small groups are lessons derived from our OWL curriculum (Opening the World of Learning).  Work time can be, but is not always related to the curriculum.  We use work time to provide consistent exposure to fundamental skills such as cutting, gluing, sorting, matching, number ID and rote counting, one to one correspondence, name identification and writing, and letter work.  

If you have any questions about our schedule or any other school matter, please do not hesitate to contact me at conroy@bpsk12.org.

-The Barnyard Buddies

Dear families,

We are halfway through our Community Helpers unit.  Last week we practiced one to one correspondence by matching letters and mailboxes, we made houses for our block area, we worked on letter sound identification and initial sound isolation by matching pictures about mail carriers, we colored Corduroy pictures and cut out fabric to make clothes for him, and we made stationary and wrote letters to a classmate. 

Here's what we are reading this week
   

Small groups

Monday:       Painting teeth
                      Speech group
                      Story sequencing
Tuesday:       Writing community names and isolating/matching initial sounds
                      Sequencing A Pocket For Corduroy
Wednesday:   Sounding out words from word family -AT
                      Firefighter positional book
Thursday:      Making a mouth
                      Tracing/cutting/matching circles 
Friday:           Oral Motor group
                      Name writing


- Barnyard Buddies

Dear Families,

We are on our last week of our Winter unit.  Here's what we did this week.

Mitten Trees and Penguins
Hibernating Bears            

This week we will be learning about symmetry and how to measure things (temperature and size).

Small Groups

Monday-      Making hot cocoa (OT)
                    Egg carton penguin
Tuesday-      Mitten Painting
                    Window snow scene
Wednesday-  Measuring Temperatures
                    Tracing  tracks in the snow
Thursday-      Coffee filter snowflakes
                     Measuring snowmen with unifix cubes
Friday-          Oral Motor Group
                     Lacing snowflakes
                    

-The Barnyard Buddies

Dear Families,

We are currently in the fourth week of our Winter unit.  This week we are learning about animals that hibernate and migrate and what happens when the snow melts.  Here are the books we will be reading this week.
    

Small Groups

Monday-       Counting clothes
                    Decorating hot cocoa pictures (OT)
Tuesday-      Making caves for hibernating bears
                    Decorating tree for winter
Wednesday- Counting winter items
                    Matching tracks in the snow
Thursday-     Decorating snowflakes (OT)
                    Mitten experiment
Friday-         Oral motor group
                    Sorting winter objects by color

If the temperature outside is 25 degrees or above, we will go outside.  Please remember to send your child to school in appropriate winter clothing; including winter coats, gloves, hat, and boots, even if the temperature reads below 25 degress at the drop-off time.  Our playground time is usually at 8:40; at this time in the year it is often too cold to go outside at this time, so we will try to get outside at 11:10. 


- The Barnyard Buddies

Dear Families,


Our first two week of our farm/harvest unit went well.  We planted "pumpkin" seeds, counted farm animals, organized apples in ascending order, made apple trees, played a BINGO game with vegetables, made AB farm animal patterns, used different materials to texture farm animals, and made tissue paper apples for our bulliten board. 

This week in our farm/harvest unit, we will make apple pizza, play a farm animal memory game, experiment and graph an apple taste test, sort objects that do and do not belong on the farm, and conduct a heavy/light experiment with different farm related items. 

If you haven't already done so, please send in the permission slip for our farm field trip on October 20th.  Thank you!

-The Barnyard Buddies