On Monday the very hungry caterpillar...

This past week we began our Eric Carle study with a reading and activities surrounding The Very Hungry Caterpillar. During our first reading of the story, we had an open discussion regarding the pattern within the story. Once the children picked up on the pattern of his text they were able to accurately predict (one of the things I love about his stories) what the next page would say. Did you know that The Very Hungry Caterpillar was one of the first books that Eric Carle both authored and illustrated? Through out the week we graphed the fruits that the caterpillar ate each day, added up all of the items that were eaten and made our own The Very Hungry ________  books.

S.Y. adding up all of the food the caterpillar ate through out the week.

J.C. graphing the food eaten through out the week.

Through out the week the children also worked to complete their My Week in Kindergarten books. Each day the children spent part of their Writers Workshop time writing about what they did the day prior. The children were held accountable for using proper spelling for each week day and during math time we focused on days of the week. Once completed the children will have the opportunity to share their books with their peers.

The children learned a new game called Make A Ten, Break A Ten. A game that uses a number generator (die) to work towards making 10. During the game the class worked on using their addition and subtraction skills to write an equation the equaled ten. Some children got lucky with a simple addition equation (2+4+5+1=10) while others (see above*) were not quite as lucky. Eventually the children will work towards being able to play this game independently. We have been practicing skip-counting by 2s, 5s, 10s and a mystery number with our 100s chart.

In Global Buddies this week Jen was out sick so we decided to have a Puzzle Party!

On Tuesday our Ladybug and Caterpillar larvae arrived. The are quite a bit smaller than they have been in the past, but hopefully we will still be able to observe them metamorphize into caterpillars and ladybugs!

This week was filled with a lot of dancing. Below are videos* and photos of the children dancing to May Day is Lei Day in Hawaii, at the Sock Hop, with the Mariachi band and more!! It has been a great week!

** Some videos are still being processed on Vimeo. I'll embed them as soon as they become available :)