Hello all,
“Letter E is for Eggs Week” was by far the most Exciting week of the 2017-2018 school year yet! Perhaps this had something to do with the fact that Halloween fell on Tuesday this past week! The students Entered school Each day with an Enormous amount of Letter E shares and Halloween Energy! Everything from Eggs, Elmo, Exercise Equipment, Eagles, and Elephants were sent in and shared! There were tons of Letter E books that came in as well! To help explore the letter E, the students also learned all about Eggs! Well, “Letter E is for Eggs Week” has come and gone. Read on below to discover the learning that took place and fun that was had throughout the week!
The students spent both Monday and Thursday morning working one on one with the teachers to complete their Letter E identification/fine motor activity sheets. The teachers were so impressed with how easily the new students recognized the letter E and also how well the older students remembered all things “E” during their morning work! In the afternoon on Monday and Tuesday, the students created the fifth letter list of the year! As a whole group, the students took turns brainstorming and contributing words that begin with the letter E and also hunted around the classroom for letter E items! Naturally, the letter E list was full of Excellent answers! As you will see, the list included such words as Elbow and Eye. Some of the younger students were very confused by these words – none of them make the “ehh” sound like the letter E makes. This led to a discussion about how some letter are a little tricky and they change their sounds! These letters are called vowels – sometimes they say their name (long E sound – “E”) as in Eagle and sometimes they say their sound (short E Sound – “eh”) as in Egg. The students decided that vowels were “silly letters” and moved on to their afternoon stations.
Can you name the Letter E shares in this picture?
Answer: Eggs, Eggplant, Elsa, E, and Elephant!
Tuesday was Halloween at PPA! The students arrived at school in their Halloween costumes and boy, did they look great! Tuesday afternoon was the PPA Halloween Party! Nearly all of the students (and their families) were in attendance and in costume too! After reading a silly story and singing a super silly Halloween song, the students marched around the classroom in their costumes! Once the parade had made its way through, the students had a chance to play and dance together as well as enjoy some special Halloween treats! What an amazing day it was! A special PPA thank you to all of the families who attended the Halloween Party. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of this blog entry to view ALL of the photographs from the 2017 PPA Halloween Celebration!
On Wednesday morning, the PPA classroom was abuzz with some Egg-tastic news as the students learned they would be starting the first part of their two day art project to create an animal egg! In order to get started, the teachers inflated balloons for the students to paper mache. The students dipped strips of shredded newspaper into the gooey concoction and then draped them gently around their balloon. At first, the students were a little hesitant to get their hands so messy but once they realized how much fun it was they quickly dove right in! Once all of the eggs had been created, they were set aside in order to dry until the three day students returned once again on Friday.
After music class on Wednesday (and Thursday) afternoon, the students began a new unit in Spanish class this week – i.e. the second vocabulary unit of the year – Los Numeros (Numbers). Here is some of the vocabulary and the song they will be learning over the next few weeks!
Uno – 1
Dos – 2
Tres – 3
Cuatro – 4
Cinco – 5
Seis – 6
Siete – 7
Ocho – 8
Nueve – 9
Diez – 10
Uno, Dos, Tres Amigos
Cuatro, Cinco, Seis Amigos,
Siete, Ocho, Nueve Amigos,
Deiz Amigos Son.
“Letter E is Egg Week” was Especially Exciting because not one but TWO afternoons were spent with special visitors! On Wednesday, the students were visited by a Nana from a far away place – California! The Nana featured below came in to read a story to the class. On Thursday, a Mommy and Daddy visited PPA and the Daddy brought a guitar along! The family led the students in performances of several PPA favorites! Whether it was “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” or “Old MacDonald Had A Farm”, the students sure had a blast singing and dancing along to the beat! A special PPA Thank You to this guest reader and musical duo for making our “Letter E Week” Extra fun! 🙂
Friday continued to be another Egg-cellent day as the students continued to investigate the theme of the week – Eggs! They arrived at school on Friday morning ready to get “cracking” on part two of their Egg-tastic art project! Thankfully the dinosaur eggs had all dried and were ready to be decorated! Using assorted colored paints, the students began painting, speckling, striping, and swirling their eggs! The sky was the limit for the egg designs! Needless to say, the students were thrilled to decorate and take their eggs home later that day! The teachers of course reminded the students to be careful with their eggs. They are quite fragile, after all! 🙂
Friday afternoon wrapped up with an Extremely Exciting Letter E/Egg technology presentation! To start, the teachers held up a chicken egg from the grocery store and asked, “What is this?” Hands flew up into the air as the students noted that it was an egg! The teachers then posed a question – What type of Egg? A dinosaur egg? The students giggled as they explained that it could not be a dinosaur egg because dinosaurs are extinct! They continued, this egg was a chicken egg! They were right! The teachers then asked, “Are all eggs chicken eggs?” to which the students again laughed as they began listing various types of animals that lay eggs including: chickens, alligators, turtles, ostriches, snakes, and more! Again, they were right! But the teachers were curious, “How can you tell if an egg is a chicken egg or another kind of egg?”
To investigate this question, the students turned to National Geographic Kids to investigate photographs of different animals and their eggs. The students were fascinated to learn that while many eggs share an oval shape, they are not all the same color! The students loved viewing photographs of blue jay eggs as compared to emerald green emu eggs as compared to speckled house sparrow eggs!
The students discussed the various animals that lay eggs and also played a game called, “Guess that Egg!” They particularly loved seeing various animal eggs as they were hatching.
Of course, those WiLd aNd CrAzY Storybots made an appearance as well!
Well, that is all for “Letter E is for Eggs Week”. As always, thank you for reading and have a fun and safe weekend! See you next week!
-PPA
Reminders:
Parent-Teacher Conferences begin next week.
Please check your email or the school calendar board to confirm your scheduled time-slot.
Theme for Next Week:
