Hello all,
Letter E is for Eric Carle Week was Extraordinary, Exciting, Exhilarating, Excellent, Etc. Etc. Read on below to see all of the fun that was had and learning that took place.
The students started of the week by filling the share box with an enormous amount of letter e shares. These shares included Sesame Street favorites such as Ernie and Elmo, Elephants, Elves, Eagles, Eggs and of course, nearly Every Eric Carle book! One student brought in an Eric Carle share that the teachers turned into an Eric Carle station!
In the morning on Monday and Tuesday, the students worked on Letter E tracing/writing identification activity sheets. The students were a bit confused to hear that words like elephant started with the letter E. The students who are practicing sounding out and writing words had a tough time hearing the E sound at the beginning of elephant or “L-ephant” and we see why! The letter E sound can be pretty tricky at the beginning of words like elephant or exercise!
During the afternoon, the students brainstormed all the letter E words they could think of! They also hunted for E’s around the classroom. The E hunting continued even as the students headed outside to the park! The students found so many E’s in street signs, buildings, and parked cars in the neighborhood that one student commented, “Wow! Maybe we should change this street name [from Central Avenue] to E Street!” Here is the list the students came up with.
Wednesday’s art project had to do with an Eric Carle classroom favorite, The Grouchy Ladybug. The main character in the story is a ladybug who, needless to say, is very, very grouchy! The ladybug is so grouchy throughout the story that he attempts to fight nearly every animal and insect he comes across. Fortunately, the grouchy ladybug learns some manners as the story goes on and he learns to change his mood!
After listening to the story, the students created their own grouchy ladybug to take home! First, they needed to pick a color to paint their ladybug.
Next, they had to pick and count out the number of spots they wanted to stick onto their ladybug.
They added a head and some googly eyes to create their ladybug. But this ladybug was just a regular ladybug – not a grouchy one! Before the ladybugs were complete, the students had to inform the teachers of one thing that made them grouchy to be written on the inside of their – now – grouchy ladybug. The responses were quite Enjoyable for the teachers to read! Here are a few funny ones –
Just like the ladybug in Eric Carle’s story, The Grouchy Ladybug, I get grouchy when …
“a lion comes into my bedroom at night!”
“Mommy tells me that I can not eat goldfish crackers for lunch!”
“I have to get up REALLLLLLLLY early in the morning!”
“I have to go to bed but I am not tired yet!”
“I have to eat broccoli!”
The students pictured below were definitely not feeling grouchy on Wednesday!
In the afternoon on Wednesday and Thursday, the students had Spanish where they continued practicing their Los Colores (Colors) vocabulary by working in small groups to sort and classify items by color.
Thursday was a particularly exciting day. The students listened to Eric Carle’s Ten Little Rubber Ducks. In the story, a box of ten rubber ducks fall overboard a cargo ship. All of the ducks float off around in different directions in the ocean.
Eric Carle is not only an exceptional children’s book author, he is equally praised for his colorful illustrations which are created using paint and tissue paper to give the illustrations a textured appearance. Each page of an Eric Carle story, particularly Ten Little Rubber Ducks, contains more vibrant art work than the previous one!
Now, Eric Carle may have won a few awards with his beautiful illustrations but after seeing the results of Thursdays “Recreate and Eric Carle Painting” project, it is clear that the PPA students held their own against a legend! Can you tell which painting was created by a student and which one was created by Eric Carle?
Painting A,
or Painting B?
If you said painting A is a student painting, then you are correct! Here are two proud artists creating and displaying their Eric Carle replica paintings!
Friday began with another Eric Carle inspired art activity. This time, the students used crayons to draw their favorite character or illustration from an Eric Carle book. After flipping through various Eric Carle books, the students selected which illustration they wanted to draw. The students worked diligently to find just the right color crayons to recreate the drawing on their paper.
Their attention to detail was outstanding! Here are a few highlights.
During the afternoon on Friday, the students participated in an Eric Carle-themed technology presentation where they learned about the author/illustrator and even watched one of their favorite stories come to life! Watch below to see how the story that we all know and love, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, came to be!
The following link contains the animated versions of four of Eric Carle’s books. Be sure to take a look by clicking here.
Well, that is all for letter E week. As always, thank you for reading and have a wonderful and safe weekend! We will see you next week!
-PPA
Reminders:
Next Upcoming School Closing:
Wednesday, November 24th – 12:00 p.m. Dismissal (No lunch)
Thursday and Friday, November 25th-26th– Thanksgiving Recess
Next Upcoming School Event:
PPA Winter Holiday Celebration
December 22, 2010
2:00 – 3:00 p.m.
(No aftercare available)
Theme for Next Week:
