North Pole Animal Wheel

The place we are visiting in January is the North Pole. (This year our theme is "Oh the Places We'll Go") We started our study of the north pole by looking at the different animals that live there and we read the book, The Very Bouncy Bear by Jack Tickle. It is a pop up book about animals that live in the arctic. It includes penguins and I had to explain to the kids that even though they are in the book, penguins do not live in the north pole.

For our activity, we made an animal wheel for animals that live in the north pole.The kid cut out the top and the bottom circles. They colored the animals on the bottom circle. They tore up cotton balls and glued "snow" on the top circle. Then we connected them with a brad so that the bottom circle spins and shows some of the different animals that live there. 

Here's What You Need:

• Card stock
• Cotton balls
• Brads
• Glue
• Scissors
• Crayons

Here's What You Do:

1. Copy and print out the two wheels onto card stock. (The wheel with all the animals is the bottom wheel.)
2. Cut out each wheel including the pie slice on the top wheel.
3. Color the wheel with all the animals on it.
4. Tear apart and glue cotton balls onto the top wheel for snow.
5. Stack the wheels together and use a brad to fasten them so the bottom wheel turns.

C is for . . .

. . . cupcakes!

. . . caterpillar chains!

For more detailed instructions see our post here.

. . .community helpers!

To continue our talk about our town, we talked about community helpers this week. I found this really fun book titled Whose Hat is This? by Sharon Katz Cooper that talks about different community helpers.

Each child chose what kind of community helper they want to be when they grow up. Then, they made their own paper dolls of themselves. I used the Everyday Paper Doll cricut cartridge to do the cut outs.

Our Milk Carton Town

This year's theme is "Oh the Places We'll Go." The first place we are visiting is our town. We have been talking about places that we go in our town and also people who make up our community.

To kick off our talk about our town, we made our own town using milk cartons. We read the book Franklin's Neighborhood and talked about the places that we like to visit in our neighborhood. Each child then picked a place to make their milk carton into. The kids made the library, stores, churches, houses, and schools. 

After they made their buildings, they put them on main street (that I drew on a black paper with white crayons) and drove to each others buildings with matchbox cars.

If you would like to make your own milk carton town, here's the details.

Here's What You Need:

• Milk cartons - 

I got ours from my husband's elementary school class. You could get them from your local elementary school by buying the milk during lunch time or by asking a teacher to collect them for you. Make sure you wash and disinfect them before you use them. (I used bleach water after I washed them out.)

• construction paper
• tape
• glue dots

Here's What You Do:

1. Cut out two pieces of paper. One for the roof that is brown and one to go around the sides that is white. Our brown one was 3 3/4 X 2 1/4 inches. Our white one was 3 X 9 inches.
2. Use the glue dots to attatch the brown one up and over the top of the milk carton.
3. Decorate the white paper with doors, windows, signs, etc then tape it around the sides of the milk carton.
4. Put your buildings and cars on the streets and get cruisin'. 

 

Welcome Back!

We made it through our first week of school and the kids did amazing! The returning kids really helped the others learn the rules and routines. I was so impressed with all the kids and I am so excited for the rest of the year!

This year we are going to be talking about places. Our theme is "Oh the Places We'll Go." Here's our welcome board for the kids.