Thursday January 27th- Opposites: hot and cold

Downstairs, we practiced printing our names and then went upstairs to play with foam blocks, big plastic blocks and animals. During this time, I did individual name practice with each child. I took each letter of their names and wrote it on a circle and then glued the circle onto a clothespin. For each child, we reviewed their letters of their name and they had to put them in order by clothes pinning the letter to their folder. This is great for helping them with which letters are in their name, what order they go in as well as their fine motor skills. I will be doing this weekly until they have it down.
Shiann helped with our circle time duties again and we did calendar time and letter practice time. Since this was our last class in January, we did review singing Humpty Dumpty again. After we wiggled, we had a fun snack. For the opposites hot and cold, I wanted to give the students a chance to try something hot and cold. So for snack time, I made hot chocolate and had icy cold water for them to drink so they would taste the difference between the two. After snack time, we had individual book time as I cleaned up snack time and then we were on to the lesson.
For the opposites hot and cold, I talked about how we feel when we are hot. We talked about the summer time- clothes we wear, how we feel when we are in the heat, and things we do to stay cool. We dressed our weather friend in appropriate clothes to show that we dress differently in different types of weather. For the cold, we talked about the weather we are having now and how we have to change our dress for cold type of weather. I read the story of the snowy day and how the cold air is what gets us the snow. We talked about foods that are cold and how we feel when we eat them. At the table, we colored a worksheet that shows a thermometer and how the ice cube is whole in the cold and then the ice cube melts when the temperature is hot. I explained what thermometers are and what they accomplish. I had a few for the students to see- one for the body, for food and for candy. I showed that they all had numbers- those numbers tell us the temperature. Sometimes we need a thermometer in case we have a fever and are not feeling well.
For letter time, we colored our O sheet for our binders. It had an owl, octopus and ocean on it. Each student wrote the letter O all by themselves and then I helped them with writing their names. We practiced our O sound when each student got their O stamp and we had some more book time at the end of class.