Maundy Thursday!

Thursday, April 02, 2015

A big thanks you to everyone in the class for wearing blue today to help support World Autism Awareness Day!  I greatly appreciate itJ we had a really fun day and we went out on a bang to start our Easter Break!!!  Our schedule was a little changed around today due to the Spring weather, but it worked out great and we could not of had a better end to our time together before we celebrate Jesus this weekend! 

Today we were introduced to a new number, a new shape, and a new color and heard the story about Jesus dying on the cross to save us from our sins.  Along with learning all about these fun new things we heard some really neat books today and worked on our colors, counting and shape skills. 

Today our activities were ones we have done all week.  So some of my friends did not do them again today, this allowed me to get caught up on portfolio work and for us to be able to experience a combination of centers and activities.  Every friend was engaged and participated in a lot of different centers. 

As a reminder please makes sure your child has an extra set of clothes in their backpack.  We do go outside and sometimes we have accidents and need to change our clothes.  If you do not want to leave them in your backpack you are more than welcome to leave them in your child’s cubby.  Also, with us being able to get outside more please make sure you send plenty for your child to drink through out the day.  

We got dirty today and that is ok if your child came home completely clean then we have a problem.  That being said remember we do lots of painting and things that require us to get dirty so please do not send your child in anything that you do not want to get ruined.  Also, a reminder that tennis shoes are best for our little friends to wear on the playground! 

Sorry for the pink stained hands but it was well worth it, as you will see from the pictures today!  It was so fun to see my friend’s faces as well as hear the sounds as we did numerous fun centers

Enjoy reading about our day!

Jesus Time:

Jesus is arrested

Matthew 26

Suddenly a crowd came toward them and Judas Iscariot was with them. Soldiers and chief priests followed closely behind. 

Jesus was arrested and taken away to see the high priest.

Jesus is taken to Pilate

Mark 15

The soldiers who were guarding Jesus were very cruel to Him. Then Jesus was brought before Pilate, the Roman governor. 

Pilate did not think Jesus had done anything wrong, but he wanted to please the crowd. So he handed Jesus over to the soldiers to be killed. The soldiers put a purple robe on Jesus and a crown of thorns on His head.

Jesus dies on a cross

Mark 15

The soldiers took Jesus to a place called Golgotha. There He was nailed to a cross. Above His head was a sign, 

"The King of the Jews."

Darkness covered the land. At the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice to God, the breathed His last breathe. Jesus died.

A Roman soldier near the cross saw this. He said, "Truly, this man was the Son of God."

During our center time we did numerous activities surrounding around our Bible Story.  We water colored a picture of some Easter Eggs that said Jesus Has Risen.  We painted a cross purple that was made out of special sticks that we will be bringing home today. Lastly, we cut a green piece of paper like grass and painted our hand yellow and glued a black cross on the paper to show Jesus had died for our sins.  These will be hanging up in the hallway soon. 

Number:  During our morning meeting we were introduced to the number 9!  We counted 9 fish on our board and we counted 9 Easter Eggs into our Elmo Easter Basket, we then talked about some of the Easter Eggs were the same and how some of them were different.  This was a new activity that I have introduced to the students today and we will continue to work on problem solving skills such as this one through out the end of the year.

During our center time we stamped 9 Easter Eggs into a basket for our Number Book that we will be bringing home in May.

Shape:  During Morning Meeting we were also introduced to the shape of an OVAL.  We decided that an oval looks like an Easter egg.  It kind of looks like a circle but it is taller and skinny, not short and fat. We looked at some of the Easter eggs in our classroom today and decided if they are the shape of an Oval.

During our center time we made an Easter egg using shaving cream and different watercolors to make some beautifully decorated eggs that are displayed in our hallway.   Be sure and check them out when we return from Easter break

Color: Purple is the color we are learning about during the month of April.  We had new objects to put on our purple board today.  Ask your child if they remember what purple item they put on the color board today.  We also discovered that the bulletin board paper had been changed out and was no longer yellow but that it was purple!

During our center time we painted our cross for our special project we are doing purple. We also had a lot of fun finger painting with purple and pink paint on big pieces of white paper.

Music and Movement: We sang Jesus Loves Me, Twinkle Little Star and our ABC’s.  Singing Wheels on the Bus, Five Days Old, Shake Your Body Down, Bringing Home a Baby Bumble Bee, Clapping our Hands, The Silly Dance Contest and The Washing Machine!  We were busy during our Music and Movement Time and had lots of fun laughing, dancing and singing. 

Outside Time: I decided this morning when getting ready for school and looking at the forecast that we would head outside first thing this morning to try and beat the rain.  We had a great time playing outside on the playground with our other PDO friends and we were able to beat the rain.  We were outside for about and hour when the first sprinkles started to fall.  We did not get to go to the big playground today to play so we hope to hit that up when we return from Easter break. 

Patterning:  We continued our new pattern today of pink and purple bunnies.    

Sensory and Science led us to the sensory table where we discovered Easter Grass and lots of plastic Easter Eggs that we had to match together. We had fun finger painting with paint.  Playing with clay to make a stand for the purple crosses that we painted today to help us remember Jesus died on the Cross-for us. We also played in shaving cream today as we made some beautiful Easter Eggs!   We dyed Easter Eggs with different colors of Kool-Aid and they turned out awesome!

Letters:  Today we didn’t do a letter from the alphabet, we did work on the first letter of our name as we used blue glitter to decorate an Egg and Easter Bunny was holding with our letter on it. 

Enjoy the pictures for Today!   

Outside Play

We started our day outside so that we could beat the rain and still enjoy being outdoors.  It was a different way to start our day and that is ok, it is important that we have a good routine and rhythm in our classroom, but is also important that we learn how to adapt when things might be different.  It did throw a few of us for a loop at first but once we started to play we had a wonderful time! 

. I wish I had this on video!  If I didn't know any better I would have said they had all played bumper cars before and we better all look out in a few years when they are old enough to drive! 

. We got inside just in time.  As soon As we came in and went to the bathroom to wash our hands and got back in the classroom it start to down pour!   

. Morning Meeting

. Happy Easter and Happy Almost Easter Break!! 

We started with singing our Hello song that we do every day.  When our name was called we had to stand up and wave to our friends.  This was a good way to make sure we were all listening and engaged and ready to learn for the day. 

. We Did it and we were ready to learn! 

Calendar

. Mr. Weather Frog needed some rain gear today and looks like he might need it over spring break for a few days. 

. The Number 9 and and OVAL 

. Our Nine Easter Eggs.  We sorted them by color, super hero, shape and movie.  I was pretty impressed with how many of them knew what Star Wars was. 

. During Jesus Time we read this book about what Happen To Jesus Before, During and After Easter.  

. Our Patter for the next few weeks 

. We read this book to go along with our small duck theme.  When we return from Easter Break we will do our duck story board

Color Board

. Transition and Snack

. Snack Time

. Circle Time

During our Circle time we incorporated some of our Music and Movement into it more than we normally would, because some of our centers today took a little longer. 

. Five Days Old

. LOOK AT ALL THAT BLUE!  Thank you so much for helping bring awareness to the world of AUTISM! 

. Clapping our Hands

. We listened to a Flannel Board Story about 5 Little Bunnies

. We read this book about a little baby duck who lost his way and then found his mom, brothers and sisters

. Center Time

We listened to some Christian Rock music today to help us prepare for Easter Sunday.  We did a lot so I was not able to capture pictures of everyone do everything today.  I apologize for the lack of pictures here and there

Painting Purple Crosses

. Imaginative Play

. Dying Easter Eggs

We each got to dye two Easter Eggs and we got to chose the color we wanted to do for our eggs.  We used Kool-Aid and water!  They turned out pretty good and my friends really had a great time doing it! 

. Coloring

. Playing with our friends

.More Coloring

. Stamping 9 Easter Eggs for our Number Book

. Bingo Daubers 

. What letter does your name beging with?

. Shaving Cream Easter Eggs

. FINGER PAINTING!

WE HAD A BLAST WITH THIS ACTIVITY!  

. ROLLING THE CLAY

This was a great way for us to work on our fine motor and sensory skills as we had to roll the clay into a ball for our cross to be put in it.  It felt different than the play dough we normally play with.  Hopefully it will harden over night and your child will have something to remember PDO by! 

. Music and Movement

We had a little bit of time for a little more music and movement. 

So we did the Silly Dance Contest and the Washing Machine Song

. After the Washing Machine Song Mrs. Horn realized the time so we did not take our ducks off our name board today.  So we asked if we were a boy or a girl and then we went to wash our hands and got ready to eat lunch!  

WHEW!! What an amazing day we had and so much fun!  I was pooped out by the end of the day and I am sure my friends were too.  I hope you all have a blessed Easter and a wonderful Easter Break.  I look forward to seeing everyone back at school the week of April 13!  Happy Easter!