What a busy week of school. This was our first week of Lunch Bunch on Monday and Wednesday. The children were so excited to have lunch with their Blue Whale friends and teachers.
We sang Where is Thumbkin and practiced finger isolation. And that led us to our discussion about busy fingers and sleeping fingers. Thumb, pointer and tall man are the busy fingers and ring man and pinky are the sleeping fingers. Each child received a cotton ball for ring man and pinky to sleep on while the rest of their fingers stay busy. This is helping your child develop a tripod grasp which will help them manipulate many things including toys, tweezers, glue and writing utensils. We read books about a mouse and a squirrel that we had to take through an adventure in each book using our busy fingers.
Our friends worked on prewriting activities by tearing paper and making paper plate self-portraits. Each Blue Whale looked in the mirror trying to match paper strips to their skin color, eye color, lip color, hair color and any other important attributes. They are hanging up in the hall and each one is so unique with added details that were important to each child.
Enoch’s big brother, Simon, joined us one morning to read The Day the Crayons Quit to the class. Simon is a former Blue Whale, and it was wonderful to have him in the classroom. The Blue Whales really enjoyed listening to Simon read to them.
The Blue Whales met Mat Man this week. Mat Man is a song with pieces that help children learn how to draw a person using shapes. The Blue Whales built Mat Man as they listened to the song. After they each drew themselves for their first journal page. The Blue Whales will bring home their journals at the end of the year.
Our friend Autumn helped us change our season this week from Summer to Autumn. It was very exciting! We talked about what to expect in autumn and we even saw a few leaves falling on the playground.
The Blue Whales have discovered the joy of glitter glue. During all the fun using many different glittering colors, they had no idea how hard they were working on using those busy fingers and strengthening their fine motor skills. We are going through a lot of glitter glue and I have added it to The Blue Whales Wish List, if anyone would like to contribute to our supply.
We have a few old flip style cell phones in the classroom that were a huge hit this week. If you have any collecting dust at your home, we would love to help you declutter.
We are enjoying creating, moving, singing, discussing, observing, reading and playing with our Blue Whale friends. Hope everyone has a nice weekend.