Gardening Week

What a dreary week for Gardening week!...I had a ton of plans to dig in our dirt box, plant seeds and weed.  We didn't get to do any of it and this week has been more of the same...rainy :( Oh well! We did get to do some fun activities inside though and I can't wait to share them with you.

We started off the week talking about vegetables.  We painted with vegetables!  We used potatoes, cucumbers, carrots, broccoli and peppers with lots of different colored paints!  They turned out really cute and were all very different...

We had also talked about different colors of fruits and veggies and also worked on sorting and counting veggies!

For some reason I L-O-V-E worms.  I think they are so neat, and fortunately for me, I have a job in which I get to play with them!  The kids love them too!  I bought 50 red worms from the gas station! lol :)  We examined them, touched them (and washed our hands afterwards of course), picked them up and drew our own drawings of them.  I forgot to take pictures of the drawings but they are super cute!

We even painted with gummy worms! :)

One of our themes was worms AND snails so we completed a shape matching worksheet and colored the snail at the bottom.  It was great for reinforcing shapes!!

Touching Worms!

On Friday we worked on our sunflowers.  We cut around the yellow circle to create the "petals".  It's neat to see how some kiddos cut little snips close together and some cut using big snips and space them far apart!  They used a paintbrush and black paint to make the "seeds" of the sunflower and added the leaves and stems.

We also worked on the parts of the flower.  Miss Becky gave them four pieces to put together the flower puzzle and than talked about what parts of a flower we know.  The older kids were able to identify the beginning sound of the word and knew where to put it...these kids amaze me! :)

This was Miss Cindy's favorite activity of the week!  I even let her play it not once, but TWICE!  The object of the game is to get the most beans but you have to count out your own beans and also count the number on the dice so you know how many spaces to travel!  The kids did a great job!!!

Mr. Jason was being silly helping our friends in art!!

Being an photographer on the side, I had to take advantage of May being "National Photography Month".  I found this neat program that makes photographs into polaroids.  I am (secretly) fascinated with polaroid cameras and really want to own one!!  Mr. Jason made the camera and I took the photos and turned them black and white because I like black and white photographs a lot!

 This was our dramatic play area for the last two weeks.  It's hard to see but we have flowers, watering cans, cameras and binoculars, bug nets and bugs in addition to our baby dolls and dollhouse!

We love our outside time!  The kids really want to play with the chalk and bubbles lately!  We always bring one of our sensory tubs outside as well.  Here are some of the chalk drawings from the week!

 The picture below is me (drawn by Miss Cindy I think) and the girls added the details.  Baby Travis is upside down on my shoulder which really makes me laugh.  The kicker to this picture is if you look closely I have a yellow circle on my chest and that's "Miss Danielle's new baby"...

Most of you don't know but I am 9 weeks pregnant (crazy I know...) but none of the kids know that! LOL...Baby #2 is due 12/12/12.  We are hoping that it's not a Christmas baby.  Going through birth at one holiday (Thanksgiving) was enough!!  I can't wait to share this journey, yet again, with all of you!  I have the most supportive classroom parents ever and I thank you all so much!!!!

Have a great week!

:) Danielle