Here at First Discoveries for the next few weeks we are learning all about Earth and Tree's as we celebrate both Earth Day and Arbor Day. This morning we spent some time playing with our new toys and then playing outside on our playground. For group time we read a book about the life cycle of a tree. We were a little sad when the tree became really old and fell down to the ground but were surprised to see all of the animals and bugs that made it's home in the trunk or bark of the fallen tree. We identified some different parts of the tree - the roots, trunk, outer bark, inner wood, crown and we discussed different things we use everyday that are made out of wood. We tried to imagine what life would be like without trees and decided that it definitely wouldn't be very much fun! We wouldn't be able to swing on our tire swing, we wouldn't have our nice wooden toys, wooden table and chairs or dishes. We wouldn't have the shade of our big oak tree on hot summer days!

When we were finished with group time the children played with the tree blocks and other wooden toys, read tree books, or painted pictures or their favorite tree's or imaginary tree's. We also had the color matching egg game out and a basket of upper and lower case alphabet letters that the children sorted into piles. Anna and Kane were especially interested in sounding out the colors that were written on the bottom of the eggs. They each played the egg game a couple of times. They are getting really good at thinking about what sound each letter makes and how it fits into a word. Anna, Annie and Arhan sorted the upper and lower case letters, and Kennedy, Elia, Jackie, and Zara played with alphabet letters lining them up and naming them. They also played with a bucket of marbles for quiet a while.

After we had cleaned up all of our activities and finished painting we sang our naptime song, sang "make new friends" and practiced our nap time poem and then got tucked into our blankets for nap. We then said our goodnight poem before turning out the lights and closing our eyes. This afternoon we plan on playing outside.

Our lunch menu was sloppy joe, banana, milk and edamame.

For snack we plan on having crackers and cheese with milk.