This morning we started our day by drawing and writing a story about the earth using crayons and colored pencils. We enjoyed playing outside even though it was pretty windy this morning! I had planned a Great Artist activity for today but unfortunately the wind made it impossible to do art outside so we'll have to save it for another day. We had some free playtime in the classroom instead.
Our group time activity was practicing math. Ryan held up flash cards and showed the children how to use math manipulative's when they are learning to add and subtract. Most of the Oak Tree's already understand simple math and had the math problems memorized but the Acorns are just learning counting and simple addition.
We read the story "The Almond Orchard" and learned about some different kinds of tree's and practiced our new memorization work.
In the afternoon we had a really fun partner activity! I made a 3 page scavenger hunt for the children to do in the yard. I chose students that typically don't choose each other as partners to to be partners and to my surprise they really did well together! They worked together as a team and searched for all of the items on the list. One partner held the paper and the other held the pen and as they found the objects on their list they circled them or crossed them out.
The children had to find a feather, a round rock, a blade of grass, branches or sticks on the ground, roots of a plant or tree, insect, tree stump, water flower, squirrel, pinecone, bud on a tree, stop sign, American flag, and bike.
The Oak Tree's really enjoyed this and found almost everything on the list- a feather was nowhere to be found, and neither was a squirrel!