The Ugly Duckling!

The week before Fall Break was a very busy week in our classroom. One story that we read was The Ugly Duckling (the animal friendly version of course in honor of Mrs. Stowe)! :-) Many of our students had never heard this story before and seemed to really enjoy it! After reading the story, we discussed the characters and setting of the story. Then, we decided to create our own version of the setting (the pond)! The first page of our story gave a very detailed description of the setting. Therefore, we used this description to create a similar representation!

First, we had to paint our ponds!

Next, we added some greenery!


Then, we had to add pictures of the animals that we read about in the story!

We added some plastic wrap to make our pond look more real!

The last step was to add our duck's nest with the six eggs that we read about. Five of the eggs looked the same. The sixth egg was a little different. That was the one that the ugly duckling hatched from!

Below are pictures of our final products!

Our students seemed to really enjoy this story and activity. They learned a lot and worked very hard! We were very proud of them!

ELSB!

Our new reading program, Early Literacy Skill Builder, is so much fun!

Meet Moe (below)! Moe is the puppet that teaches us to read! We love him!

Below are a few pictures of one of our ELSB lessons! Mrs. Higdon does a great job and is very enthusiastic about this program! The students absolutely love it and look forward to it each day!

With only a few lessons "under our belts", we have already seen great interest and progress! I look forward to watching our students grow and improve their reading skills as we progress through this program! :-)

Fun Fantastic Friday- Kites!

Last Friday, for Fun Fantastic Friday, Mrs. Stowe planned for us to fly kites. First we read a story about flying kites. Since Jameer was the "Class STARfish", he was able to be Mrs. Stowe's helper!

Jameer did an amazing job helping Mrs. Stowe read a book about Dora the Explorer and kites! After reading the story, we took our new kites outside to try to fly them! We aren't crazy! There actually was a little breeze! Ha! Ha!

Lucy and Mrs. Stowe trying to get the kite to fly!

Jameer put a lot of thought into how to get the kite to fly!

One time I looked over and saw Mrs. Higdon running with a long line of children running behind her. It was the cutest site! That is one dedicated teacher!

Mr. Marcus, our OT, also came out to help!

Mr. Marcus, Mrs. Stowe, and Santoes waiting for a breeze!

Joyria enjoyed playing with the ball!

What a fun day! Thanks Mrs. Stowe!

First Day of Special Olympics Bowling!

We were all so excited to begin Special Olympics Bowling last Friday. This Special Olympics event is definitely one of our favorites!

Below, the boys pose for a picture! These three (Santeos, Tony, and Jameer) are such great friends. They are all similar in age and have so much fun together!

Mrs. Higdon, Lucy, and Joyria also pose for a picture! Too cute!

DeAsia, as usual, was quite happy to see Mrs. Dew (our Special Olympics coordinator)! She and Mrs. Dew have been friends for many years!

Ms. Malcom and Enoch pose for a picture!

We had some boys that were very excited about bowling, as you can see by the huge smiles on their precious faces!

La'Shawn did a great job. He has already improved since last year!

We thought this was quite cool. Santoes and Eliana bowled side by side. It was so funny because their balls stopped right beside each other! Of course, we had to take a picture! :-)

We can't wait for our next bowling trip! More pictures to come!

Raking Leaves in Speech!

Last Thursday, in our group Speech session, we learned about the signs of Fall! Mrs. Chappell read us a fun story. Enoch was given the "duck" hat and asked to be the duck in the story. He LOVED his hat! He was too cute in it as well!

We also practice raking leaves! This was fun!

As always, THANKS Mrs. Chappell for a wonderful and fun lesson!

Learning About Position Words!

This week, in Math, we have been learning about position words. I always enjoy teaching this lesson because the students really enjoy it! I wanted to share a few pictures of us learning about position words!

Below, the group ready to get started! Ha! Ha!

Learning about "in front of"!

Learning about "below" or "under"!

Learning about "above"!

Reviewing "in front of"!

Oh my goodness! Santoes had an object malfunction! Ha! Ha!

Class Pictures!

I didn't realize until last week that we've been working so hard that we haven't even taken a class picture yet! So... that's just what we did! Below are a few of the pictures that we took!

I just LOVE this group!

Fun Fantastic Friday- Making Tepees!

For last week's Fun Fantastic Friday activity, thanks to Mrs. Higdon, we made edible "tepees". The past few weeks, we have been learning about North American Native Americans and how they used their environment to obtain food, clothing, and shelter. We learned that many Native Americans lived in shelters called tepees. Tepees were usually made from animal skins. We decided to also make "tepees", although our "tepees" were edible!

Our "tepees" looked like this in the beginning!

Santoes was the teacher's helper because he was, once again, the "Class STARfish"! Way to go Santoes!

We learned that the Native Americans used to decorate their tepees by painting them, etc. Some of them were very beautiful! Of course, we had to decorate our "tepees" as well!

Looks like Jameer missed his "tepee". His icing ended up on his face! I wonder how that happened! :-)

Lucy adding the finishing touches to her "tepee"!

The finished product! Beautiful and delicious!

Thanks Mrs. Higdon for a wonderful and creative Fun Fantastic Friday activity! What a wonderful review of what we have learned about North American Native Americans!