Joy of the Body

What a fun week of joy school! We missed you Annika!

We learned about the body this week. We learned about all the different ways our body can move and all the different parts of our body. Here are some of the highlights.

*Ava showed up in her adorable little Halloween attire. What a cutie. She also requested to sing, I am a Child of God. Which fit perfectly with learning about our bodies.

*Little Gavyn loves peaches for a snack. I lost count of how many he ate. Also, he looked adorable in his giraffe raincoat.

*I was reading a book called My Nose, Your Nose. It talks about how we all look different, but have a lot in common. (Like having pink tongues and liking ice cream). When I read a part that says, “Daisy’s skin is brown, Agnes’s skin is white.” Calvin replied, “My skin is brown” and then Ava said, “My skin is white” (Little does Ava know that she has the most beautiful olive skin we would all die to have)--I thought this was so cute and funny.

*Ashton loved the activity where we made funny faces and tried to see who could sneeze the loudest. Also, he loves, loves to play with cars. He is the only kid that would choose playing over snack time! I seriously couldn’t lure him away from the cars. I loved this picture of him dancing around the room.

Activities we did

*Made different shapes out of our bodies. such as the letters T, I, L. X, Y, C, F, J, V, O, H.

*Sang the Hokey Pokey, which they all loved!!

*Learned our right hand/left hand--with a little incentive (M&Ms...I’m not above bribery)

*Learned a new rhyme which they really liked so I will post the words here:
Two little hands go clap, clap, clap
Two little feet go tap, tap, tap
Two little hands go thump, thump, thump (hit one fist on top of the other)
Two little feet go jump, jump, jump
One little body turns around
One little body sits quietly down

*Joy Bear came to visit and quizzed them on different body parts

*Played a balancing game which Ava & Ashton rocked at!

*Learned about our hearts, lungs, brains, and bones. The kids practiced listening to their hearts. As you can see from the pictures, they also listened to each others cheeks, stomach, and legs. So funny.





*I used balloons to teach them about their lungs. They had a great time playing with them. Sorry I forgot to send them home with you!

*We learned how to draw stick figures. It was very entertaining to see them all draw theirs. Ava even drew ribs on hers.



*Played with streamers and danced around to music.

*We read these books:

Colors, Colors, Everywhere! (October 6, 2011)

We learned all about colors today. The first "colors" activity we did was sing a little song. I held up a color, and then we all sang, "Who is wearing red today, red today, red today, who is wearing red today, red to-ooday?" The child who had that particular color then jumped up and did a dance for us. We did this with various colors, so everyone had a turn. I was surprised at how crazy these kids of ours are at dancing! Next, I gave each child a color and they had to race to Annie's bedroom and come back with an object that was that color and share it with all of us. We then read two books, one titled Elephants Can Paint Too! and the other one was titled Mouse Paint. Elephants Can Paint Too is the story of an art teacher who works with both children and elephants and how she teaches both groups how to paint. The pictures are really cute, colorful, and funny, and the kids seemed to like it since the idea of elephants painting is silly. :) I like Mouse Paint since it shows what new colors can originate from the primary colors of red, yellow, and blue. To further illustrate the mixing of colors, we did a little painting and made our own color wheels. Here are some pictures of the activity: It was fun for me to quiz the kids from the color wheel. "If you mix red and yellow together, what color do you get?" I would ask. The kids used their color wheels to help them determine what color it would be. We did this with the other colors as well. We had fun adding more or less of a color to give us varying shades of that color. On the back of their color wheels, is a great song for teaching the primary colors and the new colors that are created from these primary colors. Then, after snack, we colored white frosting and frosted Vanilla Wafers. We did a little bit of mixing with the colored food dye, and made very colorful cookies. I hope they weren't too hyper at home. :)It was a good day at our place. I look forward to next time at our home!

Manners!!!

We had such a fun time at joy school! Today we learned all about manners. I was impressed with how the kids came in and found their place on the carpet fairly quickly, and that they were so excited to hear the day's lesson.
After the morning routine, I gave them certain scenarios and they had to give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down if the situation demonstrated good or bad manners. This was really easy for them, and next we played our bee game.
Each child took a turn being the "Queen Bee" or "Mr. Bee." That child had his/her back turned on the stool while underneath the chair was some honeycomb. One child would run up and sneak the honeycomb and then hide it under their little tush. We all chanted "Miss Bee Polite, you're very sweet. May we please have a honey treat?" Miss Bee Polite/Mr. Bee Polite says, "Yes, you may." "Thank you, thank you," we all say. It was kind of a silly game, but they seemed to like guessing who took the honeycomb, even though the child who had it was always really obvious. :) Next we read two stories about manners. The kids thought they were both silly and were really interested in them. I pointed out that even though in the second book, the boy David does a lot of things that get him into trouble or that show bad manners, his mom still loves him anyway.
Next, we had a yummy snack of juice, whole grain fishy crackers (a little bit healthier!) and apple wedges. The kids did a good job of practicing their very best manners while at the table. This included sitting on our bottoms, saying please/ thank you, not talking with our mouths full, and using our napkins.
After the snack, the kids made a little craft. I wanted them to remember that when you sneeze, you don't want to spread your sick germs to everyone else so you either should sneeze into your arm or use a kleenex. Here they are, hard at work: I didn't remember to take a picture while the boys were still here, but managed to get one with Annie and Ava since they had a play date afterwards. I think they turned out cute. The backs say, "Cover your sneeze, please!"
All in all, it was a nice day. I had a great time having your precious kids at our place, and I am really enjoying our little joy school. Thanks for the fun! And we really missed you, Gavyn!

I am Thankful for Animals September 27

This week we focused our school on all about Animals.  

Ashton was happy to greet Calvin and Annie for school and show him all the animal toys.  So we had a quick playtime to start.  

We easily transitioned to get ready for school and I was happy to see the kids were not upset to put the animals away to get school started. 

 We started with the welcome song,

Calvin was - HAPPY, Ashton was - Good, Annie was - Happy.  

Calvin said our opening prayer.   

Then Annie was our helper with the Weather and pulled out each picture and I asked them if that was how the weather was.   Ashton said "Yes" every time even to it's snowing, silly kid.  I think having Mom for the teacher gave him a mischevious streak!  They finally all agreed it was raining and a little windy.   

We started out reading a favorite animal book of our family called Mama Mama, and Papa Papa.  We talked about each animal and how the Mama or Papa took care of the baby and how our moms and dads took care of them.  We also talked about how we should be kind to animals and what it takes to have a pet animal like a dog or cat.  They need clean food/water, love and walks/playtime. Next we had a video that went along with a learning game.....

I have the BBC David Attenborough Life of Mammals 

and we put an episode on.  Then we put the big box of animals in the center of the room.  As the animals came on the screen the kids raced to find that animal in the box and then back to their spot.  They found Elephants, Giraffes, Zebras, Gazelle, Lions, Tigers,  and Cheetahs.  They were absolutely enthralled with learning about the animals and it was so cute....Annie was laughing so hard at some of their antics.  The boys liked how the animals fought and hunted and acted it out with their toy animals.  Calvin was imitating a scene of the lion hunting a Giraffe and did it quite accurately.  (Don't worry, it wasn't a bloody show I pre-screened it.)  

After the video we had quick snack of Honeycrisp apples (our favorite now in season) and red grapes.  

Then it was art time, the kids did stamping with an animal theme.  The aprons were perfect and kept their cloths clean.  Their hands not so much, but they easily washed up.  They needed some help to press hard enough to get the ink on the stamp and then on the paper but soon got the hang of it.  After finishing their picture, they were able to keep stamping on the table which I covered with brown butcher paper.  They thought that was fun.  

Then we washed up and headed back for some more animal playtime while I read books....we read Never Smile at a Monkey, and played a guessing game with My First Animal book.  I would say something like I carry my house on my back, what animal am I?  (Turtle) and the kids would point to the right animal.  The time flew by and soon it was time to be picked up.  I had forgotten to have them share their favorite animal from home, so if they want to bring them on Thursday that would be great.  They were all very good and seemed to really get along with each other, can't wait to see them all together again.

Thanks!

Camie