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