January 26th, 2010

Today we started our Animals in Winter unit.

We started our day by making a graph based on our animal preferences. We put our gingerbread babies in the column that represented the animal we most wished we could be. We talked about how many people voted all together, which column had the most votes, and which had the least. We also talked about differences between columns (how many more, etc.)



We also read new books about how animals change their behaviors to survive winter. One book we read is called The Mitten. We had new felt board pieces from The Mitten to reflect on our reading.



We sang and danced to a song about hibernation, migration and adaptation.


Here are the words to our song so you can sing along with your child (to the tune of Wheels on the Bus):

The weather's getting cold so bundle up, bundle up, bundle up 

The weather's getting cold so bundle up, winter is here. 


The bears in the cave sleep all the time............ 

The squirrels in the trees get lots of nuts............... 

The frogs and toads go deep in mud....... 

The ducks and the geese go flying south........ 

The people in the town wear hats and gloves..........

We also started painting a cave to hibernate in when we play in Creative Play. We looked at pictures of real bear and bat caves and tried to draw what we saw. We used colors that we thought would camouflage the cave in the forest, so while we hibernate we stay safe.


To deepen our understanding of why animals need to hibernate, migrate or adapt, we tried eating pineapple frozen in ice during afternoon centers. We noticed that we couldn't smell the pineapple when we were eating it. It would be difficult for animals to find food when it is frozen because they can't smell it. We thought they might rely on other senses to find food, like sight.

We also had to work very hard to get one little piece of pineapple from the ice cube. It took a long time and was uncomfortable to hold the ice in our mouths and hands. We figured that animals would have to work much harder to find food and fill their bellies in winter than during the other seasons.


We also started writing our environmental print book. Last week, we painted illustrations for our book, and now we are busy starting to add words. We use our alphabet sheets to help us form letters, and STRETCH out each word using our rubber band hands to listen for each sound. We write whatever sounds we hear! We can't wait for our book to be published and put in our library for our friends to enjoy!




P.S. Any seamstresses in our community? We need help crafting faux fur vests and animal costumes for creative play. We will use these when we act out hibernation, migration and adaption through our play! Please email Ms. Katie if you are able to help!