Mrs. Fink's Kindergarten Class: Frogs and Flies

Frogs and Flies

Our theme for the week was "Frogs and Flies." We read lots of books about frogs, learned about the life cycle of a frog, and we even discussed how frogs are amphibians. One book we loved reading this week was "Jump, Frog, Jump." This book had a pattern that made it easy for us to read along together. It also helped us learn about the food chain. In math we even got to read "Five Green and Speckled Frogs." It also had a pattern that made it easy for everyone to read together. Five green and speckled frogs are sitting on a log eating bugs. One frog at a time jumps off the log and the number of frogs gets smaller and smaller. We learned that another word for that is "decreasing." We incorporated this theme into our lessons throughout the week. We even got to make a frog math game to take home!

We watched a neat video segment from the PBS website about the life cycle of frogs, and then we tried to act it out! Students used creative movement to show the stages of the frog life cycle.

Here we are as frog eggs! We've hatched into tadpoles!

We're starting to grow legs. Now we're growing our arms.

Our tails have disappeared and we are frogs!

Next, we worked hard again on our cutting skills. We reviewed how to properly hold our scissors (with your pointer finger left out. It helps guide the scissors.). Students cut out and colored in pictures of the life cycle of a frog and glued them to lily pads! We made the lily pads by cutting the corners off of a green rectangle piece of paper. It was very important that we laid out all of our pictures in the correct order before we started gluing things down on our lily pads.

Here is a finished frog life cycle.

We also celebrated two birthdays--one on Monday and one on Tuesday. Happy birthday! :)

Our class had the chance to visit the library this week. We go to the library every Monday afternoon. We listened to the book, "Chrysanthemum" and then checked out some great books!

Checking out books.

Here are some students sitting so patiently while their friends check out books.

We made a frog number sense game during math. Students had to cut out frogs and glue them to lily pads. Our class discussed what a frog might eat. We get to feed the frog flies in this game! One player turns over a number card. Then, he or she must feed the frog that number of flies! If your child gets really good at this game, have him/her try to add two of the numbers together and feed their frog that many flies.

Our class was so lucky because we got to visit Mrs. Heller two times this week! Here are some pictures of us in Art class.

We just opened two new centers in the classroom. We opened the "Technology Hub" and the "Art Center." At the Technology Hub, students had the opportunity to visit the Starfall wesbite (www.starfall.com). It is a wonderful resource that provides children with the opportunity to work on letter identification, letter sounds, blending sounds together, and reading short stories.

At the Art Center, students used water colors to paint inside the word "is" which was our word of the week. This helped us with our fine motor skills by holding a small brush and using small strokes in order to stay inside the lines.