Dinosaur Dig @ Aunty Milis (10/12/10)

I want to first thank everyone for adjusting to the day changes this week. Although Tasi was still feeling under the weather today, Ray was able to stay home to help :) Which i'm very grateful for because I was so excited to teach and had alot planned. Aisa was equally excited to have all his friends come over. He kept saying, "Mom my friends aren't coming." "but it's only 9 o'clock." I'd tell him. He was so happy when everyone arrived.

 We started with playdough until everyone arrived. They all had fun rolling the dough flat and cutting the different designs out with the cookie cutters. Alema had no interest in what everyone else was doing, he went straight for the toy cars :) We did that for about 5 minutes after everyone arrived so they'd all have a chance to share the rolling pin. 



Circle Time was next. After finding their picture & placement, we started by singing the welcome song. I was impressed by how well they knew the song and when to RUN and put their picture up on the helper board. Aisa was our flag holder and he held it high while we all said the pledge. At first I told them to repeat AFTER me (b/c I didn't think they knew it yet) but they surprised me, yet again, at how fast they've learned the pledge. They all knew the beginning and end real well, especially the end, some of them just waited til the end "....liberty and justice for ALLLLLLLL!!!" so they could say "ALL" with power lol :) Then all 3 boys had to go to the bathroom, well, Malachi was the 1st one that said he had to go, then Alema & Aisa of course said they had to go too. So the girls waited patiently on their mat while the boys went.  It was cute how Malachi & Alema stood patiently in a line as Aisa was in the bathroom :) Kailia was our weather girl. She looked out of the front window but couldn't really see because of our big tree so she went to the back deck to check and of course everyone else had to follow. She then turned the pointer on the weather chart to partly sunny :) Malachi was our singing helper. He held the days of the week chart as we sang the days of the week song. Alema reminded us what they learned at his house and held up 7 fingers. They're really starting to learn the circle time songs really well. It's fun to see how consistency pays off :)

LETTER D was the focus of the day. We watched a classic sesame street clip of Ernie & Cookie Monster singing the Dee, dee, dee song. We talked about the D words that were in the clip. Then we practiced writing the letter D in the air :) and practiced the D sound. I prepared a chart that had pictures of different everyday things and they each took a turn picking a picture that started with D. Malachi's was a donut and taped the picture to his mouth then everyone else followed :) They're so cute.

      

D for dinosaurs. I then brought out a bunch of dinosaur books from the libraray that had some awesome pictures of not only dinosaurs but of paleontologists and what they do. I showed them pics of baby dinosaurs hatching from their little eggs. They couldn't believe how some of these big incredible beasts start out in itty bitty eggs. We then marble painted dinosaur eggs, using a cardboard box (the small ones that soda six-packs are boxed in), we taped the paper to the bottom of the box, put some paint & marbles in, and then just rolled the marbles back and forth in the box over the paper. The kids had a ball doing this. Since we only had one box, while 1 was doing their egg, the others were busy doing their DINOWORLD picture. They had fun putting the dino stickers onto their picture. I don't know what it is with stickers but kids just love pulling the back off. I confess, I did too, when I was their age lol. I didn't get a pic of them doing their dinoworld but here's aisa with his (i told him to put the pic down so we could see his face and he said, "No that's ok."

Alema was our snack helper & did a great job putting the plates on the table. We had donuts and jello w/dino fruit snacks :) Alema didn't eat his donut but wanted to save it for his brother & sister. What a brother :)

After snack it was time to be bone diggers (paleontologists) i showed them a pic from a book of paleontologists digging in the ground and rocks to find dino bones. I froze a dino fruit snack in a cup of water and the had to chizel away and dig into the ice to get to the fruit snack. They were so cute and worked real hard to get to the dinosaur. It was fun to see the expression on their faces when they got far enough into the ice to see the colored fruit snack. They also loved how when they hit the ice with their knife or fork the ice would fly all over the place and they got a little wet. Needless to say my floor got a good mopping after lol :) 

We were then supposed to play duck, duck, goose but they wanted to just play with the toys. So I put on ICE AGE 3: Walk the Dinosaur music video so they could dance while they played but only Kailia, Kuulei & Aisa danced. Alema & Malachi played with the toys. Kailia even found a toy microphone and pretended to sing and dance. I wonder who she gets that from? Julie? She was so cute. Kuulei looked like she was breakdancing and i KNOW she gets that from Peter...lol :)

It was then 12:30 & the mommies came and it was time to go home. Aisa & I had a blast!! We're so happy to be part of FunBox!! See you all on Thursday.

Thursday we'll be learning about DIAMONDs & the number 4. I can't think of anything creative to do for show & tell so if you wanna just bring something that starts with the letter D, or anything diamond shaped or 4 of something, then that'll be GREAT :)