I hope that your children enjoyed getting their mail this past week!  Please know how much Ms.Stephanie and I love you all and miss spending time with your children.  Our Bible verse for the rest of the school year will be from 2 Timothy 1:7 “God did not give us a spirit of fear (make a scared face), but of power (strong arms) and of love (cross your arms over your ❤️) and self-control (2 thumbs up).  This is a great verse for all of us to hide in our hearts!

      April 22 is Earth Day.  We can take care of our planet by using the 3 R’s:  reuse, reduce and recycle.  We can learn how to not be wasteful, how we can reuse things in new ways, and how we can recycle paper, plastic and cardboard on trash days.  We can do our part to take care of the earth by remembering the 3 R’s.  We can exercise our problem solving skills and help our creative juices flow as we think of new ways to use throwaway items!

     Our literacy focus will be the Lorax by Dr. Seuss.   You can find the story on YouTube (Read aloud picture book by Brightly Storytime).

     Gross motor activities:

–Go on an Earth Day Hunt:

  Find 1 flower

  Make 2 tree bark rubbings

  Collect 3 rocks

  Find 4 bugs

  Find 1 seed from a tree

  Find 2 pieces of trash (throw away wearing a glove)

–Give your child a bucket and shovel and let them dig in the ground!

     Fine motor skills:

–Make a bird feeder by threading Cheerios on a pipe cleaner and then hanging them from a tree.

–Create a hairy caterpillar!  Cut an egg carton in half.  Have your child spoon soil/dirt into the egg cups.  Then plant grass seed (bird seed) in the cups.  Add eyes and pipecleaner  antenna to the “face”.  Have your child water the caterpillar and place it in the sun.  When the “hair” grows, your child can cut the hair with scissors.

–Cut 5 large green leaves out of construction paper.  Number the leaves 1-5.  Add the appropriate number of dots per leaf (1, one dot; 2, two dots and so forth). Collect 15 pompoms or cotton ball  “caterpillar eggs”.  Give your child tongs or tweezers to pick up the “eggs” and place on the leaves, matching the appropriate number of “eggs” to the number on the leaf.

      Cooking: Make dirt cups to eat

–Make  instant chocolate pudding according to the pkg. directions.  Your child can pour, stir, measure …then have them spoon the pudding in the bottom of clear cups.  Put chocolate cookies in a Ziploc and have your child pound the bag until there are crumbs.  Spoon this “dirt” on top of the pudding.  Top with gummy worms or bugs and enjoy!

     Blocks/transportation:

–Draw lanes on a piece of cardboard.  Prop this up to make a ramp and have your child race their cars down!

–Make a table top recycling center.  Tape a large piece of paper down on a table top.  Draw a conveyor belt down the center.  Cut rectangles of colored paper to match the colors of your Legos.  Place these on either side of the conveyor belt.  Have your child drive a truck with a load of Legos down the conveyor belt and sort the blocks into the proper colored rectangle “bins”.

     Art projects:

–Messy recycled Art.  Gather recycled materials (cardboard ribbon spool, tp tubes, lids from various bottles, etc.) and put blue, green, white and yellow paint in 4 separate shallow dishes.  Place a smock on your child and let them enjoy messy recycled painting on a large piece of paper using the gathered items as “brushes”.

–Make a scrap rainbow:  On a large white piece of paper, draw a rainbow using markers (one color per arch: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple).  Find construction paper in the same colors. One day, have your child cut or tear scraps of paper from each of the rainbow colors.  Keep them sorted by color.  The next day, you can give your child a glue stick and have them glue the appropriate colors on the arches.  Take your time and you will have a beautiful scrap rainbow!

–Make a huge thank you sign for your yard.  Your child can thank their favorite community helper (police officer, doctor, nurse, firefighter, etc.) during this difficult time!

  Music:

He’s got the whole world in His hands!

  Have your child sing this song remembering our class room friends!  He’s go Ally and Aaron in His hands, He’s got Aniqah and Arshaan in His hands, He’s got Anabelle and Ethan…. He’s got Grayson and Jacob … He’s got Levi and Hannah….He’s got Stella and Waylon in His hands, He’s got the whole world in His hands!

Another full and fun week of activities!

❤️Ms. Dawn