This week we have been very busy discussing marine life and the ocean! We have talked about what we see at the ocean, what we smell at the ocean, what we can touch at the ocean, and what we hear at the ocean.

We also discussed different types of marine life and learned their proper names. Some examples:
An octopus
A Seal
A sea lion
A clam
An Angel Fish
A Clown Fish
A Beluga Whale
A Nurse Shark
A Star Fish

We played an ocean life matching game, and we played a recall memory game (Morah Nicole told a story about how she went on a picnic to the beach and the children had to recite the story).

We made jellyfish, and Rainbow Fish. We also read the story “Rainbow Fish”.

We learned about different types of boats that we might see out on the water:
Ask your child about a:
A Cruise ship
A dinghy
A river boat
A cargo boat
A sail boat
A jet ski
A speed boat

We were able to play with these types of boats in our sensory table.

We also practiced “driving” our boats. We used toy figurine boats and moved them around on top of ziplock plastic bags filled with blue paint (to represent a boat making waves)

 

We started our SEA LIFE UNIT this week.  It has been a lot of fun so far to see the children enjoying the new activities available to them.   There is a big under the sea mural in our room that has seaweed and coral floating in it.  The children have started to add fish to it.  We have a special visitor, a large paper Octopus, in which the children have been making the arms with looping paper rings.  We have new practical life materials that are sea life based.  The children have enjoyed the new sea life puzzles and matching work for them to do.  Also, the children have parts of a fish booklet available for them as well.  We read some cute story books like Swimmy and The Rainbow Fish.  There will be more sea life activities next week that will be fun and exciting.  

 

This week we continue working through the Hebrew alefbet as we reach ר. We talked about the parshah and the special jobs that were assigned to the Levites. The children took turns placing the name of a tribe in a specific order around the mishkan. I also showed them a picture of silver trumpets used to get the Israelites attention for announcements. They were also shown a picture of the menorah that would have graced the mishkan.

 

Summer is around the corner and we are dipping our toes in the sand.  This week we talked about shells; univalves and bivalves, classifying and sorting through a basketful of seashells from the North Eastern shores. With our globe of the world and our Montessori Continent puzzle we talked about the continents and the oceans surrounding them. We passed around a huge conch shell and learned how it may be used as a musical instrument. We're talking about compassion and kindness through the stories we read and discuss, including The Fisherman and the Bird, by Sonia Levitin and The Rainbow Fish, by Marcus Pfister. Our tongue twister of the week was 'She sells seashells on the seashore' which the children did not seem to have too much of a problem with, especially when concentrating on the actual words.