Hooray for Pumpkin Pudding!

As part of our study of non-fiction text and pumpkins, the Timmontes followed a recipe and made Pumpkin Pudding. Of course, the students were not thrilled that we had to let it "chill" for an hour, but in the end, they gave raving reviews of the delicious treat topped with graham cracker crumbs and cool whip!

Retelling Theater

Before children learn to read a book, they enjoy acting out the parts of a story as it is retold. In the pictures below you can see the children retell one of their favorite "Star" books, The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The narrator reads. Each child has a part and says his part when it is time. At the end of the story all the characters take a bow as the audience applauds!

Little Miss Muffet

Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet
Eating her curds and whey.
Along came a spider and sat down beside her
And frightened Miss Muffet away.

Whether it was Little Miss Muffet or Little Mister Muffet, the spider got them every time! We enjoyed acting out this nursery rhyme this week, but we also worked on rhyming and the sounds we hear in words. As a little review, ask your child to complete these rhyming sentences.

I'm thinking of a food that Miss Muffet might like.
It rhymes with _____ (horn). It must be _____. (corn)

Furnish the first word each time and then invite your child to finish the sentence with a rhyming word. Try these others:
cape-grape
reach-peach
rare-pear
seat-beet
dime-lime
sees-peas

Frightened has also been one of our vocabulary words. Make sure you ask your child to show you his/her frightened face! It's not to be missed!

Wonder Filled Wonderings

This week's "Wonder Filled Wondering" was submitted by our most amazing and beautiful Chloe M. Chloe was wondering what hermit crabs eat. Well we were completely stumped Chloe, so we decided to do a little research. Here is a bit of information we hope will satisfy that curiosity of yours we love so much.

Hermit crabs can eat all sorts of things like dried fruit,crab apples, bananas, lettuce, cucumbers, popcorn, crackers, peanut butter, carrots and even dandelions right out of your backyard! It is a great idea to provide a calcium source for them as well. . . such as dry egg shells or cuttle bone. The two latter items are available in the bird section at the pet store.

Most pet stores carry "hermit crab food" which is a mixture of powder with ground up shrimp bites in it. Crabs eat very slowly and very little at a time. You always need to make sure your crabs have plenty of drinking water too! And believe it or not you can buy "treats" for your hermit crab like hermit crab cookies and fruit salad for special occasions. Watch out feeding those "hermies" too many treats though or you may find yourself looking for a bigger shell for that little guy.

You all know we can't ever resist a teachable moment so we thought we would throw in this tidbit of extra information. Did you know hermit crabs have mouths just like you and me, except you will probably never see a hermit crab's mouth due to it's small size. They do however have a body part very different from you and me.
Hermit crabs have a "miniature elephant-looking trunk" that scoops up their food. If you look closely, they will pick up food/water in their claws and then their little "trunks" uncurl out from underneath to grab it and put it in their mouths. You will find this body part curled up near their abdomen when they are not eating.Simply extraordinary!!!

Thanks Miss Chloe for wondering about hermit crabs. Do you or any other Timmonte have a "hermie" of your own? If so we would love to learn and share more!!

Retelling

Students have begun to bring home a "book in a bag" each night. In each bag is a book that the student has taken out of his individual book bin to bring home. For students who are not yet reading conventionally, they choose a good story book from their book bin. Each child is expected to "read" the book by looking at the pictures. When the child brings home the book, an adult should read the book to the child first and then let the child "read" by retelling each page. As your child gets better and better at this you will notice that he uses much of the same language that you use as you read the story. If you use a deep voice for the big bad bear, he will begin to use a deep voice for the bear. Before long your child will sound like he is reading the story even though he doesn't really know how to read the words.

At school the children hear the same good story books over and over. We call these good story books, "Star Books." The children practice reading these books to themselves and to partners during Independent Reading every day. Later they make props and practice retelling these books using the props. In the pictures below you can see students practicing one of the class favorite books, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, with stick puppets of the troll and each of the three billy goats.

Make sure to take out that "book in the bag" every single night. That is the way that children learn to read!

Star Book Survey

For this post, we encourage you to ask your child which of the following "Star" books he/she likes the best, and then add the response as a comment below.

Caps For Sale



The Three Billy Goats Gruff



Where The Wild Things Are


Goldilocks And The Three Bears

The Gingerbread Boy

Harry The Dirty Dog

Egg Over Easy

What about that egghead? Humpty Dumpty has been walking that wall all week! Ask your child about the day that we actually had a real egg up on a wall and watched it fall. We figured out why the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty back together again!

Humpty has introduced our little ones to some new words this week. We have found these sight words in our rhyme: a, the, had, on (notice the green tape over those words on the chart below). Maybe your child can find some of the words at home this week. We have also learned to say the first sound we hear in words? What’s the first sound you hear in the word Humpty? Answer: /h/ When a letter has slashes before and after, it means that it’s the sound that “h” makes. Ask your child to tell you the first sound s/he hears in these words:
Dumpty Answer:/d/
wall /w/
fall /f/
king /k/
We are also still working with words that rhyme – words that sound the same at the end. Ask your child to make a nonsense rhyming word with his own name such as Maria Baria, Caleb Naleb, Madison Radison and with all the names in your family. We have had fun all week making rhyming names. For a copy of the rhyme to read with your child, go to http://www.kinderfriends.com/humptydumpty.doc. It has been an egg-specially great week!