California Pizza Kitchen

Choosing Time: Books & Games

Activity: Field-Trip to The California Pizza Kitchen
We had a wonderful visit to the CPK today! I can't believe I forgot my camera!!! Ugggh! We were greeted then seated to color while we awaited our pizza dough. Our server, Miss Jenn, gave us each a dollop of pizza sauce on our mini pizzas and then we were able to choose which toppings we wanted. It was fun to see everyone's choices and how carefully the toppings were placed :) There was cheese, fresh pineapple, sausage, pepperoni, olives, & ham to choose from. While our pizzas cooked we were given a tour of the restaurant. All of the kids thought it was super cool to be the only customers in the restaurant. We felt really important. We learned how the waiters keep track of the tables and all the orders. We saw the special soda fountain that stops before the soda spills all over. We saw the fancy french bread slicer and were given a slice to taste. Being a sourdough loaf, some didn't care for it, but it was a great opportunity to try something new. We saw a giant dishwasher, fridge, and freezer. Miss Jenn gave each child a lift up to see the pizza oven. It is a really large brick dome. It was fun to see the fire blazing inside and to watch the chef pull out our pizzas with a very long-handled spatula. We were then seated and served our pizzas and strawberry lemonade. It was a fun and tasty excursion. Thank you to Mrs. Fromm for coming with us! You were a tremendous help!

Lesson: We talked about some good manners: 1) waiting for everyone to be served before eating and 2) remembering to say please and thank you. All of the children were so respectful and good! We all had a delightful time!

Mini Class

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Theme: Mmm Vegetables!

Choosing Time: Trains, Vet/Pet Pretend Play, Beauty Shop, Voice Recordings (I invited each child to answer a few questions such as "What is your favorite color?." I recorded the responses and then we listened to the recording. It was fun to hear our own voices and our answers!
Snack: Thank you Grace for a yummy & healthy snack. We ate cheese, graham crackers, Cheez-Its, & Frozen Carrots & Peas. FYI: The frozen veggies were a HUGE HIT! Everyone wanted seconds!
Books: How Are You Peeling? Foods With Moods by Saxton Freymann (This book is so creative! We had fun trying to mimic the expressions we saw on the fruits and vegetables. I should have taken pictures! It was a hoot!)
Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes by Mary Englebreit

Lesson: We identified many pictures of healthy foods. We decided if a food was a fruit or a vegetable. We shared which vegetables we like the best. The kids were so cute! If I showed a picture of a vegetable they didn't like someone would say, "My dad/mom likes those...." It was so wonderful to hear such optimistic expressions instead of hearing, "YUCK! I hate those!" :)

Music & Movement: See Me Run, Oh, What A Miracle, & Red Light Green Light

Art: What 5 Vegetables would you like to plant in your garden?

Letter "V"

Theme: The Letter "V"

Choosing Time: Pretending to be a Vet, Mr. Potato Head, Duplos, Patterns

Snack: Fish Crackers & Raisins

Music & Movement: Making a "V" many different ways with our bodies, See Me Run, & Exercises in Tens

Lesson: Letter "V" makes a fun sound. We talked about many things that start with "V" such as van, violin, vacuum, violet, vegetables, & voice. I showed many pictures of a variety of vegetables. We voted on which vegetables we like.

Game: I took each child out of the room and asked a series of questions such as, "What do you like to do?" I recorded their responses. We all sat in a circle and listened to the recordings. We guessed whose voice we were listening to.

Science: Volcano Eruption: This probably was the highlight for many today. We loved watching the volcano explode. The pretend "lava" was impressive and we were all thankful it was pretend so that no one was hurt :) We talked about chemical reactions. The 2 things that mixed together to make the lava were baking soda & vinegar. Combining these causes a chemical reaction that bubbles up and then flows down.
Art & Writing: We practiced making "V's." We chose pictures of the vegetables we would like to grow in a garden.

Book: Bark, George! by Jules Feiffer

Earth Day

Theme: Let's Help Keep Our Earth Clean!

Choosing Time: Play-doh, Dinosaurs, Foam Puzzle Blocks, & Puppets
Game: "Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate cake!" Thank you Jake for adding a fun twist to the traditional Duck, Duck, Goose game :)

Snack: Thank you Jake for sharing a GIANT bag of Pretzels with us!

Lesson: We had a "Pond" filled with all kinds of fish. I had several items of trash that ended up in our pond. When the pond was filled with garbage there wasn't any more room for the fish. We cleaned up our pond. We sorted the garbage into trash & recycle piles. We were happy to make room for the fish to come back. It was fun to think of some ideas on how to use trash. For example, we can make puppets from empty toilet paper tubes...We learned that many people just throw their trash on the ground because it is easy. This makes our earth ugly. We love our earth and want to keep it clean.

Music & Movement: Pick Up Litter!, 5 Little Speckled Frogs, 5 Little Monkeys, 5 Fat Sausages, Fire Truck, Tiny Tim, Twinkle Twinkle, ABC's, Baby Shark

Poem: Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out by Shel Silverstein

Art: Recycled Trash Stamping

Mini Class

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Theme: Earth Day!

Choosing time: Play-doh, Foam Puzzle Blocks, Dinosaurs, & Beauty Shop

Snack: Thank you Noah for yummy Cheeze-its and Grapes!
Music & Movement: See Me Run, Oh What A Miracle, & Wiggle In My Toe

Lesson: We had a mini "Ocean" bucket in our class today filled with many animals that live in water. I had a bag full of garbage. I took one piece of trash out at a time and threw it into our ocean. Each time I did this, one of our fish friends had to leave the water. Trash kills our friends that live in water. We need to throw our trash away into trash cans. We then had fun cleaning up the trash and throwing it away. Each child chose a fish to put back into the water. I also suggested some fun ways to recycle trash. Sometimes we can even wash our trash and make a craft with it.

Art: Recycled Shakers

Letter "U"

Theme: Letter "U"

Choosing Time: Little People Village, Foam Puzzle Blocks, & Drawing Under the Table Upside Down
Snack: Animal Crackers & Spring Marshmallows

Reading/Writing: We read our Spring Poem and learned how to spell "up."

Music & Movement:

1. "Hokey-Ukey" : Instead of the traditional Hokey-Pokey, we put our right hand UP...
   
2. "Here We Go Round the Umbrella" : We each took turns adding pictures of items that begin with "U" inside our umbrella. Then each child would run, skip, gallop, walk around the circle.
3. "How can you move Under the Umbrella?": I held out a closed umbrella for the children to take turns choosing a moving way to get under the umbrella. We finished by either having to slither on our tummies, or slide on our backs. :)
4. Make an upside down "U" with our bodies. This was a very popular activity! We had a lot of fun trying to make a perfect "U".

Lesson: Practiced writing the letter "U". We also had a fun time making the two "U" sounds. We also had a discussion about one "U" word: UGLY. We read The Ugly Duckling. We thought about how the duckling felt and how we would feel. We learned that sometimes things might be ugly on the outside, but beautiful on the inside. We need to look inside a person's heart. We all expressed to each other how we have beautiful hearts :)

Art: "Hiding Behind An Umbrella" Pictures

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Books:

• Lunch by Denise Fleming
• The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen
• 5 Ugly Monsters Jumping on the Bed by Ted Arnold
  

Teddy Bear Picnic

Theme: Teddy Bear Picnic

Choosing Time: Teddy Bears, Tea/Picnic Set, Pooh Bear Color Pages, Duploes, Teeter-Totter, Stacking Cups

Lesson: A short instruction on field trip safety.

Music: 5 Little Ducks & The ABC Song

Field Trip: We had a wonderful excursion to the BYU Botany Pond. It was a lovely day for a picnic! We counted 13 ducklings with one mama duck. We stood very still to observe a turtle emerge from the water and climb up onto the bank. We ate yummy cheese & crackers, oranges, cupcakes, and juice boxes. We read "It's The Bear!" by Jez Alborough. We explored the surrounding area hoping to find some duck eggs. We climbed to the top of the stairs and back. We had races around a tree. We were so tempted by the water, but were so good to stay out of it :) Thank you to all who sent food! A special thanks to Mary Nevers for coming with us! An extra pair of eyes & hands were so needed and appreciated!

Our turtle friend. We noticed many things about this little guy: long pointy claws, yellow & black shell underneath, red eyes, quick swimmer...

Taking time to smell the flowers...

At the top of the stairs...We counted them and I can't remember how many? More than 50!

We were heading towards the grass when a Duck came swooping towards us, barely missing our heads, and then skimmed across the pond before it happily settled on the water.

Spencer is saying, "Wow! Cool!"
YUM!

Mini Class

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Theme: Teddy Bear Picnic

Choosing Time: Trains, Teddy Bear Puzzles, Tea/Picnic Set
Science: Explore Seeds with Magnifying Glass

Snack: Thank you Hyrum for a fun snack today! We ate Teddy Grahams and sipped juice boxes with some visiting bears :)
Math: We sorted our bears in groups of 2's, 3's, and 4's

Music: "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear," "Tiny Tim," & "Winnie the Pooh"

Movement: Parade with Teddy Bears: Twirling, Marching, Running, Skipping, Hopping, Flying...

Books: Where's My Teddy? & It's the Bear! by Jez Alborough
Art: Winnie the Pooh Coloring Pages

Letter "T"

Theme: Letter "T"

Choosing Time: Trains, Tactominoes, Trace, Tinker Toys, Teeter-Totter, & Tic-Tac-Toe
Snack: Thank you Spencer for bringing Kettle Corn, Fruit Roll-ups, & Carrots for our snack today!

Science: In keeping with a Spring Theme we took a moment to observe a variety of seeds with a magnifying glass. Some seeds were round while others were tear-drop shaped or stick-like. Some seeds were tiny while others were small. The corn seeds look just like the corn we eat. Other seeds we couldn't tell what they grow into just by looking at them.

Lesson: Letter "T" is a fun letter to draw. It makes a fun sound. We love many things that begin with "t." Our class especially loves turtles!

Music & Movement: "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear," "Tiny Tim," "I Have A Little Turtle," "London Bridges (..tunnel)"
We had so much singing our 2 Turtle songs! In fact, we kept singing until the terrifying turtles tackled the tickle monster and we all laughed ourselves to tears!

Art: Turtle Shells Decorated with 10 Triangles