Hello, Friendly Fox Families!
We certainly squeezed a lot of fun activities into this short week of school! I hope everyone enjoyed their time together over the Martin Luther King, Jr. observance day. The children have been playing so beautifully together this week, and seem to really have enjoyed our Winter Animal theme!
This week we spent two days studying hibernation habits. We talked about how animals prepare their bodies and their spaces for hibernation, what happens to their bodies when they are hibernating, and some of the animals which hibernate. We learned all about how frogs’ bodies would freeze solid, except their bodies make glucose as an antifreeze! We painted beautiful frogs and salamanders to hibernate in the mud and soil on our special Winter bulletin board and acted out hibernation in some sand and leaf sensory bins. We learned the bears are not true hibernators! They experience torpor, which means they are light sleepers and can be awakened and come out for brief periods of time. We made fuzzy bears, made our own cozy bears in dens to take home, played with bears in “snow” bins with dens, built dens for bears, learned a sweet bear fingerplay, and read to bears in our Winter Reading Den. We also spent two days studying adaptation habits of animals who don’t hibernate or migrate, like us! We learned a fun song about adaptation, learned about how Snowshoe Hares adapt, how some birds adapt, and how other animals change their habits to survive Winter. We even made some sweet fluffy Snowshoe Hares and gave them fluffy white coats. Then we learned about one of my favorite little critters, Pikas. They have a fascinating habit of collecting what ends up being “bushels” of flowers and grasses, dry them on rocks in the sun, and then store them in their little burrows. We listened to their funny barks, or calls, and then we pretended to be Pikas and made our own little paper Pikas with real flowers and grasses. It was so much fun! We did all of this and more this week. The children have really been enjoying the Winter Words table, a free choice spot where they can build words with loose parts and write letters on mirrors. This has been a very popular choice for them and they are surprising themselves at how many letters they can write!
Next week we will have Jan Brett week, as we read our way through many of her books and do loads of fun activities to go along with each one. At the end we will vote for our favorite and write a letter to her. Last year she wrote back to us, so I am hoping for the same result this year!
Thank you for all you do!WynneNancy & Christina
Wisdom begins with wonder
