What's in a name?-Week 4

(The kiddos finding letters on crackers during snack time.)

This week it was all about the name as we read Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. In the story Chrysanthemum loves her name until she goes to school where she finds it is "too long" and some girls tease her for being named after a flower. Chrysanthemum struggles with this until the whole class meets their very cool music teacher, Delphinium Twinkle, who tells everyone that she also has a long name and is named after a flower! And guess what? Mrs. Twinkle is expecting a baby girl and has been considering Chrysanthemum as a name! This causes Chrysanthemum to "bloom" and all the girls to realize how wonderful a long name can be.

After the reading story, we talked about how everyone is special and was named something special by their parents just for them. We talked about being accepting of others and how to be a good friend. We looked in a baby name book to see the meaning of every one's names-- some were silly and some were spot on. When then headed to the table to find our names and count the letters in each one.

We put the names in order from smallest number of letters to largest. The children did well counting the letters, using one-to-one correspondence and showing the meaning of less and more. We repeated this activity on Wednesday, but with the names of characters of the story-- Jo, Rita, Victoria, Delphinium and Chrysanthemum.

For the craft, we did sponge painting with letters trying to make our names. Here is Ryder's.

After reading the story on Wednesday we found all the references to different kind of flowers in the book-- marigold, lily, carnation, daisy, delphinium and chrysanthemum. We looked at photographs of these finding similarities and differences in appearance. We also talked about the parts of the flower. The children picked a favorite flower to paint and then off to the table they went to make their masterpieces.

I was impressed with how well they did painting the stem, leaves and petals. They really worked hard basing their work off of the pictures.

I was so impressed with how much the Busy Bees have matured in a year. The did well listening, lining up and sharing. They shared well during free play.

Calli and Lincoln with blocks...

Bronwen and Sydney with play dough...

And everyone seemed to love the magnets!

Centers were fun too. Bronwen and Sydney sort money, Paige and Calli work with linking cubes and the boys to Dot-to-Dot art.

I'm excited for what this year holds! The children really did well. Especially as I worked with them during writer's workshop and phonics. They are hearing the sounds and getting it! It is fun to see their progress.