Week Twenty-Two: Zippity DooDah

Theme: Love
Valentines are a fun way to show someone you love them. Kind words give us warm and happy feelings. I saw a couple of touching things this week that truly demonstrated love. A few children were sad about not sitting in a particular chair and a friend would give up his chair for the sad child. I saw a few hugs given. One child wasn't sure about being dropped off and two kiddos went and invited him to play. Each of your children is wonderful & so loving!

Letter: Z
We met Zack the Zookeeper. We discussed many responsibilities a zookeeper has. Letter Z makes a fun sound. We guessed what in nature makes a letter Z in the sky. We had fun with zip and zap.

Reading: Our Z words included zebra, zoo, zero, zigzag, zipper, & zucchini

Birthday Fun:
Show & Tell:
Things that Show Love:

Things we Love:
Things We Love & Belong in a Zoo:

Things We Love & begin with Z:
Zebras--
Zippers--Books--Zuko in Avatar--
Friend, Zarek--Ability to write words & letters--
Finding a Z on a favorite magaZine--

Math: The number for the week was Zero. We usually count to three for me to bring out our Letter of the Week. I realized that I wanted to incorporate Zero into our countdown and vocalized that...I was truly stumped for a minute...and then a brilliant child said, "Miss Jodi, let's just count 3, 2, 1, Zero!" Voila!!! I also asked many questions throughout the week such as, "If I don't have any alligators, how many do I have?" We giggled a lot.

Art:

• Designs with Hearts for Valentines (Many cards were created & some Heart-Shaped animals)
  
• Snowmen (A battery-operated tea-light candle may be put under the tissue paper snowmen to light up)
  

Science: We used a balance scale to measure which Fisher-Price animal was the heaviest. Interestingly, the toy elephant weighed the most just like the real elephant would be. I wonder if Fisher-Price knows that.... We tried various arrangements and enjoyed this activity a lot! And then, I had fun demonstrating how a balance scale can propel objects if you hit the "up" side down. We all enjoyed seeing how far we could shoot the animals.

Writing: We practiced our Z's. I explained how to write a Z by saying, "Follow the Sky, Slide Down, Follow the Ground." If you hear interesting phrases such as that now you know where they come from :) We also had opportunities to practice our names. We wrote words such as "I, Love, You, Mom, Dad, Zoo, OXOX" on our cards. The AM class was given a prompt (At the zoo I can see a) to put in the correct order and glue onto a page. Each child was able to pick one zoo animal to add the name of onto his/her paper. Then the children drew pictures of their animals.
Music & Movement:

• Animals in the Zoo
• Move Like Zoo Animals
• Alice the Camel
• Skidamarinkydinkydink
• ABC's
• The Animals in the Zoo
  

Books:

• Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth
  
• A View at the Zoo by Kathleen Long Bostrom
• Zoe and her Zebra by Claire Beaten
  

Snacks: Seriously, YOU ARE ALL SO CREATIVE!!!! We enjoyed Super Z snacks this week!

• Zoo Animal Crackers & Marshmallows
• CheeZ-Its & Heart Shaped Fruit Snacks
• Zucchini Muffins & Orange Slices
• Zoo Animal Crackers & Carrots
• Lemon Zest Poppyseed Muffins, Zoo Animal Trivia Cheese Sticks, & Bananas (a Favorite treat for Zoo monkeys)
• CheeZ-It Crackers & Zingers
• Zebra Cake

Games:

• Zoo Animal Memory
• Zoo Animal Charades (What a hoot!)