Eric Carle Week!

Slowly, Slowly, Slowly Said the Sloth!  This is one of many Eric Carle books we have read this week during our author/illustrator study.  The kids LOVE his books and are excited to see which book we are reading next, every time we sit down for story time!  Each of the kids will bring home a book they have made in class which chronicles some of the Eric Carle stories we have/will read.  Our author study will continue into next week.  On Leap Day we are going to have some fun activities to do, and then we'll finish the week with Dr. Suess activities and books.  Dr. Suess's birthday (if he were still alive) is Friday, March 2nd.
 
The children are really taking the illustrator/author concept to heart- when they are in the writing center I hear them telling each other that they are going to write and illustrate their own pictures!  It's so neat to see them transfer the concepts to different areas of their lives!

Feel freel to go to the official Eric Carle website to show your child the different pictures/videos of Eric Carle.  What's most unique about him is how he does his illustrations- how he paints the paper he uses for the pictures.  You can also Google "Eric Carle paper" and watch some videos of him. 
http://www.eric-carle.com/home.html is his official website. 

Mrs. Kaiser did a phenomenal job with our science lesson this week, as usual!  We are being scientists again, and watching 4 different types of seeds (this corresponds with the book The Tiny Seed).  We talked about what seeds need to grow, and are keeping an eye on our lima beans, kidney beans, black beans and black eyed peas.  We are even keeping a "bean journal."  In it we record the date we look at the beans and then we draw a picture of what we see the lima beans doing!  It's so exciting to observe our beans!

Mrs. Kaiser also had the kids preplant sunflower seeds in an egg carton.  Once they sprout we will transfer them to the garden outside next to the playground. 
One of the Eric Carle books we read is A House for Hermit Crab.  Today a friend from Mrs. McMillan's class brought in her hermit crabs!  What fun we had looking at them.  They were sleeping most of the time though, so we didn't get as good of a look at them as we wished!
Enjoy the pictures!

Science with Mrs. Kaiser- planting sunflower seeds and letting our observation seeds soak overnight!

Hermit crab observation- they are almost totally camouflaged!

Teamwork on a hard puzzle this afternoon!