Ten Apples Up on Top

School is out for the week and I find myself welcoming another 3-day weekend :)!!  Class has been going pretty well.  Slowly the kids are learning more, and I am not using as many Spanish phrases as I was.  Maybe I mentioned that in my last post, I don't remember, and if I did, then restating that fact just shows my excitement for it I guess!  We've continued to review our shapes and colors, and the letters A and B, and numbers 1 and 2.  They have been picking it up really well!  For art this week, we made necklaces out of paper plates: they were good for a chuckle!  For teaching letters I use zoo phonics, and for numbers I introduced "Ten Apples Up on Top" by none other than Dr. Seuss himself.  Let me show you how fun of an activity it was!  We balanced the Apples on our heads (1 apple by ourselves, and then for 2 apples the students had to use the wall to help, but it was still a lot of help!)  Let me just say, the apples were veryyy bruised after this activity!  But  the pictures make cute number posters in our room!  

Also, one of the main problems with my kids is when we have carpet time.  They pick and pull at the foam rug with the letters.  Regardless of my continuous effort to tell them not to touch the rug, they continue to do just that.  I've mentioned this frustration, and how I wanted a big blanket or something else to stop this problem, but the school said that big rugs cost too much money.  So the past two weeks, the problem hasn't been as bad, but it still has not been solved.  Then my assistant told me, on Monday, that I was getting a new rug.  Imagine my excitement!  Well, the next day, into my classroom arrives ANOTHER foam rug.  Oh, JOY!  I just had to laugh.  So this rug is very similar to my other one, but this one has even more small pieces in it for the kids to pick and pull at.  My assistant and I started to set this new rug up to add to the other rug so that we would have more space for the students to sit on.  We soon discover that letter G is the word GUN along with its picture.  Really!?  The rug is clearly a rug for teachers to use, and I can think of many words beginning with G that are muchhhh more appropriate (gorilla, giraffe, grapes, gum...just to name a few!)  So, I made a picture of a giraffe instead and covered it up and stapled it down on the rug, since we needed to use that piece still.  That picture lasted 10 minutes before a student ripped it off.  So, my next decision was to suck it up and by some fabric on my own to use as a rug.  Luckily, I remembered that we had a large curtain in our house that we are not using, so I decided that this was going to be our new rug.  It is very unattractive, and it messes up every time the kids sit down or stand up, but nonetheless they sit much better now that they don't have foam to pick it.  Talk about frustrating though!

Anyways, Enjoy the pictures :)  A few of us are going to Copan Ruins this weekend, which is about 4 hours away from us.  It looks like it will be beautiful, so I can't wait to share about that adventure upon my return!  Have a beautiful and blessed weekend friends!