Last Week in Feb. 2012

We had a fun week as we took off to study Hawaii... and the children just love doing the state studies.
Here is what we did while learning about Hawaii...

Our Hawaii Book and Activities

We identified the state on our map... a state map that has velcro state pieces.  We

colored in the state name and the state.  We talked about how Hawaii is an island

and what an island is.

We found Hawaii on a map... I had to use one that showed the children exactly

where Hawaii is.  We talked about the state capital and each child made a

flower lei as a welcome to Hawaii.

 Here we are with our flower lei.  We had a difficult time with this project

and I will have to rethink it for future use.  We used yarn with a taped end as

the needle, foam beads (but were going to use straw pieces which would have

been the better idea, but the holes in the flowers were to big and it didn't work) 

which we had a hard time lacing, and flowers that were a little big and

 the center holes were too big. 

The next page we talked about the state flag and colored one to look like the actual

state flag.  We then cut up letters and glued down the state name (middle of page), and

lastly we traced and wrote the state name on a folded piece of paper.

We learned that the state flower is the yellow hibiscus and colored one.  Then we made

a paper yellow hibiscus.

We took pre-cut paper piecings of the yellow flower petal and leaves

to create the flower.  We didn't glue down the entire petal but instead

folded the bottom of the petal about 1/2 inch and glued that to give it

the hibiscus effect.  We used a red dot marker to make the center and put a

yellow pipecleaner through two holes in the center f the flower to make

the stamen.

We talked about the state bird... the Hawaiin Goose and we colored a

goose in our books.  Then we waterpainted a Hawaiin Goose.

Here are a couple of the waterpainted Hawaiin Geese.

We talked about the state mammal... the humpback whale.  We watched videos

of the creatures and then matched pictures of the whale.

Here is the video we used...

We talked about Hawaii Volcano National Park and how there are many volcanoes

in Hawaii.  We did a book on this page to explain how a volcano erupts.

We watched these videos...

We then made our own volcanoes by cutting brown construction paper into volcano(es)

and coloring the background.  We then took red fingerpaint to make erupting

an erupting volcano(es).

We talked about how pinapples are grown in Hawaii. Did you know if

you cut the top off of a pineapple and plant it in the dirt it will grow a

pineapple?

We made a pineapple mosaic by cutting yellow and green paper and

pasting it to the paper.  We had to add gold and green glitter glue dots

to give them the final touch.

And lastly we talked about hula dancing.  How fun this was!!!  We

watched a few videos to get a feel for what hula dancing was all

about after we colored the picture in our book.

 After watching these videos we had to give it a try... but we needed

the grass skirts.  We made then out of construction paper.  They thought

this was G-R-E-A-T!!!  And then we let the hula dancing begin...

We also finished our occupations unit this week by doing the following...

The Chef

We talked about what a chef and waiter do and role played there jobs.  We then did these

dictated responses to what they would make if they were chef's.

 And we talked about the concept of open and closed.

We talked about open and closed, demonstrated it on objcets, found things in

the room that were open and then found things in the room that were closed.  We

then did this coloring page in which we colored the open box blue and the closed

box yellow.

 And that about sums up our week.  Hope you had fun seeing what we've been up to.
Best,
Rose