3-Day: 3, 2, 1...BLAST OFF!!!!!

This week, 3-Day is learning all about the planet Earth, the sun and the moon! We are so proud of how well your children are listening and absorbing all the amazing facts about our universe. We learned that Earth is made of land and water. Now that we are shape experts, we know that Earth is a SPHERE! With a little assistance, your children can explain it to you. As we teach children new vocabulary, we encourage them to practice proper pronunciation and make sure they repeat the word several times. We talk about what our lips should look like and where our tongue should be as we repeat the word.

On Monday, we made sun catchers by placing green and blue tissue paper, representing land and water, on sticky contact paper. We hope that you will place them in a sunlit window to enjoy at home. We read parts of The Magic School Bus in Outer Space and a wonderful story called, The Day You Were Born.

On Wednesday, we talked about the sun. The sun is a star at the center of our universe. We read a story called, The Sun is Kind of a Big Deal. The children asked many wonderful questions and shared lots of what they know about the sun. We learned that the Earth orbits the sun and it takes a whole year to go around! Your children dipped their fingers into bright yellow, orange and red finger paint to create their own version of the sun's burning rays of light.

We explored lots of manipulatives and worked on skills at table three all week. The planet puzzles, constructed with four interlocking pieces, were a big hit! Your children creatively made a blue and green earth, a yellow sun and a red planet Mars. We counted by one-to-one correspondence. We even made rocket ships out of the letters of our name. They are zooming around in our classroom. Ask your child if he or she is able to find his or her rocket ship! We were super impressed at how your children were able to identify some or all the letters of their names.

On Friday, we learned all about the moon. There were astronauts floating along the moon's surface in the discovery table, filled with moon dust and craters. We used all kinds of tools to create craters on our puffy paint moons at the art table. We counted moon rocks, carefully touching each rock as we counted.

During snack, children enjoyed munching on potato chips, which started as a full moon and ended up a crescent moon and then disappeared...crunch crunch!

Next week, we will explore some planets in our solar system and continue the outer space fun!

Karen and Mayson

#space