The Culmination of The Friends Room's Community and Neighborhood Unit

The Friends Room defined a community as:

-“A group of people who work together to help each other”

-“People who work and play together”

-“When you be nice and play nicely together”

-“Love”

After exploring Merricat’s and the roles of the members of our school’s community, we explored who is in our community and what their roles are. After discussing our individual roles within our classroom community, the children began making labels for the toys and tools in The Friends Room so they can take responsibility for caring for their toys and maintaining their classroom.  

We began exploring our neighborhood. We made a neighborhood mural, a miniature city and made paintings of our apartment buildings. We went on neighborhood walks and the children brainstormed what they thought we might find. Here are their words:

-“Buildings”

-“Little and big houses”

-“Birdies”

-“Trees”

-“Grocery stores”

-“People”

-“Cars”

-“Trucks and tow-trucks”

Now that we have explored our neighborhood, we will begin thinking about other cultures and communities, and discussing what makes each distinct.

The following songs, books and activities have been spread out amongst the AM and PM sessions.

During meeting time The Friends Room:

-Discussed who is in our community and what their roles are

-Went on a scavenger hunt around the Friends Room and Merricat’s to interact with the members in our community

-Shared our vacation stories  

-Welcomed Krystin into our Friends Room community

-Had a visit from Art Farm and saw a turtle, lizard, toad and guinea pig

During activity time The Friends Room:

-Made Valentine's for our families and cookies for snack

-Transformed our dollhouse in to Merricat’s Castle

-Worked with clay

-Made our own paper

-Is practicing writing our names and labeling toys and tools in our classroom  

-Made paintings and took photos on our walks for our neighborhood mural

-Made pizza with a real chef (Chelsea's dad!)

-Wrote our names on our new snack cards

-Made Knuffle Bunnies

-Wrote and illustrated our vacation stories

-Made Prachi a goodbye book, and celebrated her time in our classroom with a "Prachi party"

The Friends Room is Singing:

You’ve Got A Friend in Me

5 Little Puppies

If You’re Happy and You Know It

Grandpa’s Farm

Around and Around is the Name of the Game

Our Subway Song

I've Been Working on The Railroad

The More We Get Together

Hot Potato

Taxi, Taxi Song

This School Was Made for You and Me

The Other Day I Met A Bear

The Friends Room is reading:

Valentine’s Day by Eve Bunting

Alexander and The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst

A Walk In New York by Salvatore Rubbino

Are You My Mother? by Philip D. Eastman

The Lonely Moose by John Segal

3 Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas

Chicken Little by Steven Kellogg

Flora’s Very Windy Day by Jeanne Birdsall

Fancy Nancy; Bonjour Butterfly  by Jane O’Connor

Rainbow Fish and The Sea Monsters Cave by Marcus Pfister Herbert

Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems

Lyrics:

This School Was Made For You And Me: (to the tune of This Land Is Your Land)

This school is your school,

This school is my school,

From the East Side, 

to the West Side,

Children come and play together. 

This school was made for you and me. 

You've Got A Friend in Me:

You've got a friend in me,

You've got a friend in me,

when the road gets rough ahead,

and you're miles and miles from your nice warm bed.

Just remember what your old pal said cause,

you've got a friend in me. 

Taxi, Taxi. Riding in the Backseat:

Taxi, Taxi. Riding in the backseat.

Role the window up.

Role the window down.

Put the money in the slot, 

See you later, thanks a lot! 

Sure beats walking cross town!

Jobs and Community Unit Continued...

Jobs and our Merricat’s Community

As we continue our jobs unit in The Friends Room we have discussed different types of jobs and the children began to think about what they want to be when they grow up.

Parents visited to discuss their jobs, which included, a fashion designer, a movie publicist, fitness instructor, mommy, dancer, opera singer, school psychologist, photographer, computer programmer and fundraiser. We greatly appreciate the parent involvement that went in to this unit!

As we continued to discuss jobs the children began to think about some of the jobs they know. Here are their words:

-“A policeman makes sure people are okay. He goes in a police car.”

-“A veterinarian is a pet doctor that takes care of pets.”

-“An astronaut goes to space in a rocket ship. He goes to the moon!”

-"A garbage man puts garbage in to the garbage truck when he sees garbage ahead!"


-"A businessperson works in the office to get money to put in his pocket to take it back home and pay. Maybe for his kids."


-"A performer stands on the stage and dances. A clown can perform on a stage too."


-"A firefighter puts out fires. He works in a fire station. When the alarm rings he knows there's a fire."


-"A letter carrier brings mail in the lobby to people's homes. He works at the post office." 


-"A conductor drives trains to different stations."


-"A hairdresser styles hair. But I go to the barber shop."


-"A farmer gardens and plants his carrots. He feeds his animals. He has pigs."

As we continue our jobs and community unit we are looking closely at our Merricat’s Community. After which, we will begin exploring the area surrounding Merricat's and jobs within our neighborhood.

The following songs, books and activities have been spread out amongst the AM and PM sessions.

During meeting time The Friends Room:

-Discussed Chinese New Year

-Interviewed parents about their jobs

-Is working together as a community, using our critical thinking skills and working together to solve problems

-Is playing hot potato and “Doggy, Doggy where’s your bone?”

-Had a special visit from Art Farm where we were able to pet a chinchilla, dove, tortoise, and frog

During activity time The Friends Room is:

-Playing with insta-snow

-Building a firetruck to transform our pretend center in to a fire station

-Making winter mittens and hats

-Playing animal and shapes dominoes

-Painting with watercolors to music

-Making lanterns and egg drop soup for Chinese New Year

-Creating a dragon for our Chinese New Year Parade

-Completing community themed puzzles

-Painting with Valentine’s Day colors  

-Playing an I-Spy memory game

-Building with various manipulatives that hone fine motor skills

-Making crafts to practice our cutting skills

-Playing number and letter recognition board games

-Beading

The Friends Room is Singing:
Our Friends Room Favorites 

I’ve Got the Whole World in My Hands

Did You Ever See a Lassie?

5 Little Puppies  

The Friends Room is reading:

When I Grow Up by Arthur Yorkins

Chinese New Year by

Jack and The Beanstalk by Mary Engelbreit

Puss in Boots by Mary Engelbreit

Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Mary Engelbreit

The 3 Questions by Jon J. Muth

Tale of the Tricky Fox by Jim Aylesworth  

Hey, Al! by Arthur Yorinks

Fireman Small by Wong Herbert Yee

Lyrics:

Did You Ever See A Lassie?

Did you ever see a lassie

A lassie, a lassie

Did you ever see a lassie

Go this way and that?

Go this way and that way

Go this way and that way

Did you ever see a lassie

Go this way and that?

Did you ever see a laddie

A laddie, a laddie

Did you ever see a laddie

Go this way and that?

Go this way and that way

Go this way and that way

Did you ever see a laddie

Go this way and that?

5 Little Puppies

5 little puppies sitting in a row,
Tell me please, what do you know?
The first one said, "I know my name."
The second one said, "I know a game."
The third one said, "I know a song."
The fourth one said, "I know right from wrong."
The fifth one said, "I'll tell you what is true, what I know, is I love you!" 

                     http://www.glammomny.com/

                                                        Portraits of Friends 

                                       "When I grow up I want to be..." 

                                                                     Art Farm 

Jobs and Community Unit in The Friends Room

 To culminate our friendship unit we had “open mic” performances where each child was able to sing, dance, tell a joke or a story. Before our performances we discussed what it means to give a compliment. After their performance each child was given a compliment to recognize their talents and demonstrate the importance of friendly behavior.

The Friends Room filled our “safe and friendly jar” and we had an ice cream party to celebrate!

We began our “jobs and community” unit with a DVD viewing of Catherine performing the role of Cinderella in Indiana University’s production of the ballet. As we continue to discuss jobs, we look forward to more parents visiting to discuss their careers!

The following songs, books and activities have been spread out amongst the AM and PM sessions.

During meeting time The Friends Room is:

-Talking about jobs

-Playing memory games

-Discussing winter

During activity time The Friends Room is:

-Drawing pictures of what we want to be when we grow up

-Working in pairs to draw portraits of friends

-Painting with friends

-Making watercolor paintings

-Playing dominoes

-Playing rhyming bingo

-Making sand art

-Playing with modeling sand, playdough and space mud

-Using peg pattern and color recognition boards

-Watching IU’s production of Cinderella performed by Catherine

-Playing Candyland

-Painting with ice

-Conducting science experiments with Prachi to explore ice and the water cycle

The Friends Room is Singing:

Shark attack

I Know A Chicken

The Baby Song 

Our favorite winter songs

  

The Friends Room is reading:

The Jacket I Wear In The Snow by John Grogan

The 3 Billy Goats Gruff by Paul Galdone

Snowman Storybook  by Raymond Briggs

The Feel Good Book by Tod Parr

The Rain Came Down by David Shannon

Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes  

Cinderella retold by Barbara Karlin

Franklin is Lost by Paulette Bourgeois 

Our Friends Room Feelings Unit

During our feelings unit in The Friends Room we talked about our feelings and how we express them. We explored a variety of emotions and were able to come up with strategies to cope with varying degrees of emotion.

 

In The Friends Room, we rate our feelings on a scale of 1-5. A five is the greatest intensity. For example, if we don’t see our name on the job chart one day, we may be a little upset (2), but if a friend takes our toy, we may be very angry (5). 

Our strategies for regulating our emotions include:

1.  Taking a deep breath

2.  Squeezing our hands together

3.  Rubbing our legs

We have also talked about what it means to be a good friend. After role-play scenarios surrounding play, everyone in The Friends Room agreed upon the importance of always including friends. If we tell someone they can’t play, or someone doesn’t include us in their play, we can get very upset. We agreed on how important it is to play with all our friends in The Friends Room.

The following activities have been spread out amongst the AM and PM sessions.

We have been working on:

-Taking turns

-Making friendly choices

-Regulating our emotions

During meeting time The Friends Room has been:

-Practicing for the school sing

-Talking about how to regulate our emotions

-Role-playing scenarios to practice making friendly choices

-Playing emotions charades

-Describing feelings and what might make us feel that way

-Putting on puppet shows to illustrate how we can be friendly and how we can invite friends to play with us on the playground

During activity time The Friends Room has been:

-Finishing our bodies project

-Decorating snowflakes

-Color mixing with liquid watercolors

-Playing alphabet bingo

-Using sequencing cards to learn how to sequence (first, next, last)

-Patterning (AB and ABC patterns)

-Playing categorizing games

-Drawing our favorite thing about winter

-Making holiday gifts for our families

-Working in small groups to make to make a Friends Room Christmas tree, dreidel, snowman and snowflake

-Making potato latkes and holiday cookies

-Marble painting

-Playing in our water table

-Using dry erase boards to draw and practice writing our names

-Decorating gingerbread people

The Friends Room has been singing:

The Sleepy Train Song

Our Holiday Songs for the school sing

I’m a Little Snowman

Snowy Pokey

Snow Is Falling All Around

The Friends Room has read:

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey

When Sophie Gets Angry—Really, Really Angry by Molly Bang

The Christmas Crocodile by Bonny Becker

Today I Feel Silly: And Other Moods That Make My Day by Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Cornell

Hurry Santa! by Julie Sykes

Chanukah Lights Everywhere by Michael J. Rosen and Melissa Iwai

Sometimes I Feel Like a Storm Cloud by Lezlie Evans
Eight Candles to Light: A Chanukah Story by Jonny Zucker

Lyrics:

The Sleepy Train Song

Train whistle blowing, 

makes a sleepy noise

underneath the blankets, 

go all the girls and boys

Rockin rollin riding

all around the bay

all bound for morning town

many miles away

*{Insert child’s name}

{Lauren’s} at the engine

{Chelsea} rings the bell

{Catherines} swings the lantern, to show that all is well 

Somewhere it is raining

Where this train will ride

But all the little passengers are safe and warm inside

Rockin, rollin, riding

All around the bay

All bound for morning town

Many miles away

Snow is Falling all Around

(Sung To: "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star")

Snow is falling all around,

Falling, falling, to the ground.

I catch snowflakes on my tongue.

Building snowmen is such fun.

Snow is falling all around

Falling, falling, to the ground.

Snowey Pokey

You put your right mitten in,

You take your right mitten out,

You put your right mitten in and you shake it all about.

You do the Snowey pokey and you turn yourself around.

That's what it's all about.

You put your left mitten in

You put your scarf in

You put your right boot in

You put your left boot in

You put your hat in

You put your snowself in

Etc

I'm a Little Snowman

(Sung to: "I'm a Little Teapot")

I'm a little snowman short and fat.

Here is my scarf and here is my hat.

When the snow is falling come and play.

Build a snowman every day.

Winter Celebration Songs

The Friends room is practicing our winter celebration songs for our upcoming holiday sing on Thursday, December 15th from 5:45-6:30pm! Siblings are welcome and we look forward to seeing you!

Winter Celebration Song Lyrics

I’m In The Mood

I’m in the mood for singing
Hey how about you (2x)

I’m in the mood for singing (tapping, clapping)

Singing along with you

Hey, hey what do you say?

I’m in the mood for that today. (2x)

Dreidel Song

I have a little dreidel

I made it out of clay

And when it’s dry and ready

Oh dreidel I shall play.

Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel,

I made it out of clay

Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel

Oh dreidel I shall play.

Jingle Bells

Jingle bells, jingle bells

Jingle all the way

Oh what fun it is to ride

in a one horse open sleigh.

Dashing through the snow

In a one horse open sleigh

O’er the fields we go

Laughing all the way.

Bells on bobtails ring

Making spirits bright ,

What fun it is to laugh and sing

a sleighing song tonight.

Hanukkah Happy Holiday

Hanukkah Hannukah

Happy Holiday

Candle light, candle’s bright

Children very gay.

Hanukkah, Hanukkah

Spin my dreidel fall

Turn and spin- let me win

Happy time for all.

This Little Light of Mine

This little light of mine

I’m gonna let it shine (3x)

Let it shine, let it shine,

Let it shine.

It’s gonna shine on Merricat's

On all of us

On children

Esta lucecita

Yo la hare brillar (3x)

Brillarar, brillarar, brillarar.

This little light of mine

I’m gonna let it shine (3x)

Let it shine (3x)

Twinkle Twinkle Hannukah Lights

Twinkle twinkle Hannukah lights
Shining brightly for eight nights

See the dreidle spin around

Eat some latkes crisp and brown

Twinkle twinkle Hannukah lights

Shining brightly for eight nights.

The Latke Song

Take a potato pat, pat, pat

Roll it and make it flat, flat, flat

Fry it in a pan with fat, fat, fat

Hannukah latkes just like that!

Must Be Santa

Who's got a beard that's long and white?

Santa's got a beard that's long and white

Who comes around on a special night?

Santa comes around on a special night

Special night, beard that's white

Must be Santa, must be Santa

Must be Santa, Santa Claus

Who wears boots and a suit of red?

Santa wears boots and a suit of red

Who wears a long cap on his head?

Santa wears a long cap on his head

Cap on head, suit that's red

Special night, beard that's white

Must be Santa, must be Santa

Must be Santa, Santa Claus

Who's got a great big red cherry nose?

Santa's got a great big red cherry nose

Who laughs this way, "ho, ho, ho!"?

Santa laughs this way, "ho, ho, ho!"

Ho, ho, ho, cherry nose

Cap on head, suit that's red

Special night, beard that's white

Must be Santa, must be Santa

Must be Santa, Santa Claus

Who very soon will come our way?

Santa very soon will come our way

Eight little reindeer pull his sleigh

Santa's little reindeer pull his sleigh

Reindeer sleigh, come our way

Ho, ho, ho, cherry nose

Cap on head, suit that's red

Special night, beard that's white

Must be Santa, must be Santa

Must be Santa, Santa Claus

Reindeer sleigh, come our way

Ho, ho, ho, cherry nose

Cap on head, suit that's red

Special night, beard that's white

Must be Santa, must be Santa

Must be Santa, Santa Claus

Jingle Bell Rock

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock

Jingle bell swing and jingle bells ring

Snowin' and blowin' up bushels of fun

Now the jingle hop has begun.

Jingle bell, jingle bell, jingle bell rock

Jingle bells chime in jingle bell time

Dancin' and prancin' in jingle bell square

In the frosty air.

What a bright time

It's the right time

To rock the night away

Jingle bell time is a swell time

To go glidin' in a one horse sleigh

Giddy-up, jingle horse pick up your feet

Jingle around the clock

Mix and mingle in a jinglin' beat

That's the jingle bell rock

That’s the jingle bell

That’s the jingle bell rock! 

Our Thanksgiving Story

After our Thanksgiving puppet show, the children had a lot to say about Thanksgiving!

Here are their words…

“A long time ago, maybe forty years ago, the Pilgrims came to town! They were so mad. They wanted to leave the other land. So they were homeless. But then they came so close to us! Massachusetts!”

“The Pilgrims went to the boat then they went from the boat to visit the Native Americans.”

“They left England to go to their favorite new home America. They came from England. It was raining. It was a cloudy day!”

“The Native Americans looked different from the Pilgrims. They had different shoes, clothes and hats.”

“They showed them how to plant corn seeds and they thanked them for doing that. They were trying to help them.”

“They all played gently together. They were so happy they were friends. They were all doing their best.”

“The Pilgrims gardened and helped to get nice Thanksgiving food.”

“Native Americans said to the Pilgrims, “Let's plant some food!” because they needed more food for lots of dinner.”

“They called that dinner Thanksgiving.”

“They ate some food and they had so much fun! They came to America because they wanted to see the children and grown ups with arrows.”

“We celebrate Thanksgiving with all the good food in the world.”

“Like baked beans, corn and broccoli!”

“Then they had berries and turkey and bread.”

“Turkeys are like one big chicken!”

“You have turkey and have to be really thankful for somebody. We are thankful to be happy and for everybody we are friends with!”

Thanksgiving Song

(to the tune of twinkle twinkle little star)
Lyrics:

Let's be thankful for this day,

For our friends and our play.

Let's be thankful, let's be glad,

For our food and the things we have.

Let's give thanks for you and me,

And our home and family.

The Turkey Song:

Have you ever seen a turkey, a turkey, a turkey,

Who struts around the farmyard with feathers so bright?

With red ones and orange ones and yellow ones and brown ones,

Did you ever see a turkey with feathers so bright?