Lakeside Academy (Oct. 24th): Zoo Animals

Last week our little group went to the Austin Zoo for a really nice morning field trip....here we are at the zoo.

Today at Lakeside Academy we talked all about the zoo animals we saw.  At circle time we did our usual morning song, followed by show-and-tell. The youngest ones were the stars of show-and-tell again- they have LOTS to say when it is their turn!

 For our storytime we read a selection of books by Eric Carle.  All about animals of course, and most of them interactive so the kids got really involved in the story telling this week.

 Our craft for today was a paper plate lion.  We thought it might be a challenge because it involved painting, cutting, gluing and coloring....but the kids had no problem at all making some really cute lions.

 We also spent a lot of time playing with Nana's new stamp sets today- a big hit with all of the kids.

 Next was lunch- again, no one really wants to eat at lunchtime but they sure have fun just sitting together and talking...then rushing out the door to play outside.

 We took a little walk after lunch down the street to visit the horses.  Lucky for us, when we arrived the biggest horse was already there waiting for us at the fence.  The kids named him "Birthday" and had a wonderful time petting him, feeding him grass and watching him swat at flies.  We might need to make this a weekly visit- Birthday and the kids all seemed to enjoy it.

 Cooking class with Nana was next, and today they made Monkey Bread (also called Pull Apart Bread- here's the recipe we used, we skipped the nuts).  It was a very simple version that the kids could do mostly by themselves.  First they cut biscuits into fourths. 

Then they measured sugar and cinnamon into a bag.

 They put their biscuit pieces into the bag and shook them up.  This required a little dancing.

 Next they put their biscuits pieces into a fluted tube pan and watched Nana pour the gooey butter/brown sugar over the top. 

 While it baked we had music and movement time.  We started by making a little yoga zoo- each one picked an animal and we did the yoga pose for it.  The kids are great at this.  Then we sang a few fun animal songs.  Ask the kids to sing Five Little Monkeys Swinging In A Tree- they LOVE that one!
Then it was musical instrument/dance party time. 

By the time that Nana and I could no longer handle the fun, the Monkey Bread was ready to come out of the oven.  The kids were very impressed with their creation.

 Later on we all ate snack while playing outside.

 We decided to do some group games with the kids outside this afternoon.  We played with the parachute- first bouncing a ball around and then letting each person have a turn under the parachute while we made a bubble over them.

 We also did a relay race that involved running a ball to a bucket and then took turns trying to throw the ball into the bucket.  The kids enjoyed this and they really liked playing out in the "big yard".

 It was a great day- seven happy kids and lots of fun.  Next week we'll have a bigger group (welcome back Kristin and Hannah!) and celebrate Halloween together.