Kwanzaa and Happy New Year!

Our theme for the fourth week of December was "Kwanzaa and Happy New Year". Because our school had a half day for Christmas Eve and was closed for Christmas, we did not talk about a letter, number or shape.

  

We read this week: How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
                               How Do Dinosaurs Say Merry Christmas by Jane Yolen
                               Corduroy by Don Freeman
                               A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Phillip C. Stead

Our question of the week was "If you were an elf, what would your name be?" I love when the questions make the kids think and be creative. We have some very unique names!

Our song of the week was "If You're Happy and You Know It!" Always fun and always a favorite.

For our theme of the week, we had a lot of fun talking about the different holidays!

I created a Christmas bingo board that the kids had to color, cut out the pictures and glue onto their boards.

We played "Santa, Santa, Reindeer". They thought it was so funny that I changed the name from duck, duck, goose, but they indulged me. =]

I found a picture of a Kinara and we painted with Kwanzaa colors.

I created a memory game with symbolic Kwanzaa pictures, i.e candle, kinara, fruit, corn, Africa, etc. My class jumps at the chance to play organized games like these.

I found a worksheet online and decided to make one based on it. I drew symbolic parts of kwanzaa with specific coloring instructions. As I gave the directions for what to color, we talked about why that item is important to celebrating Kwanzaa. A worksheet that is very close to what I did is found here.

I wanted to challenge my kids, so I made an alphabet code. We started it together and then whoever wanted to worked on their own. A worksheet that is very close to what I did is found here.

We painted and played with home made noisemakers. I used toilet paper rolls, some macaroni and some beads, and a stapler. Voila, instant New Years fun!

I made construction paper confetti, and with it we made fireworks on dark colored construction paper.

We mixed and baked a confetti cake with some confetti frosting. Something sweet to bring in the new year!

Now I couldn't have an entire week go by without any number or letter activities, so I squeezed a few in there!

On this website, you can create your own handwriting worksheets, so I have one for each child in the class. They trace their names (first and last) three times, and then have a line to write it on their own. I do this a few times a year and stick them in their portfolios for an example of their improving writing skills.

We colored a butterfly labeled with #6-10. I love these so much. It really forces the kids to slow down and think about what they are coloring. I use this book for all my number pages like this.

Up next week: "Winter Numberland"

Morning Meeting/Circle Time

Morning Meeting is great way to come together, talk about the day and get ready for what's ahead. I think the way we do our group really works for our class, so I thought I would share it with you!

This is the "bookpit" where we meet!

We start our meeting with Show and Share. Each child has one day that they can bring in something special to share with the class. They then take three questions from their classmates about their item.

Next we talk about the Schedule of the day. We talk about the different activities that we are going to do, where we are going to have our play time (outside or in the gym) and flow of the day.

After we talk about the schedule, we go into our daily jobs. I go through who has each job that day.

We sing our attendance song:  

                           Teacher- "Name of child," are you here?

                           Class- Yes dear teacher, he/she is here or No dear teacher, they're not here.

When the child's name is called, they come up to me to get their name tag. When we're finished, the Attendance Helper walks around the circle and collects all the cards while counting. Then we discuss how many friends came to school that day.

The Calender Helper then has to name the number date of the previous day, and decide what today is. I got this pocket calender and the numbers from LakeShore Learning. Each month has different pictures and two colors, so you can make patters on the calender. (We're going to start that in January.) The calender helper then has to name the day of the week for today, tomorrow and yesterday.

Then the Weather Helper gets their turn. They look out the window and talk about what they see, then we decide by those clues what the weather is. They make the arrow point to the weather and then color a block on the graph. (I saved all of the weather charts from last year, so when we get to the end of a month, we compare the different weathers.)

Time for the Pledge! The Flag Helper comes to the front of the circle to hold up the flag while we say the Pledge of Allegiance.

The Substitute takes over if any friends are absent or if they need some help with their job. the Line Leader leads us if we leave the classroom to play in the gym or outside.

Another plus to having a job, is that in the afternoon, they pick a song for us to sing during our mini-afternoon circle time!

After our jobs are complete, we sing our song of the week, then read our story for the day. We then talk about our letter, number and color/shape of the week, and then we start our work or playtime.

How does your circle time go? Leave a comment!

Songs of the Week

Hi there! I've been wanting to tell you about how we sing in our classroom, and now's the time!

You may have noticed that we have a "song of the week". This is usually a song that goes along with the color or shape of the week, but sometimes is just a fun silly song. What do we do with these after the week is done? Well, we put them in our song cup!

(The green is what we pull from each day, the purple is where they go until we start over.)

Every afternoon, when everyone is woken up from a rest and has a full belly from afternoon snack, we have a little mini meeting back in our book pit. We re-group, talk about our afternoon work, and just have a minute to talk. Right before we break and get to work, each child that had a morning meeting job, gets to pick a song out of the song cup. (I have also used our song cup if we are waiting for a special guest to arrive, or if we are waiting for an event to start. It keeps everyone from getting to antsy.)

In the beginning of the year, I had just songs like "Twinkle Twinkle", "The Alphabet", "5 Little Monkeys", etc. Then as we learn the songs each week, they get added to our possible song choices. The kids get so excited when they have a job in the morning, becuase they know they get to pick on of our afternoon songs too!

(All the songs that we had so far. =])

I find that my class really loves to sing and they have so much fun with it. Preschoolers are so musical, they love to dance and sing, why not try this out in your classroom? I've also seen this done with the songs written on slips of paper and put in a shoebox. Either way works, just get out there are sing!

Merry Christmas! (M, 10, Green)

Our theme for the third week of December was "Merry Christmas" and we focused on the letter Mm, the number 10 and the color green.

  

We read this week: How Santa Got His Job by Stephen Krensky
                               Duck and Goose, It's Time for Christmas by Tad Hills
                               The Christmas Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood
                               Bear Stays Up for Christmas by Karma Wilson
                               Fletcher and the Snowflake Christmas by Julia Rawlinson

Our question of the week was "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I like to think that I know my kids very well, but some of these answers were a surprise to me, and Moms and Dads!

For our theme of the week, we had fun getting ready for the holiday!

I drew "gingerbread houses" onto paper bags that the kids colored however they wanted. These are what I put their ornaments from last week in to give to their parents. They were a big hit!

Using just beads, green pipe cleaners and some string we made really cute and artsy tree ornaments. I hung them on our class tree to make it a little more festive. I found the idea here.

We also had our school Christmas party! Santa came too!

We talked about the color green, and we sang "G-R-E-E-N" to the tune of "Old MacDonald."

"There’s a color we all know,

G-R-E-E-N.

It’s the color that means “Go!”

G-R-E-E-N.

Oh, grass is green and lettuce is green,

Leaves and spinach and peas are green.

There’s a color we all know,

G-R-E-E-N."

I found it here.

When we focus on a color I love to do "color hunts" in our classroom. Each child takes a turn to walk

around the classroom and bring back something that they found that is green. The tricky thing is that they have to bring different things, no duplicates allowed! Here is what we found for the color green.

When we worked on our number activities, we practiced writing the number and word for the number 10.

I made these worksheets that reinforces the one to one concept. The kids practice writing the number and have to color a square for each picture that they see.

I gave each student 10 M&M's to count and then color on their paper. The best part? They got to eat them!

For our letter activities, we used our handwriting sheet for the letter Mm from this book.

We also did this worksheet that helps work on letter recognition that I got from this book.

The students also wrote in their journals for the letter M.

We turned a M into a Mouse! This book is great.

We made a short book all about "Monkey's Lunch" that I got from this Mailbox book.

When learning about the phases of the moon, whats a better way to practice than with Oreos!

I found this video about Mallomars and another that really shows how the marshmallow cookies are made. Then we all ate one!

I cut up small pieces of red, peach and white construction paper so we could made Santa Mosaics. I introduced the kids to mosaic art, and showed them some examples. Then we talked about how to make a picture of Santa. I love how each one is unique!

For our alphabet wall we used dot paint to decorate mangoes.

Here are the words we came up with this week!

We had a birthday this week! It's all about Batman.

Up next week: "Kwanzaa and Happy New Year!"

CandyLand! (L, 9, Red)

So sorry for the delay in these posts, December always seems to get away from me. I hope everyone is having a joyful holiday season!

Our theme for the second week of December was "Candyland" and we focused on the letter Ll, the number 9 and the color red.

  

We read this week: Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
                               The Berenstain Bears: Too Much Junk Food by Stan and Jan Berenstain
                               The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
                               L,M,N,O Peas by Keith Baker

Our question of the week was "What is your favorite thing about school?" Everyone pretty much had an answer right away... it was great!

For our theme of the week, we did some "sweet" activities.
We counted and compared candy canes. I had one regular size candy cane and the kids had to estimate how many mini candy canes would equal the height of the regular one.

We wrote a recipe for hot chocolate, made it and then drank it. Delicious!

It does not really go along with our theme of the week, but to get ready for the holidays we decorated snowflakes with puffy paint for a classroom mural. I pre-cut the snowflakes out of poster board and painted a simple background of snow and evergreens. The kids colored their snowflake however they wanted and then added the puffy paint. We had some left from another project, so i used store bought paint, but I did find a recipe that someday soon I would like to try.

Our director purchased different kinds of ornaments for each classroom from Oriental Trading, we got these cute snowman snowflake ornaments. The kids and I put these together, and then I had each of them give me a blue hand print that I glues onto the backs of the snowflakes. These will be the kids' gifts to give to their parents. Next week we're doing a really cool project for the wrapping!

We talked  about the color red, and we sang "We Love Red."

"We love red, we love red,

That's what we said, that's what we said.

Apples and cherries, oh me, oh my,

Tomatoes to bake on a pizza pie.

Red is the color and that is why,

We love red."

When we focus on a color I love to do "color hunts" in our classroom. Each child takes a turn to walk

around the classroom and bring back something that they found that is red. The tricky thing is that they have to bring different things, no duplicates allowed! Here is what we found for the color red.

We made red collages with red paint, feathers, tissue paper and glitter. (No picture, sorry!)

When we worked on our number activities, we practiced writing the number and word for the number 9. (This actually went home for practice. We had a snowy day that day.)

I made these worksheets that reinforces the one to one concept. The kids practice writing the number and have to color a square for each picture that they see. (This actually went home for practice. We had a snowy day that day.)

We colored a picture using a "color by number key" that I got from this book.

For our letter activities, we used our handwriting sheet for the letter Ll from this book. (This actually went home for practice. We had a snowy day that day.)

We also did this worksheet that helps work on letter recognition that I got from this book.

The students also wrote in their journals for the letter L.

We turned a L into an Lion! This book is great.

We made a short book all about "Lizard's Lollipops" that I got from this Mailbox book.

We leaped every time I called out a word that started with an "L". This was a fun one to combine listening for letter sounds and physical activity all in one.

For our alphabet wall we made leaves with tissue paper.

Here are the words we came up with this week!

Up next week: "Merry Christmas," the letter Mm, number 10 and color green.