Spring has Sprung! (X, 21, Pink, Square)

Our theme this week was "Spring has Sprung" and we focused on the letter X, number 21 and we revisited the color pink and square shape.

Our school is also getting ready for our Art Show. all the projects are completed I will take pictures and show you our super cool "Garden". I can't wait! this weeks little preview.... Flowers!

We read this week: Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms by Julia Rawlinson
                              Little Hoot by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
                              The Story of the Root Children by Sibylle von Olfers
                              Llama Llama Time to Share by Anna Dewdney
                              Bear's New Friend by Karma Wilson

Our question of the week was "What is your favorite flower?"

For our theme of the week, we brainstormed a list of things that will tell us if Spring is really here.

Then we went out on our school nature trail to see if we could find any!

I made a set of flowers that I "laminated" with contact paper. I asked the kids to sort them. I made the set so that they could be sorted by color of the petals or number of the petals. They did so great!

We also painted with some flowers.

Our song of the week was "Pretty Little Flower" to the tune of the 'itsy, bitsy spider' from here!

"Pretty little flower, smiling at the sun.
Down comes the rain, now she looks so glum.
Back comes the sun and dries up all the rain.
And the pretty little flower, is smiling once again!"

(C) 2001 - 2011 Jean Warren www.preschoolexpress.com

We talked again about the color pink.The kids loved revisiting our pink song from this week!

We talked about the shape square and brainstormed different things that are a square shape. then we turned it into a book!

The kids used this worksheet to work on their square and shape recognition. It came from the book Alphabet, Colors, Numbers and Shapes.

When we worked on our number activities, we practiced writing the number and word for the number 21.

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.

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

The students wrote in their journals for the letter x. It's really cool to see the children thinking about what they want to put in their journal. They love these books and always want to go through them when they're finished writing for the day.

We turned a X into a X-ray Fish! This book is great.

This book has great pages for helping the kids work on the letter recognition of both the capital and the lowercase versions of the letter, and they are always a little different, which is great!

The kids made a book called "What's Inside X-Ray Eyes?" from the Letter of the Week Book 1. 

They worked on coloring a picture using a key. My class really seems to enjoy pages like this because they feel really proud when they're finished, because they've pretty much done it all by themselves! I got this page from a former teacher, but it says it's from education.com.

For our alphabet wall we made x-ray fish! (There's really not a whole lot out there to do with the letter x!)

Here are the words we came up with this week!

Up next week: "Flowers!" and a focus on the letter Yy, number 22, color  and .

Use Your Noodle! (W, 20, Blue, Triangle)

Our theme this week was "Use Your Noodle" and we focused on the letter W, number 20 and we revisited the color blue and triangle shape.

Our school is getting ready for our Art Show in the middle of April. When all the projects are completed I will take pictures and show you our super cool "Garden". I can't wait! For a little preview this week... Frogs! I got the project idea here. (Here are two of our "toad" class pets too!)

We read this week: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
                               Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late by Mo Willems
                               Baby Beluga by Raffi
                               Tumford the Terrible by Nancy Tillman
                               1,2,3 Peas by Keith Baker

Our question of the week was "What do you eat with noodles?"Some of these answers myself and our class parents giggled at and questioned...

For our theme of the week, we counted 20 elbow macaroni and glued them on a plate of pasta with meatballs.

We also got to have some sensory exploration with cooked and uncooked spaghetti. This was a lot of fun. They touched and described the uncooked pasta first, and then got to play with some cooked pasta. We did this in three different groups, and they were all really great with explaining what they were feeling!

Our song of the week was "On Top of Spaghetti".. now there were some conflicting feelings about the lyrics of this song between the teachers in the school. I was taught the long version when I was little, so that was what we sang. Plus my kids thought it was hilarious to have a meatball tree.

"On top of spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatball,
When somebody sneezed.

It rolled off the table,
And on to the floor,
And then my poor meatball,
Rolled out of the door.

It rolled in the garden,
And under a bush,
And then my poor meatball,
Was nothing but mush.

The mush was as tasty
As tasty could be,
And then the next summer,
It grew into a tree.

The tree was all covered,
All covered with moss,
And on it grew meatballs,
And tomato sauce.

So if you eat spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
Hold on to your meatball,
Whenever you sneeze".... phew!

We talked again about the color blue. Since we already found blue items in the classroom. We played a little game called "Category Brainstorm, and tried to list as many things that we could that are the color blue. Then we turned our list into a class book!

We talked about the shape triangle and the kids loved singing our triangle song from this week.

The kids also practiced tracing and recognizing triangles. These came from the book Alphabet, Colors, Numbers and Shapes.

When we worked on our number activities, we practiced writing the number and word for the number 20.

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.

With my math boxes (check them out on this post- at the bottom), we counted out 20 items (we did the same activity for the number 17. Then I had the kids divide it into two groups. Using this worksheet that I made, we started doing and talking about addition to get to 20. They liked being able to make up their own groups to add. 

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

The students wrote in their journals for the letter W. It's really cool to see the children thinking about what they want to put in their journal. They love these books and always want to go through them when they're finished writing for the day.

We turned a W into a Worm! This book is great.

This book has great pages for helping the kids work on the letter recognition of both the capital and the lowercase versions of the letter, and they are always a little different, which is great!

The kids made a book full of the letter W called "What's in Walrus' Window?" from the Letter of the Week Book 2.

We acted out a Whale poem from the Letter of the Week Book 1.

For our alphabet wall we made whales! Now these were huge! We would have needed a very large ocean to fit all of our whales, so I randomly selected some to go on the ABC wall and sent the rest home. This was also from Letter of the Week Book 1.

Here are the words we came up with this week!

Up next week: "Spring has Sprung!" and a focus on the letter Xx, number 21, color pink and square shape.

Shamrocks! (V, 19, Green, Circle)

Our theme this week was "Shamrocks" and we focused on the letter V, number 19 and we revisited the color green and circle shape.

We read this week: The Rain Came Down by David Shannon
                               Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
                               Llama Llama and the Bully Goat by Anna Dewdney
                               Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss
                               The Night Before St. Patrick's Day by Natasha Wing

Our question of the week was "What would you do with a leprechaun's pot of gold?"

For our theme of the week, we had so much fun getting ready for St. Patrick's Day!

We embraced the theme and made a rainbow with hand prints, complete with a pot of gold at the end. I like this project, but if you can hang things from your classroom/home ceiling, this is a cool variation on the same idea.

Making shamrock hats was super fun as well! This great blog shows how to make easy and awesome hats for any occasion out of paper plates.

We also make leprechaun traps. There are so many great ideas out there for making some pretty elaborate traps. I wanted to make it a little more simple, so we used a paper towel roll and half of a paper plate to make a tunnel that the leprechauns would get stuck in while they were trying to get to the rainbow. The kids had a lot of fun with this!

The Leprechaun's came!! Unfortunately our traps didn't work, but they did leave us some goodies!

No Leprechauns came to visit us, but we did have some visitors outside! This prompted a very involved discussion about camouflage.

Our song of the week was "I'm a Little Shamrock" from here.

"I’m a little shamrock with petals three.
You’ll have good luck if you pick me.
One of my petals will bring you health,
One’s for love and one’s for wealth."

 (C) Jean Warren www.preschoolexpress.com

We talked again about the color green, and we made collages of the color.

Since we already found green items in the classroom. We played a little game called "Category Brainstorm,  and tried to list as many things that we could that are the color green.

We played the same game for the shape circle.

The kids also practiced tracing and recognizing circles. These came from the book Alphabet, Colors, Numbers and Shapes.

When we worked on our number activities, we practiced writing the number and word for the number 19.

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.

From the book Numbers and Counting, I had my students draw 19 cookies in the cookie jar. These are great exercises because they have to count while they are drawing which really strengthens the 1:1 concept. and I always have them count when they're finished to check, so it's even more counting practice! 

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

The students wrote in their journals for the letter V. It's really cool to see the children thinking about what they want to put in their journal. They love these books and always want to go through them when they're finished writing for the day.

We turned a V into a Vulture! This book is great.

This book has great pages for helping the kids work on the letter recognition of both the capital and the lowercase versions of the letter, and they are always a little different, which is great!

Coloring, cutting, gluing... my kind of a project! And this one is super cool. From Letter of the Week Book 1, the kids made the Village of V's! Each door opens to a picture of something that starts with the letter V. And I like that it is something different than just a book. Shakes things up a bit =].

We acted out a Vulture poem from Sounds Like Fun.

For our alphabet wall we made a vegetable garden! I drew pictures of carrots, green beans and lettuce that the kids painted.

Here are the words we came up with this week!

Up next week: "Use Your Noodle!" and a focus on the letter Ww, number 20, color blue and triangle shape.