Space!

The theme for the second week of August was "Space". The children are having so much fun in our "summer camp" this year!

This week we read: I Want to be an Astronaut by Byron Barton
                                       My Picture Book of Planets by Nancy E. Kryulik
                                       Our Stars by Anne F. Rockwell
                                       Roaring Rockets by Tony Mitton
                                       The Birth of the Moon by Coby Hol
                                       Circus in the Sky by Nancy Guettier
                                       On the Moon by Anna Milbourne

The older children that join my class for Summer Camp do not nap during rest time. They have time in the gym in a small group while my class does. To keep them working on their skills, I make them  packet to bridge their grades.

The games that we played this week at morning meeting were so fun!
We played "1,2,3" which we have played before and is definitely a fan favorite! We stand in a circle and each child says 1,2 or 3 consecutive numbers starting with 1 up to 9. So for example: "1,2,3" "4" "5,6" "7,8,9" and the next child who would have to say 10 sits down and is out of the round. Then it starts back at one. My class really loves this one, and usually if we play it in the morning, I will hear them in centers or at their lunch tables playing their own facilitated versions of the game.

We played "Alphabet Catch" with a beanbag. We toss the beanbag around the circle and the kids have to say the next letter in the alphabet. If they drop it, we have to start back at the letter "A". This game helps us work on our communication, because the children have to let the person know that they are going to toss it to them!

We played "I have, who has?" which I originally saw being played in a Montessori class. It's so cool to see the children take over the game and help their friends follow along. Over the past year, I made a few different ones to add to my colors, shapes and Alphabet. I love having the different options now because it keeps the game feeling new and fresh!

We played "Number Ball" with a beanbag. We toss the beanbag around the circle and the kids have to say the next number. We stand in a circle and toss the beanbag across to friends and try to beat our record!

"Pop!" is a really fun game, and definitely a favorite. We stand in a circle and each child says one number as we go around. But each round there is a pop number. Instead of saying that number, you POP! the person that would be next, out. We work very hard on having good sportsmanship, and the kids have fun even if they're out because they know they get to play again in the next round!

The special activities this week were a blast.  Since we are the oldest in the school, our class took over the little school garden. We spent time weeding it. It seems that our store bought plants are surviving, which is great! We've started to get some blossoms, so that is definitely promising!

Exercise is very important, so I thought it would be fun to have some kind of special exercise activity. This week, we did Yoga! Cosmic Kids Yoga on Youtube has great videos that the children love.

Every Wednesday my class has sprinkler day. This is always a fan favorite. The children wear their bathing suits and water shoes, run around in a sprinkler outside, and play in a water sensory table. It really helps beat the summer heat!

I LOVE having a movie day in the summer. It gives the kids a chance to relax, wind down and just enjoy themselves. Plus we have snacks and make it feel like the movie theater... who doesn't like going to the movie theater? This week we watched Wall-E. 

Bubble day is quickly turning into a favorite. This week we just had a good time running around and blowing bubbles.

Our question of the week was "Where in space do you want to visit?"

For our theme "Space",  we did some neat space related activities. We talked about constellations, and how the stars show up the picture in the sky. The children picked a number to draw on a piece of black construction paper, and then poked holes along the number to make their own constellation.

We sang "Climb Aboard the Spaceship" to the tune of Itsy Bitsy Spider.

"Climb aboard the spaceship, we're going to the moon.

Hurry and get ready, we're going to blast off soon.

Put on your helmets and buckle up real tight.

Here comes the countdown, let's count with all our might.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... blast off!"

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

While we were talking about the sun, we also discussed how things look during the day vs how they look at night. I challenged the children to draw a picture, half during the day and the other half at night.

I made a little board game with construction paper and star stickers. Using dice we moved up the stars to the end of the game in small groups.

I added some cool space pages to our science binder, and space related buildings in our structure binder.

The children wrote in their journals about where in space they would like to go visit.

In the summer I have elementary children that join my class. While my pre-k students write in their journals, the older children work on a reading response page based on the book that we read at morning meeting.

For our sixth week of the  study "Buildings" we talked about towers and other tall buildings. They built towers as tall as they could, and measured them to see how tall it was.

We talked about the sun, and how shadows appear when the sun's light is blocked. The children built towers with blocks, and then traced the shadows that they created.

We explored building using plastic cups and popsicle sticks.

The children illustrated the tongue twister "Busy Builders bravely balance banging boards on the building's beams."

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