Groundhogs & Shadows (Rr, 15, Purple)

The theme for the first week of February was "Groundhogs and Shadows". We continued our Letter of the Week study with the letter R. This week we continued talking about colors with the color purple, and we kept going on our number study with the number 15!

This week we read: Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
                                        When I Feel Angry by Cornelia Maude Spelman
                                        Ish by Peter H. Reynolds
                                        Not a Box by Antoinette Portis
                                        Jeremy Draws a Monster by Peter McCarty

Our question of the week was "How much longer will winter be?" Some of these are great!

The color of the week: purple was a lot of fun to explore.  We talked about things that are the color purple and went on a hunt around our classroom to find things that are purple.

We sang "We Love Purple" to the tune of Three Blind Mice.

""We love purple, we love purple,
yes we do, yes we do.
Purple grapes and eggplant too,
Purple plums and grape juice
Just for me and just for you,
we love purple."
I got it from here!

For the number of the week:15 we started off by counting to and backward from fifteen. They love doing this every day and when we get to the end of counting backward, they all scream blast off!! ;) The kids also practiced writing the number and word for fifteen. 

When I started in my class, I found a page like this from education.com, so I made my own for the number 15. The children have to practice writing the number and then color in that number of squares. It's a great way to introduce graphing and helps them to work on their one-to-one correspondence.

From The Complete Book of Numbers and Counting, the kids practiced counting to fifteen when they drew 15 bows on the tail of the kite.

I found this idea I think on Pinterest for the children to search for numbers. I created the worksheet, and each child had a different color combination. These are a great worksheet to stick in their portfolios too!

For our theme "Groundhogs & Shadows", we talked about Groundhog day and what it symbolizes. The class made collages with groundhogs, suns and clouds, and an adorable poem about ground hog day.

We sang "Here's a Little Groundhog" to the tune I'm a little teapot found here.

"Here's a little ground hog furry and brown,

He's coming up to look around.

If he sees his shadow down he'll go,

Then six more weeks of winter, Oh No!"

My director actually found the inspiration for this show project, I'll have to be sure to find out where it came from. The kids colored their groundhog, and painted black on a rough outline that I made on a piece of construction paper. When they were dry, I stapled the groundhogs on so that when they "stand up", their shadow appears!

The letter of the week: R activities that we worked on this week were rad! I created envelope games for each letter of the alphabet. I adapted them from activities from Mailbox Letter of the Week projects, both book one and two. The children had to place the "R" items onto the the rabbit. All the other letters? Keep on hopping!

From a Mailbox Letter of the Week book, the kids made a booklet about "Robot's Rocket". I like doing these kinds of books because they can go back and look at the pictures to help tell the story, and they are also able to do the project mostly on their own. When they are finished coloring the pages, they come and get their scissors. When they are finished cutting, they bring their pages to me, put away their scissors and clean up their area of paper scraps. I love it!

The book Sounds Like fun, Phonemic Awareness has great phonics activities for the alphabet. For the letter R, the children have to cut out and glue the words that "Begins like Raccoon". Together we talked about the beginning sounds of the words, and then they work on their fine motor cutting skills.

As we work through the alphabet, the children make projects to go on  our "alphabet wall". It's a very fun way for the class to see the alphabet in a new way. This week we made raindrops. On a construction paper shaped raindrop, the kids finger painted, which is always fun!

From the book Alphabet, Colors, Numbers and Shapes, the kids practice letter recognition AND direction following. Some weeks certain letters have to be colored specifically and sometimes it's up to them. I love these!

We practice and work on our handwriting for each letter as well. The Original Summer Bridge Activities, for PreK-K has great handwriting practice sheets. The kids trace and write the letters and then have a little phonics practice at the bottom.

Each child has a journal that they write in every week. When we focus on a letter, they write for that letter. On shorter weeks and during our review later in the year, they write to the theme. This is such a great way to get children excited about writing and reading. I start the children out by tracing, and once they are comfortable and controlling the crayon well, they move onto copying.

The children turned a capital letter R into a rabbit. I got the idea from the book Alphabet and Counting from Twin Sister Productions. They give tips for how to make it a glue and paste projects, but I like to give them crayons and the challenge to add the parts of the animal to the letter. It opens up room for more conversation about the shape of the letter AND the features of the animal.

I cut up rectangles of various sizes and colors, and the class turned them into robots!

I found these short videos about "r" animals that we watched through the week. There was one about Rhinos, raccoons, rats, rabbits, and of course I had to show my kids the video of the raccoon stealing cat food. They went nuts for it! The kids really enjoy when randomly throughout the day we take a break to watch an animal video.

I made a cube of cardboard and glued pictures of "R" things one each side. The children say "Rocket ship, rocket ship, what do I see.... I see a ____ looking at me!" They roll the cube and fill in the blank. This idea came from a Mailbox activity book for the letter A, and let me tell you, it was a hit!! They loved it!

During the week we made a list of words that begin with the letter R. Here is what we thought of!

 Leave a comment below and let me know that you stopped by!

Farm Animals! (Hh, 5, Hexagon)

The theme for the 10th week of school and first week of November was "Farm Animals". We continued our Letter of the Week study, with the letter H. This week we also focused on the hexagon shape, and we kept going on our number study with the number 5!

This week we read: Duck for President by Doreen Cronin
                                        Humphrey's Farm Adventure by Sally Hunter
                                        The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle
                                        Little Oink by Any Krouse Rosenthal
                                        Barnyard Banter by Denise Fleming

Our question of the week was "What would you grow on your farm?"

The shape of the week: hexagon was fun to talk about. At our morning meetings, we tried to think of things that were hexagons in real life. We also practiced drawing hexagons in the air, and counted the sides. The children worked on their fine motor skills and shape recognition by finding hexagons. I made this sheet myself based on recognition sheets that we have already done.

For our song this week we sang "A Hexagon has 6 Sides". I found this cool song on Pinterest to the tune of "Head, shoulders, knees and toes."

"A hexagon has 6 sides, has 6 sides.

A hexagon has 6 sides, has 6 sides,

The sides are equal and angles are the same.

A hexagon has 6 sides, has 6 sides!"

For the number of the week: 5 we started off by counting to and backward from five. The kids had no problem with this one, and we made it to a whole hand! ;) The kids also practiced writing the number and word for five.

In some papers in my room I found a random number page like this from education.com, so I made my own for the number 5. The children had to practice writing the number and then color in that number of squares. What a great way to really introduce graphing and what a great way for them to work on their one-to-one correspondence.

From the Complete Book of Numbers and Counting, we worked on this coloring page with a key for the number 5.

For our theme "Farm Animals", we really got into character! We Sang Old MacDonald A LOT! So fun!

We danced the Chicken Dance!

We made animal handprints to go on this farm mural. I let each child pick what animal they wanted to do, and we did it!

We played farm animal charades! It quickly dissolved into giggles and all of us pretending to be the animals, but it was a lot of fun.

The letter of the week: H activities that we worked on this were were helpful! The book Sounds Like fun, Phonemic Awareness has great phonics activities for the alphabet. For the letter G, the children have to cut out and glue the words that "Begin like Horse". Together we talked about the beginning sounds of the words, and then they work on their fine motor cutting skills.

I created envelope games for each letter of the alphabet. I adapted them from activities from Mailbox Letter of the Week projects, both book one and two. The children had to put the "H" H items in the house. All the other letters? Find a realtor!

As we work through the alphabet, the children will make projects to go on the wall. It's a very fun way for the class to see the alphabet in a new way. This week we made hummingbirds out of pom poms and feathers. I have not quite figured out how to get these onto the wall.

From the book Alphabet, Colors, Numbers and Shapes, the kids practice letter recognition AND direction following. Some weeks certain letters have to be colored specifically and sometimes it's up to them. I love these!

We practice and work on our handwriting for each letter as well. The Original Summer Bridge Activities, for PreK-K has great handwriting practice sheets. The kids trace and write the letters and then have a little phonics practice at the bottom.

The children turned a capital letter H into a horse. I got the idea from the book Alphabet and Counting from Twin Sister Productions. They give tips for how to make it a glue and paste projects, but I like to give them crayons and the challenge to add the parts of the animal to the letter. It opens up room for more conversation about the shape of the letter AND the features of the animal.

Each child has a journal that they write in every week. When we focus on a letter, they write for that letter. On shorter weeks and during our review later in the year, they write to the theme. This is such a great way to get children excited about writing and reading. I start the children out by tracing, and once they are comfortable and controlling the crayon well, they move onto copying.

From a Letter of the Week book, we made these cool "hats" that have h pictures you can slide through the flower. They were a bit difficult to make, but the kids really liked them.

I made a cube of cardboard and glued pictures of "H" things one each side. The children say "Happy Face, Happy Face, what do I see.... I see a ____ looking at me!" They roll the cube and fill in the blank. This idea came from a Mailbox activity book, and let me tell you, it was a hit!! They loved it!

During the week we made a list of words that begin with the letter H. Here is what we thought of!

 Leave a comment below and let me know that you stopped by!

The Five Senses! (Cc, Triangle)

The theme for week five of the school year was "The 5 Senses". We continued our Letter of the Week study, with the letter C. This week we also focused on the triangle shape.

This week we finished up our first month of weather! Every day at morning meeting we graph what the weather is. At the end of the month I put it together and we compare this year's weather to last years. At the end of the year, I turn them into a book!

This week we read: Corduroy by Don Freeman
                                       The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
                                       Curious George Goes Camping by Margret and HA Rey
                                       Little Cloud by Eric Carle
                                       He Came With the Couch by David Slonim

Our question of the week was "What are you not so good at?"

The shape of the week: triangle was fun to talk about. At our morning meetings, we would talk about the shape and things in real life that are a triangle. We also practiced drawing triangles in the air. The children worked on their fine motor skills by tracing triangles, and reviewing our square shape from two weeks ago. I found these worksheets on Kidzone.

The children also worked on their triangle recognition. I got this page from The Original Summer Bridge Activities, for PreK-K.

For our song this week we sang "Triangles".  I found it at Preschool Express.

Triangles, triangles, Triangles I see.

Count the points and count the sides,

Count them 1, 2, 3.

Triangles, triangles, Just for you and me.

Count the points and count the sides,

Count them 1, 2, 3.

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

For our theme "The Five Senses", we focused on an activity for one sense each day.

For touch we made texture collages. I put glue all over a piece of black construction paper, and put out different materials, like crinkled paper, feathers, sponges, foil, etc. The children get to explore the different feeling of the materials and create their very own masterpiece!

For smell we painted with fruit teas! This was messy, but definitely a lot of fun! We examined the tea bags when they were dry, and sniffed them. (I bought the fruit tea sample box from Celestial Seasonings.) Once we had decided which one we all like the best, most liked the peach the best, we put them in bowls of warm water for a few minutes. Then the children used them to paint with! It was really fun to do, although I was a bit disappointed that when papers dried, they turned gray! That was an interesting outcome for sure. *Next time I do a project like this, I will definitely invest in some watercolor paper. The regular printer paper very quickly became too wet.*

For sound we took a walk on our schools nature trail. we stopped and sat at different places as we walked and listened for different sounds. When we came inside I made a quick map to show the class what things we heard in each place.

For sight the kids made binoculars out of toilet paper rolls. I stapled them together and the kids painted them. When they were dry we tied some yarn to them so that the children could wear them around their necks. Later in the day they took them outside and looked at things through them,

For taste we tasted lemons and limes! I was surprised how many of my kids loved it! I dod get some pretty great sour faces though. When we were done tasting, we painted with lemons and limes and made prints. I love how these turned out. The whole time the kids were doing it I was craving a Sprite. =]

The letter of the week: C activities that we worked on this were were Cool! I created envelope games for each letter of the alphabet. I adapted them from activities from Mailbox Letter of the Week projects, both book one and two. The children had to fill the cans with all the "C" objects.

From the book Alphabet, Colors, Numbers and Shapes, the kids practice letter recognition AND direction following. Some weeks certain letters have to be colored specifically and sometimes it's up to them. I love these!

The book Sounds Like fun, Phonemic Awareness has great phonics activities for the alphabet. For the letter C, the children have to cut out and glue the words that "Begin like Cat". Together we talked about the beginning sounds of the words, and then they work on their fine motor cutting skills.

We practice and work on our handwriting for each letter as well. The Original Summer Bridge Activities, for PreK-K has great handwriting practice sheets. The kids trace and write the letters and then have a little phonics practice at the bottom.

The children turned a capital letter C into an caterpillar. I got the idea from the book Alphabet and Counting from Twin Sister Productions. They give tips for how to make it a glue and paste projects, but I like to give them crayons and the challenge to add the parts of the animal to the letter. It opens up room for more conversation about the shape of the letter AND the features of the animal.

We continued to work on our Alphabet Wall. In the classroom I taped up two trees. As we work through the alphabet, the children will make projects to go on the wall. It's a very fun way for the class to see the alphabet in a new way. This week, we made clouds! We talked about some of the different kinds of clouds there are, and then the kids painted on blue construction paper.

Each child has a journal that they write in every week. When we focus on a letter, they write for that letter. On shorter weeks and during our review later in the year, they write to the theme. This is such a great way to get children excited about writing and reading. I start the children out by tracing, and once they are comfortable and controlling the crayon well, they move onto copying.

I made a cube of cardboard and glued pictures of "C" things one each side. The children say "Caterpillar, Caterpillar, what do I see.... I see a ____ looking at me!" They roll the cube and fill in the blank. This idea came from a Mailbox activity book, and let me tell you, it was a hit!! They loved it!

During the week we made a list of words that begin with the letter c. Here is what we thought of!

 Leave a comment below and let me know that you stopped by!