We Are Thankful!

The theme for the last week of November was "We Are Thankful". Since it is a short week, we focused on Thanksgiving and Turkey themed activities. We finished out the month with our ABAB patterned turkeys!

This week we read: A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting
                                        Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks by Margaret Sutherland
                                        Bear Says Thanks by Karma Wilson

We have gotten to the end of another month, which means comparing weathers!

                                
Our question of the week was "What are you thankful for?"

For our theme "We Are Thankful", we did a lot of fun activities. We made Turkey headbands to wear at our school's Thanksgiving feast. Speaking of feast... yum!!

We sang "Turkey Dinner" to the tune of Frere Jaques.

Turkey Dinner, Turkey Dinner

Gather Round, Gather Round

Who will get the drumstick?

Yummy Yummy drumstick

All sit down, all sit down.

Cornbread, muffins,

Chestnuts, stuffing,

Pudding pie ten feet high.

We were all much thinner, before we sat for dinner!

Me, oh, my me, oh, my.

The kids colored and put together a turkey "puzzle". I couldn't decide if I wanted letters to help them, or numbers, so I did both!

I gave the children a turkey maze and a pumpkin maze, that they had a lot of fun with.

We looked at pictures to find out which ones were different.

The kids wrote in their journal about what they are thankful for.

We sang "Let's Be Thankful" to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

Counting from 1-30 is much more fun while making a Turkey dot-to-dot!

We talked about the Cornucopia, and the the class colored and cut vegetables and fruits to make a Cornucopia collage.

We also had our first "real" snow of the season!!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

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

The Harvest! (Ii, 6, Heart)

The theme for the 11th week of school and second week of November was "The Harvest". We continued our Letter of the Week study, with the letter I. This week we also focused on the heart shape, and we kept going on our number study with the number 6!

This week we read: Possum's Harvest Moon by Anne Hunter
                                        Pumpkin Town!  by Katie McKy
                                        From Seed to Pumpkin by Wendy Pfeffer
                                        Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper
                                        The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons

Our question of the week was "What is one word to describe you?" This is always definitely a fun and interesting question to ask.

The shape of the week: heart was fun to talk about.  We also practiced drawing hearts in the air, and made a heart by putting our two hands together. The children worked on their fine motor skills and shape recognition by coloring shapes. I made this sheet myself based on recognition sheets that we have already done.

For our song this week we sang "I'm a Little Heart Fish" from Preschool Express.

"I'm a little heart fish in the sea,

I have a heart tail that helps guide me.

when I'm feeling friendly I start to blow,

Tiny heart bubbles...up they go!"

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

For the number of the week: 6 we started off by counting to and backward from six. 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 six. 

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 6. 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.

For our theme "The Harvest", we had a lot of fun talking more about the changes happening outside from a different perspective.When we talked about Falling for Fall, we talked about the changes we can see around us. Talking about harvest time, we got to talk more about what those changes mean.

For our class bunnies, Patches and Daisy, we harvested them a feast from outside of leaves, sticks and dandelion leaves from our playground, and parsley and tomatoes from our school garden.

We sorted these little cards that I made of the lifecycle of a pumpkin, all the way from planting the seed to getting the large orange pumpkin. In small groups the kids put the cards in order, and they were really proud of themselves! =]

We made Pumpkin Moon Sand for our sensory table! I found the recipe on Pinterest here, and the kids love it. It smells sooo good! Mine did not come out nearly as smooth as it looks in the picture, and I'm not sure why, but my kids still are having a lot of fun with it!

I have small cookie cutters for my side business... Shameless plug time, I make delicious dog treats. Check us out! Jakks in a Box! and I brought my Autumn themed cutters so that we could paint with them. There is something about cookie cutter painting that I just love!

The letter of the week: I activities that we worked on this were were Interesting! We Sang "All the Leaves are Falling Down" that I found at Preschool Express. We sang it to the tune of "London Bridge"

All the leaves are falling down, falling down, falling down.  (Imitate leaves falling down)

All the leaves are falling down, it is Fall.

Take the rake and rake them up, rake them up, rake them up.  (Imitate raking up leaves)

Take the rake and rake them up, it is Fall.

Make a pile and jump right in, jump right in, jump right in.  (Children jump forward)

Make a pile and jump right in, it is Fall.

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

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 "I" insects in the bug box. All the other letters? I think they have to find a different home!

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 used our ink pads and crayons to make fingerprint insects.

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

I found this worksheet with a Sesame Street theme and I love it! The children have to say what the pictures are and decide if its a long i or a short i sound.

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.

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 watched a video first about a young boy making his first Igloo. I also found this video, whitch was much more in depth. This started such a great conversation about igloo building, and my class is really hoping that this coming winter brings a LOT of snow. After this, we also made igloos with blocks of snow (aka, white squares on blue paper).

The children turned a capital letter I into a insect. 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.

I made a cube of cardboard and glued pictures of "I" things one each side. The children say "Inch Worm, Inch Worm, 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 I. Here is what we thought of!

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

Community Helpers/Fire Prevention! (Dd, Rectangle, 1)

The theme for the 6th week of the school year was "Community Helpers/Fire Prevention" since we had the Firetruck coming to our school, I focused more on the Fire Prevention theme. We continued our Letter of the Week study, with the letter D. This week we also focused on the rectangle shape, and we started our number study with the number 1!

On the playground we met this guy. He was hanging out with us on the climber, so we moved him over to the other side of the fence.

This week, we also had a chance to go out and harvest some yummy things from our garden. The Snow Mass Melon was delicious!

This week we read: Career Day by Anne F. Rockwell
                                       1, 2, 3 Peas by Keith Baker
                                       Duck and Goose by Tad Hills
                                       Duck, Duck Goose by Tad Hills
                                       Curious George and the Firefighters by Margret and HA Rey

Our question of the week was "What does Dad do at work?"

The shape of the week: rectangle was fun to talk about. At our morning meetings, we would talk about the shape and things in real life that are a rectangle. We also practiced drawing rectangles in the air. The children worked on their fine motor skills by tracing rectangles and squares to make a robot. I found this worksheet on Kidzone.

For our song this week we sang "Do You Know the Rectangle?" I found it at Preschool Express.

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

For the number of the week: 1 we started off by counting to one. The kids had no problem with this one. ;) The kids also practiced writing the number and word for one.

The children used a key with the number 1 to color in a picture of a dragon. This was great because the kids were able to do this with very little to no help, and they were so proud of themselves when they finished!
                                     
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 1. 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.

For our themes "Community Helpers/Fire Prevention", we played community helper bingo!

I traced the kids hands and the made faces and glued little fire hats to each finger to make "Five Little Firefighters."

We practiced "Stop, Drop, and Roll". This activity very quickly dissolved into lots of silliness and giggles.

Using dot painters, the kids painted 911 and we talked about when and why we would call that number.

The firetruck visited us! The kids got to go inside and sit, and the VERY nice firefighters told us about a lot of the really cool and important things that they have on the truck.

When we came back inside from the firetruck, the kids told me what they wanted to say thank you to firefighters about, and they drew pictures for them. I will be sending these over to the firehouse!

The letter of the week: D activities that we worked on this were were Dynamite! For his show and share, one of my students brought in donuts! Yum!

The book Sounds Like fun, Phonemic Awareness has great phonics activities for the alphabet. For the letter D, the children have to cut out and glue the words that "Begin like Dog". 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 "D" objects in the doghouse. All the other letters? No admission!

From a Letter of the Week Mailbox book, I got the activity of measuring long jumps with little pictures of dachshunds. This was so much fun!

From the book Alphabet, Colors, Numbers and Shapes, the kids practiced 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.

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 dogs! Using paper plates, the kids painted brown and black dogs.

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 D into an duck. 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 also had a disco dance party!

I made a cube of cardboard and glued pictures of "D" things one each side. The children say "Dinosaur, Dinosaur, 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 d. Here is what we thought of!

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