Candyland! (Kk, 8, Red)

The theme for the first week of December was "Candyland". We continued our Letter of the Week study, with the letter K. This week we started talking about colors with the color red, and we kept going on our number study with the number 8!

This week we read: Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
                                        Little Green Peas by Keith Baker
                                        The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt
                                        The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
                                        Roy G. Biv is Mad at Me Because I Love Pink by Nancy Guettier

I put water and cranberries in our sensory table this week. I kept it very simple and only added some small empty playdough containers to collect and scoop the cranberries. We talked about why they float and cracked one open to see the air chambers. My kids really enjoyed these two videos I found that taught us more about the cranberries. Cranberry Video One, Cranberry Video Two.

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

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

We sang "We Love Red" to the tune of three blind mice.

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!

For the number of the week: 8 we started off by counting to and backward from eight. 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 eight. 

When I started in my room I found some papers in my room I found a random number page like this from education.com, so I made my own for the number 8. The children have 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, I found this picture to color using a key of the number 8.

For our theme "Candyland", we did an experiment of different candy in water (Mike & Ikes, M&Ms and Candy Corn). We made guesses of what would happen and got to see really cool things!
The jellybeans lost all their color, and the candy corn completely dissolved. The M&Ms were the coolest. The candy coating dissolved off... and some of the Ms floated!

We measured with candy canes! The kids had to find things that were smaller and larger than their candy cane around the classroom. Then they drew pictures of it!

They wrote in their journal about their favorite kind of candy. I really, Really, REALLY love the journals. The kids are always so excited to write in them and look back at what they've already done.

The letter of the week: K activities that we worked on this were were killer! 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 give the "K" items to the kangaroo. All the other letters? She doesn't want them!

The children turned a capital letter K into a kangaroo. 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 watched these short videos about Kangaroos, and one of my kids told me that when they grow up they want to be a kangaroo... interesting choice!

Video One

Video Two

Video Three

Video Four

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

We played a card game with a paper crown that was super fun. (I used a few decks with only the number cards and the kings.)  Each person picks a card and has to name the number on the card or if they kinds king card, they get to wear the crown until the next person finds a king. It's so simple but so fun!

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 sang "K-A-N-G-A" to the tune of Bingo. This song came from one of the Letter of the Week books.
"There is a kangaroo I know, and Kanga is her name-o!" sung the same way as Bingo, with claps replacing letters.

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 glued tissue paper squares to construction paper and made kites!

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 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!

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

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

Being Healthy (Ff, 3, Octagons)

The theme for the 8th week of the school year was "Being Healthy". We continued our Letter of the Week study, with the letter F. This week we also focused on the octagon shape, and we kept going on our number study with the number 3!

This week we read: Grandmas Are For Giving Tickles by Harriet Ziefert
                                        Grandpas Are For finding Worms by Harriet Ziefert
                                        Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late by Mo Willems
                                        The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food by Stan and Jan Berenstain
                                        Gregory the Terrible Eater by Mitchell Sharmat

Our question of the week was "What is one reason that you like the fall?"

The shape of the week: octagon was fun to talk about. At our morning meetings, we would talk about the shape and things in real life that are an octagons. We also practiced drawing octagons in the air, which to be honest, is really kind of difficult! The children worked on their fine motor skills and shape recognition by finding octagons. I made this sheet myself based on recognition sheets that we have already done.

For our song this week we sang "This is an Octagons", I wrote this one myself based on some of the shape songs that we have already sang. There's not a whole lot of catchy songs out there for octagons. :/

"This is an octagon, this is an octagon,

How can you tell? How can you tell?

It had 8 sides,

And looks like a stop sign, 

It's an octagon, it's an octagon."

For the number of the week: 3 we started off by counting to three and backward from three. The kids had no problem with this one. ;) The kids also practiced writing the number and word for three.

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 3. 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 "Being Healthy", we touched on how to stay healthy in different aspects of life. We started off my talking about how to keep our smiles and teeth healthy. I made this large tooth, and each child told me something that they do for their teeth. We watched these short videos that I found on Sesame Street. There were three videos on the Healthy Teeth, Healthy Me toolkit. Captain Mega Super Ultra Smile Man is pretty cool too.... I think I got his name right... =].

I drew plaque infested teeth on white boards and the children used toothbrushes to clean them!

We exercised using the parachute! Parachute games are so fun, and there is just a certain excitement that fills the air when the kids see the parachute coming out. =]

I also made this exercise activity cube (you know in the spirit of my cube making every week... I've gotten quite good at them!) Each child had turns to roll the cube and we all participated in the direction. It really got us moving!

We sorted different foods into what we thought were healthy choices and not so healthy choices. Then we talked about the kinds of food that we should be eating more than others.

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

The children turned a capital letter F into a fish. 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 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 "F" fish in the Fishbowl. All the other letters? They needed to find a different bowl!

We went "fishing for F's". On cutouts of fish I wrote letters A-F. I put a paperclip on each fish and the kids used a fishing pole with a magnet on the end to catch a fish! They had to name the letter they got. If it was and F, they got to keep it, and if it was a different letter they had to "throw it back in".

Grandparents joined us for a breakfast to celebrate how much we love them. While they were visiting our class, we all finger painted fish for our Alphabet Wall. 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. By the way, watching grandparents paint is really fun!

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.

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 danced the Hokey Pokey while we pretended to be foxes (bushy tails, pointy ears, paws) Love it!

I made a cube of cardboard and glued pictures of "F" things one each side. The children say "Firefly, firefly 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!

Also from a Mailbox Book we made A Flower for Fox!

During the week we made a list of words that begin with the letter F. I totally forgot to take a picture.. coming soon!

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

Dinosaurs!

 We continued our summer fun this week with the theme, "Dinosaurs!"

I had been on vacation the previous week, and I brought back a treat to share with my class! Yum!

During summer camp, we always have Yoga day where the school does a child centered yoga workout. The video we've been using is great because most of the poses are named after animals.

We also have splash day, where all the kids put on their bathing suits and we play outside in water tables and have a fun squiggly sprinkler to run through.

We also have some older children that have joined our class for the summer. While my kids are having their rest in the middle of the day, these children have extra play time out of the room and they also work on some practice sheets that I got from the Summer Bridge Books for K-1 and 1-2. They are great worksheets to keep the older kids practicing their skills over the summer! I love the Pk-K book and I use it through out the year for their letter worksheets.

We read this week: Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff
                               Curious George's Dinosaur Discovery by Margret and HA Reys
                               The Dinosaur Who Lived in My Backyard by B.G. Hennessy
                               Detective Dinosaur by James Skofield
                               The Smallest Stegosaurus by Lynn Sweat

Our question of the week was "If you were a dinosaur, would you be a carnivore or herbivore?"

For our theme of the week,  the kids wrote in their journals about if they like dinosaurs or not.

While my class writes in their journal each week, the older kids (Kindergarten and 1st grade) work on these reading response sheets about the book that we read that day.

The kids drew the background for their hand print dinosaurs! They drew the background and did their hand print, and the teacher finished it off with a quick dinosaur head.

I cut out different small dinosaurs and the children made "rubbings" by placing them under their paper and using crayons.

I drew pictures of some dinosaurs for the kids to color and cut out. Some of them kept the dinosaurs the same and some mixed them up. It all turned out so cool and they were each so happy with their creations.

I have a dinosaur match game, check it out here, that I love because it not only has cards with dinosaurs but also has things like claw, horn and footprint. My class loves a good game of memory anytime, and these are nice because the cards are thick and sturdy, not easily bent.

Using salt dough (I used this recipe) we made dinosaur fossils!! These were so fun to make. I made the salt dough and turned it into small balls. The kids flattened it out a bit and pressed in the dinosaur figurine of their choice. I baked them for like 4 hours at 250 degrees so that they would keep their light color. I sent them home that day and the kids loved them!

I made a little board game with construction paper and we used small dinosaur figurines as the playing pieces. I honestly can't remember where I found this game last year, I think it was on Pinterest.

Our movie for the week was Toy Story!

Our song of the week was "The Clouds are Passing By" to the tune of farmer in the dell.

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

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 "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. I currently have three versions that we play, but I am planning on making one with numbers and maybe a grab-bag of random things. That might be fun! This week we played Colors and the Alphabet.

"Just Like Me" is a great game when a child is feeling a little bit sad or just to get the class feeling like a group! I start by modeling with a few statements, i.e, I like vanilla ice cream. If a child also like vanilla ice cream, they stand up and yell, "just like me!" After I model a few statements like that, I will pick a few children to be the leader. It's so cool to see them thinking about what they want to say!

"Zoom" is a fun and quick game to play with a class of any age. First you need to pick a direction that the zoom is going to go around the circle. The person starting says zoom and turns their head the the person next, and it goes around the circle. Once the class gets comfortable with this game, I will record how long it takes us!

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!

That's all for now! Leave me a comment please if you visit! =]