Going Green! (A&B, 24, Orange, Oval)

The theme for the second week of April was "Going Green". Since we finished our Letter of the Week study last week, we began reviewing our letters! We started off our review with letters A & B and continued our number study with the number 24! We have gone through our shapes and colors once, so from now until graduation, we will talk about two each week and do some small review activities. We worked this week on ovals and orange.

This week we read: The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
                                        The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry and the Big Hungry Bear by Don Wood
                                        Maple by Lori Nichols
                                        Stuck by Oliver Jeffers
                                        Curious George Plants a Tree by Margret & HA Rey

Our question of the week was "How can you "Go Green"?"

To review the color orange we talked about things in real life, at morning meeting, that are orange. The kids also colored pictures of orange things. I found these pages on pinterest, and I love the concept! My general rule of thumb is that if the children can explain to me their reasoning for coloring an object, then I am all for it!

To review the oval shape the children practiced recognizing the shape and colored ovals. I created this little picture full of the shape. They needed to color the oval balloons one color and then the rest of the balloons other colors!

For the number of the week:24 we started off by counting to and backward from twenty-four. 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 twenty-four. 

When I started in my class, I found a page like this from education.com, so I made my own for the number 24. 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.                      

For our theme "Going Green", the children played with recycled materials and shredded in the sensory table. This was the sensory table that they were the most interested in so far this year! They loved it!

We sang "Reduce, Reuse Recycle" to the tune of Itsy Bitsy Spider.

"Reduce, reuse, recycle, words that we all know.
We have to save our planet so we can live and grow.
We might be only children, but we will try you'll see.
That we can save this planet it starts with you and me."

We planted seeds of various vegetable and herb plants that will (hopefully) go into our schools garden! Fingers crossed!

With wax paper and crayons the children made Earth Suncatchers!

The children made recycle themed collages! They colored pictures of recyclable items and glued them on to construction paper, added stickers and then glued on recycled shredded paper.

In their journals, the class wrote about things that they can do to help the planet.

While reviewing the letter A and B, we are really focusing on practicing writing, having good control over letter formation, and having a solid knowledge of the letter sounds.

My children that are moving on to kindergarten next year, are working on sight words and this worksheet from Confessions of a Homeschooler are amazing! They challenge the children to think of the word in a new way and get creative. This week they worked on the word "am".

I created envelope games for each letter of the alphabet that we played the first way through the alphabet. My children that are staying with me another year played these again to work on their letter sounds.

We reviewed writing and finding the letters that we are talking about, A and B. The pages for my younger group came from Letters for Little Learners, and I found these more advanced worksheets for my older children from education.com.

The book Alphabet and Counting that we used used  to turn our letters into fun animals, also has cute little tongue twisters for each letter. I printed them large and illustrated them, then I laminated them with contact paper. Using wet erase markers, we take turns finding the letters hidden!
On their own, they searched for the letters as well!

The letter of the week books have pages that you can make a book into. I picked from both to get my "favorites". Each week, we'll work on these pages, and each child will end up with an alphabet book at the end of the year. I like to do these pages, because not only do they get more practice writing the letter, but they also have to finish the sentence on the page, which is really cool. It gets them thinking!

There is a 15-20 minute span of time while the children are waking up from our rest time and afternoon snack. During this time, we talk about what they will be doing in the afternoon with their afternoon teacher, and what we did in the morning. We also spend some time learning about animals through videos. This week we watched about the alligator, akita, antelope, armadillo, affenpinscher, bat, beaver, bee one, bee two, butterfly, blue tongued skink, bison, buffalo one, and buffalo two.

I made an "I have, who has" game filled with A and B things. I love this game because once it starts, the children completely direct it. I love seeing them help each other and play with each other.

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All About Me! (Aa, Square)

The theme for the 3rd week of the school year was "All About Me". We also started our Letter of the Week study, with the letter A. Throughout the year, we also have a focus each week of either a color or shape, as well as number. The numbers will start soon, and this week we focused on the square shape.

This week we read: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr.
                                        Always by Alison McGhee
                                        Curious George Feeds the Animals by Margret and HA Rey
                                        LMNO Peas by Keith Baker
                                        Animalia by Graeme Base

Our question of the week was "What animal would you like to be?"

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

For our song this week we sang "This is a Square". I've seen this song all over (and other shape variations) so I'm not exactly sure where to give the credit. =/

For our theme "All About Me", we made a book! I was given these pages when I started at my school a few years ago, but I believe they came originally from Education.com.

The letter of the week: A activities that we worked on this were were Absolutely fun! 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 find the apples with "A" words on them to put on the tree.

We began 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 apples! The children ripped small pieces of red paper and glued them on a round circle of white paper.

The children turned a capital letter A into an alligator. 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.

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

Playing memory with letter A pictures was a fun way to practice the letter.

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 made apple print art!! Those apples get slippery, let me tell you. I think we had more paint on our hands than on the paper! =] I cut each apple the opposite way so we could get both prints.

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!

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. This week we started the journals with the letter A. I start the children out by tracing, and once they are comfortable and controlling the crayon well, they move onto copying.

We tasted three different types of apples: Red Delicious, Granny Smith and Honeycrisp. They tried each kind of apple and then "voted" for the one that they liked the best. Great way for us to start talking about graphs. We talked afterward about the most popular, least and what other things the graph tells us (title, types of apples, names)

Our bunnies really enjoyed the extras!

I made a cube of cardboard and glued pictures of "A" things one each side. The children say "Astronaut, Astronaut, what do I see.... I see a ____ looking at me!" They roll the cube and fill in the blank. This 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 a. Here is what we thought of!

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Welcome Spring Animals! (A, B, Pentagon, and 24)

Our theme this week was "Welcome Spring Animals" and we focused on the number 24, and reviewed the letters A and B, the color white and the shape pentagon.

We read this week: Owen by Kevin Henkes
                              No More Bottles for Bunny by Bernette Ford
                              Duck and Goose: Here Comes the Easter Bunny by Tad Hills
                              Happy Easter, Curious George by Margret and HA Rey
                              Splat the Cat, Where's the Easter Bunny? by Rob Scotton

Our question of the week was "What is something that you might find in an Easter Egg?" Some of these are quite hilarious!

For our theme of the week, we walked around outside on our nature trail to see if we could spot any spring animals. We didn't see any, but we found these interesting plants that looked like closed umbrellas.

We brainstormed some spring animals and tried to call them while we were out there.

We had a rainy day this week so we decided to pretend to be a group of bears who were just waking up from their long winter hibernation. We had fun crawling around the classroom looking for a cave to make our home in and some food to eat.

To get ready for Easter, we dyed some eggs!

And we decorated our bags for our school egg hunt on Monday. I used just brown lunch bags and they decorated them with stamps and crayons. Since our egg hunt was after Easter, I made little Easter bags for my kids.

Look at these adorable little bunny baskets that another class made. So cute and so definitely stealing for next year!

Our song of the week was "Pretty Flowers" to the tune of  jingle bells.

"Pretty flowers, pretty flowers,

Growing everywhere.

Here are some pretty flowers

For your coat or hair.

Pretty flowers, pretty flowers,

Gold and pink and blue.

Red and yellow, orange and purple,

I picked them just for you!"

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

We talked again about the color white, singing our song from this week and trying to spot things that are white in our classroom and around the school.

We talked about the shape pentagon and practiced recognizing them. I created both of this page.

When we worked on our number activities, we practiced writing the number and word for the number 24.

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, I love these pages. I meant to do one of these for each of our letter the first go-around, but I forgot. Oh well, I can always try again next year! As a small group we go over the pictures and the beginning sound of each word. The kids have to decide what starts with the letter, cut it out and glue it back on the page. We did this for the letter a and the letter b. The came from Sounds Like Fun: Phonemic Awareness.

We reviewed writing and finding the letters that we are talking about, A and B. These pages came from Letters for Little Learners.

I cut out pairs of "A" pictures and we played memory. The kids loved saying out loud the pictures of what they flipped over. I love when they are proud of themselves!

We filled a "boat" with pictures of "B" things! This came from Letter of the Week- Book 2 and was super fun.

The letter of the week books have pages that you can make a book into. I picked from both to get my "favorites". Each week, we'll work on these pages, and each child will end up with an alphabet book at the end of the year. I like to do these pages, because not only do they get more practice writing the letter, but they also have to finish the sentence on the page, which is really cool. It gets them thinking!

This week the "A" page came from Book 2,

and the "B" page came from Book 1.

The book Alphabet and Counting that we used used  to turn our letters into fun animals, also has cute little tongue twisters for each letter. I printed them large and illustrated them, then I laminated them with contact paper. Using wet erase markers, we take turns finding the letters hidden!

For our sight words, we started them! Every morning we'll go over around 10 of them. Once we've mastered them, they will go on our sight word wall! So exciting!

Here is what we have mastered so far!

(We just started!)

Speaking of sight words, from Confessions of a HomeSchooler, I got these great sight word pages. We started this week with the word "am".