MDA Hop-a-Thon! (E&F, 26, Black, Diamond)

The theme for the fourth week of April was "MDA Hop-a-thon!". Since we finished our Letter of the Week study, we are now reviewing our letters! We started off our review with letters E & F and continued our number study with the number 26! 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 diamonds and black.

This week we read: Can I Play Too? by Mo Willems
                                        Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Krous
                                        The Mixed Up Chameleon by Eric Carle
                                        Max and Tallulah by Beverly Gooding
                                        Love Monster by Rachel Bright

Our question of the week was "What can you do with your muscles??"

To review the color black we talked about things in real life, at morning meeting, that are black. The kids also colored pictures of purple 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 diamond shape the children practiced recognizing the shape and colored squares. I created this little picture full of the shape. They needed to color the squares purple and then the rest of the balloons other colors!

For the number of the week:26 we started off by counting to and backward from twenty-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 twenty-six. 

When I started in my class, I found a page like this from education.com, so I made my own for the number 26. 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 "MDA Hop-a-thon",  our school raised money for muscular dystrophy and learned about our muscles.

We sang "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes."

The MDA has a week of activities that are really great to introduce children to muscles and differences. To go with the lessons, there is a short video each day and then an activity in little workbook. The kids really enjoyed them!

Everything was topped off on Friday with our Hop-a-thon! We hopped to music while holding puppets that we had made.

While reviewing the letter E and F, 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 "eat".

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, E and F. 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 flamingo one, two, three, fox one, two, elephants one, two, three, falcon one, two, frog, ferret, eel, and eagle.

I made an "I have, who has" game filled with E and F 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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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!

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Transportation! (F, G, H, 26 and Octagons)

Our theme this week was "Transportation" and we focused on the number 26, and reviewed the letters F, G and H, and octagons.

A new month means looking back at our weather trends. Here's April, this year and last year.

In April I challenged the kids to keep our calendar numbers in an ABAB pattern. They did fantastic! For May, we're going to try an AABAAB pattern. I think they're up for it!

We read this week: 1,2,3 to the Zoo by Eric Carle
                              He Came with the Couch by David Slonim
                              I Love Planes by Philemon Sturges
                              The Wheels on the School Bus by Mary Alice Moore
                              Polar Opposites by Eric Brooks

Our question of the week was "Where do you want to go on Vacation?" My class DEFINITELY has some strong opinions about the best places to vacation, let me tell you!

For our theme of the week, we made name trains. I cut long pieces of white paper for the background, a picture of a train engine and colorful squares with each letter of their name. The kids had a lot of fun creating the scene for their trains and loved explaining to me what the train was carrying and where it was going.

We pretended to be a train and "Chug Chugged" down the nature trail.

I found this worksheet that gives a key for coloring a picture of a train based on the shapes in the picture. I had the class do this all together and they did AMAZING! This is definitely one that I'm going to keep for their portfolios!

We wrote in our journals about where we would like to take a train to. I love journals! Almost all of my class has moved on from tracing to copying. So exciting!

We played "Red Light Green Light", which is always a lot of fun! Then we made traffic lights with construction paper, glue and tissue paper!

This next project I found here, and thought it was such a great idea that I just had to try. Using a white shower curtain that I got from the dollar store, I drew a really big town "map". Together as a class we colored it and then played with some cars on it. I did this project last year and my kids this year liked it just as much. It's always fun to get to work on the same project at the same time as all your friends.

Our song of the week was "The Wheels on the Bus". It's such an adaptable song that it can be totally different each day.

We talked about the shape octagon and practiced recognizing them. I created this page based on ones that we had done in the past.

For our number,  I made these worksheets that reinforce the one to one concept. The kids practice writing the number and have to color a square for each picture that they see.

Using a "gumball machine" we practiced, in small groups, counting to the number 26.

The class also worked on their writing of the number and the word for 26.

For our letter activities, we reviewed writing and finding the letters that we are talking about; F, G and H. These pages came from Letters for Little Learners.

Made a book of all the possible things that Goat might get at his "G" themed birthday party. This project came from Letters for Little Learners.

The letter of the week books have pages that you can make into a book. I picked from both to get my "favorites". Each week, we work on some of these pages, and each child at the end will have an alphabet book. 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 "F" page came from Book 1, the "G" page came from Book 1, and the "H" page came from Book 2.

We also worked more on recognizing our review letters in the tongue twisters from Alphabet and Counting. We used this book to turn our letters into fun animals, but on the pages is also a little tongue twister. I printed it large and made a picture, then laminated them with contact paper. Using wet erase markers, we take turns finding the letters that are hidden!

We kept working on our sight words! Every morning we go over around 10 of them. Once we've mastered them, they will go on our sight word wall! So exciting! We're working our way through the 220 Dolch sight word list.

Here is what we have mastered so far! 

If you are a reader of this blog, you'll know how excited I get when things that we plant grow (i.e the THOUSAND updates I gave about our pumpkin plant, which started here!) I planted them outside... I hope they make it! 

Last week we planted African Daisy seeds, and they already started sprouting! I love nature. =]

We had a birthday this week... YUM!