Types of Art! (X, Y, & Z)

The theme for the second week of June was "Types of Art". Since we finished our Letter of the Week study, we are now reviewing our letters! This week we reviewed letters X, Y, & Z! Many of our projects over the next few weeks are in preparation for our Graduation! Check out the"If You Give a Butterfly a Diploma" post to see it all in one place! This week we some props for the songs we sang and had a blast in a graduation themed "photo booth"!

This week we read: If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff
                                        Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett
                                        The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss
                                        A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead
                                        Put Me in the Zoo by Robert Lopshire
                                 
Our question of the week was "What kind of art do you like to do?"

For a number review the children practiced the numbers 1-15 and their recognition of the numbers.

For our theme "Types of Art",  we explored different art forms! The children started by making collaged dreidels! Very seasonally appropriate, I know... it makes sense in the scheme of our Graduation. You'll see!

Next the children painted penguins! Again, you just have to trust me on this one.

We had an absolute blast in a graduation themed photo booth! I got the props from Walmart for under $2, and we used our awesome paintings from last week as the back drop.

The children colored illustrations for their graduation story.

And they rounded out the week with come good old fashioned finger-painting!

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

The children wrote in their journals about their favorite letter in the alphabet!

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 "you".

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, X, Y, and Z. 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 a zebra!

I made an "I have, who has" game filled with X, Y, and Z 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.

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

Big & Little! (R, S, &T)

The theme for the last week of May was "Big and Little!". Since we finished our Letter of the Week study, we are now reviewing our letters! This week we reviewed letters R, S, & T!
I was on vacation this week, and my substitutes did an AMAZING job.... but I didn't take a whole bunch of pictures! =/

The end of the month brings us a completed calendar pattern, AB this month, and weather graphs to compare!

This week we read: Maple by Lori Nichols
                                        Big and Small by Elizabeth Bennett
                                        There's a Hippopotamus Under My Bed by Mike Thaler
                                        Little Puppy and the Big Green Monster by Mike Wohnoutka
                                   
Our question of the week was "What are you bigger than?"

Whoops!

For a number review the children practiced the numbers 1-5, counting and recognition.

For our theme "Big and Small",  we had a lot of fun comparing measurements and objects. We started off the week by measuring each child to see how much they have grown since their first day of the school year. Wowza, they got tall!

I gathered a few items from around the classroom and asked in small groups about what larger and smaller means. One day I asked them to tell me which was larger, and the next day I asked for the smaller object. I always ask them why they think their answer is correct, and I love to see their reasoning and thought process. To go along with this, I had them complete these  two worksheets that I found in Shapes and Measurements. When they were done coloring the smaller or larger picture, they each found something in the room that they were larger or smaller than, and drew a picture of it on the back of the paper.

While reviewing the letters R, S, and T, 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 "run".

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, R, S, and T. 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, with a worksheet I made saying "Rita and Stacey went to the train station. They tried raspberries and snozberries."

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 rabbits, raccoons one and raccoons two, rats one and rats two, reindeer one and reindeer two and rhinoceros. Seahorse, seal, sea lion, sheep, shark, skunk one and skunk two, sloth, snail, snake one and snake two, spider, squid, squirrel and stingray. Also  tiger one and tiger two, tortoise one and tortoise two and turtle. Whew!

I made an "I have, who has" game filled with R, S, and T 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.

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

Our Moms! (I, J, K, hearts and 27)

Our theme this week was "My Mom" and we focused on the number 27, and reviewed the letters I, J and K, and hearts.

We read this week: Llama Llama Misses Mama by Anna Dewdney
                              Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother Too? by Eric Carle
                              I Love My Mommy by David Bedford
                              The Night Before Mother's Day by Natasha Wing
                              Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman

Our question of the week was "Why do you love Mom?"

For our theme of the week, we drew picture of our moms to hang up in our hallway.

We made gifts for our moms. I found these little 3-packs of clay pots at the Dollar Tree. First we decorated them with dot paint, but the clay just soaked it right up! It looked like there was no paint! So I problem solved and sealed the pots with Mod Podge, then we tried again.. so much brighter! We put these beautifully decorated pots together with an envelope of flower seeds and a tied it up with a short little poem I wrote. Voila!

We also wrote in our journals about why we love our Moms.

We hosted a little breakfast tea for our moms too!

To make our classroom a bit more spring like, I cut up the Truffula trees and sent them home. Then we used water color paint on paper plates to make big flowers. Yay!

Our song of the week was "Mommy, Mommy, I Love you". It's such an adaptable song that it can be totally different each day.

(C) Jean Warren www.preschoolexpress.com

We talked about the shape heart 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.

The class also worked on their writing of the number and the word for 27.

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

Made a Jelly Bean Journal full of the things that start with J. This project came from Letter of the Week: Book 2

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 "I" page came from Book 1, the "J" page came from Book 2, 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! 

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

Another Happy Birthday in our class! YUM!

And some donuts for teacher appreciation! Thank you!