Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss! (V, 19, Rectangle, Red)

The theme for the first week of March was "Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss". We continued our Letter of the Week study with the letter V and our number study with the number 18! 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 started off with red and stars.

This week we read: Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
                                        Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss
                                        The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
                                        One Fish, Two Fish by Dr. Seuss
                                        The Lorax by Dr. Seuss (We ultimately did not read this book because one
                                                                               of our days was very snowy and we just had a play                                                                                  day with the few children that ventured out.)

The beginning of a new month means that we finished our calendar pattern for February, and we compared this year's weather to last years!

Our question of the week was "Do you like green eggs and ham?"

To review the color red we colored pictures of red 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, then I am all for it!

To review the rectangle shape the children practiced recognizing the shape and colored rectangles.

For the number of the week:19 we started off by counting to and backward from nineteen. 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 nineteen. 

When I started in my class, I found a page like this from education.com, so I made my own for the number 19. 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 "Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss", we ate Green Eggs and Ham! Yum!

We sang "The Cat in the Hat Song" to the tune of the Adaams Family.

The kids each decorated their own Cat hat.

After we read The Cat in the Hat, we were inspired to try to balance like the cat. We balanced on each foot, held different objects and had a lot of fun!

After reading "One Fish, Two Fish..." we went alphabet fishing! I love when I get to use a project more than once. It makes all the time making it so much more worth it! I wrote the capital and lowercase letter on each fish, and when the children "caught" one, they had to tell us what letter it was and think of a word that starts with it.

One of our amazing families this year sent in these adorable One Fish, Two Fish cupcakes... Yum!

We painted Truffula trees to put a very colorful mural in our room. I created the trees and painted everything but the tuft, and each child got to pick their own tree color and paint it.

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

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 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 place the "V" items in the vegetable bag.  All the other letters? No purchase today!

From a Mailbox Letter of the Week book, the kids made a project called the "Village of V". I love these kinds of projects because it reinforces the letter sounds and it is also a project that the kids can prety much do on their own. I give short instructions, and then they color and cut, and when they are done, they recycle their scraps.

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.

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 made vegetables. The children painted different vegetables and then we put them in a little vegetable patch on the wall!

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 V into a vulture. 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 made a cube of cardboard and glued pictures of "V" things one each side. The children say "Vulture, vulture, 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 for the letter A, 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 V. Here is what we thought of!

We also celebrated FOUR birthdays this week!

 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!