Showing posts with label coloring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coloring. Show all posts

Monday, May 25, 2015

Birds & Bugs! (L,M&N, 29, Grey, Hexagon)

The theme for the second week of May was "Birds and Bugs!". Since we finished our Letter of the Week study, we are now reviewing our letters! This week we reviewed letters L, M & N and continued our number study with the number 29! 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 hexagons and grey.

Just for fun, I added water into the sensory table full of shredded recycled paper. It was awesomely gross!

This week we read: I Took a Walk by Henry Cole
                                        Little Hoot by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
                                        The Pigeon Wants a Puppy by Mo Willems
                                        Some Bugs by Angela Diterlizzi
                                        Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late by Mo Willems
                                        Duck & Goose by Tad Hills
                                        Duck, Duck Goose by Tad Hills
                                     
Our question of the week was "If you were a bird, where would you fly?"

To review the color grey we talked about things in real life, at morning meeting, that are grey. The kids also colored pictures of grey 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 hexagon shape the children practiced recognizing the shape and colored hexagons. I created this little picture full of the shape. They needed to color the hexagons yellow, the triangles blue, and the trapezoids purple. 

For the number of the week:29 we started off by counting to and backward from twenty-nine. 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-nine. 

When I started in my class, I found a page like this from education.com, so I made my own for the number 29. 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 "Birds and Bugs",  we walked outside and took special care to look for birds and bugs around us.

We sang "the Itsy Bitsy Spider". 

To the block center structure pages, I added pages about homes for birds and bugs.

To the science center binder, I added pages about some interesting bugs and birds.

In their journals, the children wrote about the type of bug that they would like to be.

The children played the board game, The LadyBug Game. Board games are always a blast, and the children really do well practicing math and social skills all at once!

The children made handprint bugs! The children drew and colored the background first, and then we put their handprint over!

How about a hand-print bird as well? We used feathers to make them fancy and even gave them a nest out of ripped up lunch bags!

While reviewing the letters L, M, and N, 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 "like".

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, L, M, and N. 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 one, two and three about lions, one, two about leopards, llamas, and lionfish. We also watched one, two, three about Meerkats, one, two about monkeys, manatee and moose.

I made an "I have, who has" game filled with L, M, and N 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!

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Welcome to the School Year! Building a Classroom Community

The theme for the first week of school was "Building a Classroom Community". I wanted to really get to know my class and let them get used to the room and to our daily routine, so we focused on becoming friends and some fun activities.

This week we read: Llama Llama Misses Mama by Anne Dewdney
                                        Splat the Cat by Rob Scotton
                                        Miss Nelson is Missing by Harry Allard
                                        A Book of Friends by Dave Ross

Our question of the week was "What was your favorite thing about the summer?"

For our song this week we sang "The Wheels on the Bus". It was fun to let the children pick what parts of the song to sing each time.

The activities that we did this week really helped us to become a tight classroom community! Everyday we went over class rules that the children helped make. We sat in a group and I asked the children what they thought some rules to keep us safe and happy in the classroom might be. I fit in my own too! We also took tours of the classroom so that the children get used to where the centers are.

We played "Just Like Me" to help get everyone comfortable with each other. 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, each child has a chance to be the leader. It's so cool to see them thinking about what they want to say!

The kids drew "first day of school" pictures. These are fantastic to throw in their portfolios! I have mostly blank piece of paper that on the bottom says, "I drew this on the first day of school!" and the children can draw anything that they want. It's an easy project for them to complete, and it also lets me see how the kids draw, and how they hold the crayons.

To help get the children playing with each other we used puzzles and treasure boxes to partner play with. They get to take turns choosing what they play with and work/play with new friends. To learn more about my treasure boxes and other ways they can be used, check out this post from last year!


We walked on our school's nature trail in the woods. All of the new children to the school LOVED it! Since our school is so connected to the outdoors and we are always looking at and talking about the seasonal changes that we see, I started us off by asking the children to look for different color flowers as we walked down. They were so excited when they saw purple, white, pink and yellow.

At morning meeting one morning we played body drumming, another game that helps the children become comfortable leading the group. I model 3 or 4 different motions, like patting the knees, clapping, snapping, and stomping while the group follows the change of the motions. Then any child that would like a turn (I do not force children to do something like this if they really don't want to) leading the group.

The children made paper plate snakes. Such an easy and fun activity. Either the teacher or the child draws a spiral on the plate, and then they color it however they choose. When they are finished coloring, they cut along the spiral that they drew, and voila! A snake!

I traced the children's hands and they colored them in. Again, a simple project to help the children get used to coming to the table to do projects and following directions.

We played "I Have, Who Has" with colors. We played a few times because the kids loved it. I have these games on hand that I made simply out of index cards. I have a shape and alphabet version as well.


The children made lions out of paper plates. They drew faces and the manes, and then growled for me!

We also played Simon Says.

We had a great first week of school, how was yours? Leave a comment below and let me know that you stopped by!

Saturday, March 29, 2014

Spring has Sprung! (X, 21, Pink, Square)

Our theme this week was "Spring has Sprung" and we focused on the letter X, number 21 and we revisited the color pink and square shape.

Our school is also getting ready for our Art Show. all the projects are completed I will take pictures and show you our super cool "Garden". I can't wait! this weeks little preview.... Flowers!

We read this week: Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms by Julia Rawlinson
                              Little Hoot by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
                              The Story of the Root Children by Sibylle von Olfers
                              Llama Llama Time to Share by Anna Dewdney
                              Bear's New Friend by Karma Wilson

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

For our theme of the week, we brainstormed a list of things that will tell us if Spring is really here.

Then we went out on our school nature trail to see if we could find any!

I made a set of flowers that I "laminated" with contact paper. I asked the kids to sort them. I made the set so that they could be sorted by color of the petals or number of the petals. They did so great!


We also painted with some flowers.

Our song of the week was "Pretty Little Flower" to the tune of the 'itsy, bitsy spider' from here!
"Pretty little flower, smiling at the sun.
Down comes the rain, now she looks so glum.
Back comes the sun and dries up all the rain.
And the pretty little flower, is smiling once again!"
(C) 2001 - 2011 Jean Warren www.preschoolexpress.com

We talked again about the color pink.The kids loved revisiting our pink song from this week!

We talked about the shape square and brainstormed different things that are a square shape. then we turned it into a book!


The kids used this worksheet to work on their square and shape recognition. It came from the book Alphabet, Colors, Numbers and Shapes.

When we worked on our number activities, we practiced writing the number and word for the number 21.

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, we used our handwriting sheet for the letter Xx from this book.

The students wrote in their journals for the letter x. It's really cool to see the children thinking about what they want to put in their journal. They love these books and always want to go through them when they're finished writing for the day.


We turned a X into a X-ray Fish! This book is great.

This book has great pages for helping the kids work on the letter recognition of both the capital and the lowercase versions of the letter, and they are always a little different, which is great!

The kids made a book called "What's Inside X-Ray Eyes?" from the Letter of the Week Book 1. 

They worked on coloring a picture using a key. My class really seems to enjoy pages like this because they feel really proud when they're finished, because they've pretty much done it all by themselves! I got this page from a former teacher, but it says it's from education.com.

For our alphabet wall we made x-ray fish! (There's really not a whole lot out there to do with the letter x!)

Here are the words we came up with this week!

Up next week: "Flowers!" and a focus on the letter Yy, number 22, color  and .