Music (T, 17, Black)

The theme for the third week of February was "Music". We continued our Letter of the Week study with the letter T. This week we continued talking about colors with the color black, and we kept going on our number study with the number 17!

This week we read: Bear's New Friend by Karma Wilson
                                        Splat Sings Flat by Rob Scotton
                                        My First Chinese New Year by Karen Katz
                                        And To Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street by Dr. Seuss

Our question of the week was "What can you make music with?"

The color of the week: black was a lot of fun to explore.  We talked about things that are the color black and went on a hunt around our classroom to find things that are black.

We sang "We Know the Color Black" to the tune of Farmer in the Dell.

"We Know the color black,
we know the color black,
Tires and crows and licorice too,
We know the color black."
I got it from here!

(C) Jean Warren www.preschoolexpress.com

For the number of the week:17 we started off by counting to and backward from seventeen. 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 seventeen. 

When I started in my class, I found a page like this from education.com, so I made my own for the number 17. 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 "Music", we had so much fun dancing! Throughout the days I would turn on music, and whatever we were doing we would stop and dance for about 2 minutes.

We made patterns of rhythm using maracas, tambourines and our bodies. After I made a few and had the children follow, they took turns to make their own!

A little off topic: This week we also celebrated the Lunar New Year. Welcome to the year of the Goat! The kids painted these really cool Chinese dragon heads that I found online. I let them choose which ones they wanted to paint, and then cut them out and glued them onto bright construction paper. They turned out awesome!

We also made spin drums! I and my assistant teacher put them together ahead of time, and the kids painted them. We staples 2 small white plates together, attached them to a wide popsicle stick and finally tied two strings with beads on each side. They were very intrigued when they saw them and could hardly wait for them to dry so that they could spin them!

In the sensory table I put these chinese alphabet blocks out. On different sides they have numbers, letter, words and puzzle! The kids had a really fun time with these.

The letter of the week: T activities that we worked on this week were terrific!! The book Sounds Like fun, Phonemic Awareness has great phonics activities for the alphabet. For the letter t, the children have to cut out and glue the words that "Begins like Turtle". 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 place the "T" items on the turtle's shell so he could carry them across the river. All the other letters? Have to wait for the next animal I guess!

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.

The children turned a capital letter T into a turtle. 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.

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!

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 turtles. The children dot painted them, and they look so colorful and happy!

From a Mailbox Letter of the Week book, the kids made a booklet about "Tiger's Teatime". I like doing these kinds of books because they can go back and look at the pictures to help tell the story, and they are also able to do the project mostly on their own. When they are finished coloring the pages, they come and get their scissors. When they are finished cutting, they bring their pages to me, put away their scissors and clean up their area of paper scraps. I love it!

I found these short videos about "t" animals that we watched through the week. There was one about turtles and tigers. They went nuts for it! The kids really enjoy when randomly throughout the day we take a break to watch an animal video.

I made a cube of cardboard and glued pictures of "T" things one each side. The children say "Tiger, Tiger, 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 T. Here is what we thought of!

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

The Five Senses! (Cc, Triangle)

The theme for week five of the school year was "The 5 Senses". We continued our Letter of the Week study, with the letter C. This week we also focused on the triangle shape.

This week we finished up our first month of weather! Every day at morning meeting we graph what the weather is. At the end of the month I put it together and we compare this year's weather to last years. At the end of the year, I turn them into a book!

This week we read: Corduroy by Don Freeman
                                       The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
                                       Curious George Goes Camping by Margret and HA Rey
                                       Little Cloud by Eric Carle
                                       He Came With the Couch by David Slonim

Our question of the week was "What are you not so good at?"

The shape of the week: triangle was fun to talk about. At our morning meetings, we would talk about the shape and things in real life that are a triangle. We also practiced drawing triangles in the air. The children worked on their fine motor skills by tracing triangles, and reviewing our square shape from two weeks ago. I found these worksheets on Kidzone.

The children also worked on their triangle recognition. I got this page from The Original Summer Bridge Activities, for PreK-K.

For our song this week we sang "Triangles".  I found it at Preschool Express.

Triangles, triangles, Triangles I see.

Count the points and count the sides,

Count them 1, 2, 3.

Triangles, triangles, Just for you and me.

Count the points and count the sides,

Count them 1, 2, 3.

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

For our theme "The Five Senses", we focused on an activity for one sense each day.

For touch we made texture collages. I put glue all over a piece of black construction paper, and put out different materials, like crinkled paper, feathers, sponges, foil, etc. The children get to explore the different feeling of the materials and create their very own masterpiece!

For smell we painted with fruit teas! This was messy, but definitely a lot of fun! We examined the tea bags when they were dry, and sniffed them. (I bought the fruit tea sample box from Celestial Seasonings.) Once we had decided which one we all like the best, most liked the peach the best, we put them in bowls of warm water for a few minutes. Then the children used them to paint with! It was really fun to do, although I was a bit disappointed that when papers dried, they turned gray! That was an interesting outcome for sure. *Next time I do a project like this, I will definitely invest in some watercolor paper. The regular printer paper very quickly became too wet.*

For sound we took a walk on our schools nature trail. we stopped and sat at different places as we walked and listened for different sounds. When we came inside I made a quick map to show the class what things we heard in each place.

For sight the kids made binoculars out of toilet paper rolls. I stapled them together and the kids painted them. When they were dry we tied some yarn to them so that the children could wear them around their necks. Later in the day they took them outside and looked at things through them,

For taste we tasted lemons and limes! I was surprised how many of my kids loved it! I dod get some pretty great sour faces though. When we were done tasting, we painted with lemons and limes and made prints. I love how these turned out. The whole time the kids were doing it I was craving a Sprite. =]

The letter of the week: C activities that we worked on this were were Cool! 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 fill the cans with all the "C" objects.

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!

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

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.

The children turned a capital letter C into an caterpillar. 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 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 clouds! We talked about some of the different kinds of clouds there are, and then the kids painted on blue construction paper.

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.

I made a cube of cardboard and glued pictures of "C" things one each side. The children say "Caterpillar, Caterpillar, 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 c. Here is what we thought of!

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

Under the Sea!

 We continued our summer fun this week with the theme, "Under the Sea!"

During summer camp, we always have Yoga day where the school does a child centered yoga workout. The video we've been using is great because most of the poses are named after animals, like a butterfly...flutter, flutter!

We also have splash day, where all the kids put on their bathing suits and we play outside in water tables and have a fun squiggly sprinkler to run through.

We also have some older children that have joined our class for the summer. While my kids are having their rest in the middle of the day, these children have extra play time out of the room and they also work on some practice sheets that I got from the Summer Bridge Books for K-1 and 1-2. They are great worksheets to keep the older kids practicing their skills over the summer! I love the Pk-K book and I use it through out the year for their letter worksheets.

We read this week: The Pout Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen
                               The Pout Pout Fish in the Big Big Dark by Deborah Diesen
                               How Deep is the Sea? by Anna Milbourne
                               Who's in the Ocean? by Dorthea DePrisco
                               The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister

Our question of the week was "What would you be under the sea?" I got a pretty nice range of answers for this one! =]

For our theme of the week, we sorted colored goldfish. I made this worksheet last year and give each child 10 random goldfish. They have to count how many of each one they have, tally it, and finally answer a few questions about their data. We only had one little problem with this activity...apparently they don't make purple goldfish anymore! Who knew? Guess I have to remake the worksheet for next year!

My picture disappeared!! =[

We wrote in our journals about our favorite thing in the ocean.

While my class writes in their journals, the older children (K and 1st grade) write a reading response log about the book that we read that day!

Using some more goldfish as math manipulatives, the class solved some simple addition problems, and then got to snack on some fish! I found the idea for this last year at obseussed.com

From the Letter of the Week Book 2, the kids made a booklet about what is underwater! I like this book because they have to draw their own pictures of a plant, a fish a shell and themselves!

Using two paper plates, some fish cut out of construction paper, glue and sand, we made little aquariums! My kids had such a great time with this project and really took their time to make their aquariums exactly what they wanted them to be. I put them up on the wall as if we were looking at a big wall of fish tanks. So cool!

Using the same idea as the flower number puzzle for the gardening week, I created a fish alphabet puzzle! I drew the picture of a fish, then cut it into strips. I glues them back on a piece of paper out of sequence and made copies. The children had to color the strips, cut them out and glue them in order to see their fish masterpiece!

We used our treasure boxes for a partner play activity this week too. I love the way my kids can work with anyone and create fantastic games a scenarios with any kind of toy. These partner play activities are great because they work on their problem solving, creative thinking, sharing, patience. To learn more about my treasure boxes, check out this post!

And our movie for the week was.... Finding Nemo!! Definitely a favorite!

Our song of the week was "Heart Fish" to the tune of I'm a Little Teapot. At the end, we pretend that we're blowing bubbles up to the surface of the ocean.

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

The games that we played this week at morning meeting were so fun!

We played "Body Drumming". Using only our bodies, we do different motions to make sound and rhythm. I model first and either make a pattern for the children to follow or I have them follow a sequence of 3 or 4 motions. Then I will pick a few children to be the leaders. I love this activity because it's something a little different, you can't get "out" and it's fun to see them trying to focus on when the motion is going to change.

"Pop!" is a really fun game, and definitely a favorite. We stand in a circle and each child says one number as we go around. But each round there is a pop number. Instead of saying that number, you POP! the person that would be next, out. We work very hard on having good sportsmanship, and the kids have fun even if they're out because they know they get to play again in the next round!

We played "I have, who has?" which I originally saw being played in a Montessori class. It's so cool to see the children take over the game and help their friends follow along. I currently have three versions that we play, but I am planning on making one with numbers and maybe a grab-bag of random things. That might be fun! This week we played Colors and the Alphabet.

"Just Like Me" is a great game when a child is feeling a little bit sad or just to get the class feeling like a group! 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, I will pick a few children to be the leader. It's so cool to see them thinking about what they want to say!

We played "Crocodile by the Lake". I found the idea for this game last year and adapted it to be my own. I turned a box into a crocodile with bulletin and construction paper, then filled it with little cards that have a letter, number or shape on them. The children have to reach into the crocodile's mouth (while he's sleeping of course), pull out a card and name what's there. Also hidden in the belly of the crocodile though are SNAP cards (the crocodile wakes up and SNAPS his mouth shut!). Once we pull three SNAP cards, the game is over!

That's all for now! Leave me a comment please if you visit! =]