Feelings! (Bb, Circle)

The theme for the 4th week of the school year was "Feelings". We continued our Letter of the Week study, with the letter B. This week we also focused on the circle shape.

This week we read: The Pout Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen
                                       The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
                                       Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
                                       The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
                                       Brave Horace by Holly Keller

Our question of the week was "What is something that you are really good at?"

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

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

For our song this week we sang "This is a Circle". I've seen this song all over (and other shape variations) so I'm not exactly sure where to give the credit. =/

For our theme "Feelings", we made a book! I took pictures of each child in my class making happy, sad, mad and scared faces. Then I put them all together into a book! The funniest part was scared, most of them thought I wanted them to SCARE ME! They were terrifying!

Each child told me things that made them happy or made them smile, and I scribed it onto their Happy Card. (That's whee I got the idea!) Then I painted smiley faces on their hands and they made hand prints.

We talked about being sad while we were making watercolor relief paintings. With white crayon, the children drew sad faces all over their paper. Then they used blue watercolor paint to make it appear. They were thrilled with the "magic".

The children drew 4 different 'feeling' faces on cut out circles and glued them onto a strip of black paper. while they made the project we talked about why we think our faces make certain expressions when we have different feelings.

We also did some yoga that helped us talk about being calm when we're upset or angry.

The letter of the week: B activities that we worked on this were were Brilliant! The book Sounds Like fun, Phonemic Awareness has great phonics activities for the alphabet. For the letter B, the children have to cut out and glue the words that "Begin like Bear". 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 load the boat with all the "B" cargo. Everything else had to be left behind for other ships.

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 butterflies! Using different color watercolor pain on white coffee filters was a fun way for the children to start experimenting with color mixing. After they dried, I scrunched the middle with half of a pipe cleaner and used the ends to make antennae.

Using a bee template that I found here, the children colored, cut and glued a bee! We did this project the same day that we read Ferdinand, and we extended our conversation about that part of the book.

The children turned a capital letter B into an bee. 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 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.

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!

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 "B" things one each side. The children say "Bumble bee, Bumble bee, 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!

I gave the children a square of brown paper, a strip of black paper, scissors, crayons and a blank white paper. I then gave them the task of creating a boat.. and they blew me away! This is one of my favorite kinds of projects to do because it is completely up to the child for how to make their boat, the kind of scene, etc. 

During the week we made a list of words that begin with the letter b. Here is what we thought of!

We celebrated a birthday this week!

and we celebrated Rosh Hashana with some apples and honey to bring in a "sweet new year."

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

Our Five Senses! (B, Circle)

Our theme this week was "Our Five Senses" and we focused on the letter B and the shape circle.

We read this week: Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
                               Paddington by Mark Brown
                               Paddington and the Busy Bee Carnival by Mark Brown
                               The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
                               Stellaluna by Janelle Cannon

Our question of the week was "What is something that you are really good at?"

For our theme of the week, we talked a lot about our senses, what they help us do and why we need them.

We made texture collages:

 This week is full of some of my favorite activities from the year, these texture collages being one of them. I love how each one is different, and the kids are so proud of the texture choices that they make. AND they look amazing on the wall.

We tasted sweet, salty and sour things, and the kids had to vote on their favorite taste. (They think it's awesome when they get to eat things as part of a project.)

We tested their sense of smells with this project where I asked them to describe the things that they were smelling. I used perfume, shampoo, chocolate syrup, pickle juice, toothpaste and (the most tricky) water.

Out on our schools nature trail we talked about the different sounds that we could hear. We did this at various points of our walk, close to the school, by the parking lot and deeper in the woods.

Lastly we did another activity with the sense of touch. I set up my table with different texture objects. I used flour, rice, oatmeal, sand and a scrubbing sponge.

As the students felt each thing, I asked them to describe what they were feeling. It was hard to get them away from just telling them what the items were and to use describing words, but we got there in the end.

For our shape of the week, the kids practiced drawing circles with this cool worksheet of circles and another with squares and circles. We also worked on recognizing circles out of other shapes.

We talked a lot about things that are circles. We sang the song

"This is a circle, this is a circle.

How can you tell? How can you tell?

It goes round and round,

No end can be found, 

It's a circle, it's a circle."

-Found Here

For our letter activities, we used our handwriting sheet for the letter B, the sheet that helps work on letter recognition, both were mentioned in the "All About Me" post. The students also wrote in their journals for the letter B.

We turned B's into Bees!

After we read Ferdinand we all made our own bees. This was a great way for the kids to practice their cutting skills.

I love how each child's bee is different.

Another project that we did (another one of my favorites all year) is the Boat Builder activity. I love it because I give the students the materials and the end result is something completely their own. 

Each child got a piece of white paper, a square of brown paper, a skinny black rectangle, scissors, a glue stick and crayons with the instruction of make me a boat however you want to. (They love when I say that). If I get "I don't know how..." or " I can't do it.." We go back a few steps and talk about boats.. what do they look like, where do we find them, what do they do, and then the creative juices start flowing. Here's the end results!

Love it!

For our Alphabet wall we made butterflies with coffee filters and water color paint. After the children painted their coffee filters and they dried I used small pipe cleaners to turn them into butterflies!

And with the B addition, our wall now looks like...

Our list for words beginning with B's was very impressive. Here it is!

As a side note, teachers always need to be flexible, and as such, it was in the best interest of the flow of the classroom to switch two centers, the library and dramatic play center.

And I'm always telling the kids to make sure that they turn off the water faucet after getting a drink or washing their hands. I tell them to "Save the water for the fishes, so I painted a mural for above the sink to remind them.

Up next week: The letter C, Triangles and "Our Feelings".