Showing posts with label letter i. Show all posts
Showing posts with label letter i. Show all posts

Monday, May 25, 2015

My Mom! (I, J, & K, 28, White, Octagon)

The theme for the first week of May was "My Mom!". Since we finished our Letter of the Week study, we are now reviewing our letters! This week we reviewed letters I, J & K and continued our number study with the number 28! 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 octagons and white.

This week we readAre You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman
                                        Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney
                                        Llama Llama Misses Mama by Anna Dewdney
                                        I Love My Mommy by David Bedford
                                        I Love My Mom by Anna Walker
                                        The Night Before Mother's Day by Natasha Wing

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

To review the color white we talked about things in real life, at morning meeting, that are white. The kids also colored pictures of white 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 octagon shape the children practiced recognizing the shape and colored octagons. I created this little picture full of the shape. They needed to color the octagon signs red and then the rest of the picture!

For the number of the week:28 we started off by counting to and backward from twenty-eight. 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-eight. 

When I started in my class, I found a page like this from education.com, so I made my own for the number 28. 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 "My Mom",  we drew pictures of our moms!

We sang "Mommy, Mommy, I Love you". 
(C) Jean Warren www.preschoolexpress.com.
In their journals, the children wrote about why they love their moms.

The children also worked really hard to make this really cool gift for their moms. I air popped some popcorn, and the children each took turns to drizzle colored chocolate on them... Yum!! Then, the children made a tissue paper flower to tie it all together. They were so excited to give them to their moms for Mother's Day! We of course had to try some to make sure it was good! =]

While reviewing the letters I, J and K, 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 "in".

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, I, J and K. 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, three, four and five about jaguars. We also watched about iguanas, kangaroos, jellyfish and koalas.

I made an "I have, who has" game filled with I, J and K 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!

Friday, December 5, 2014

The Harvest! (Ii, 6, Heart)

The theme for the 11th week of school and second week of November was "The Harvest". We continued our Letter of the Week study, with the letter I. This week we also focused on the heart shape, and we kept going on our number study with the number 6!

This week we readPossum's Harvest Moon by Anne Hunter
                                        Pumpkin Town!  by Katie McKy
                                        From Seed to Pumpkin by Wendy Pfeffer
                                        Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper
                                        The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons

Our question of the week was "What is one word to describe you?" This is always definitely a fun and interesting question to ask.

The shape of the week: heart was fun to talk about.  We also practiced drawing hearts in the air, and made a heart by putting our two hands together. The children worked on their fine motor skills and shape recognition by coloring shapes. I made this sheet myself based on recognition sheets that we have already done.

For our song this week we sang "I'm a Little Heart Fish" from Preschool Express.
"I'm a little heart fish in the sea,
I have a heart tail that helps guide me.
when I'm feeling friendly I start to blow,
Tiny heart bubbles...up they go!"

For the number of the week: 6 we started off by counting to and backward from six. 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 six. 

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 6. 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 theme "The Harvest", we had a lot of fun talking more about the changes happening outside from a different perspective.When we talked about Falling for Fall, we talked about the changes we can see around us. Talking about harvest time, we got to talk more about what those changes mean.

For our class bunnies, Patches and Daisy, we harvested them a feast from outside of leaves, sticks and dandelion leaves from our playground, and parsley and tomatoes from our school garden.

We sorted these little cards that I made of the lifecycle of a pumpkin, all the way from planting the seed to getting the large orange pumpkin. In small groups the kids put the cards in order, and they were really proud of themselves! =]

We made Pumpkin Moon Sand for our sensory table! I found the recipe on Pinterest here, and the kids love it. It smells sooo good! Mine did not come out nearly as smooth as it looks in the picture, and I'm not sure why, but my kids still are having a lot of fun with it!

I have small cookie cutters for my side business... Shameless plug time, I make delicious dog treats. Check us out! Jakks in a Box! and I brought my Autumn themed cutters so that we could paint with them. There is something about cookie cutter painting that I just love!

The letter of the week: I activities that we worked on this were were Interesting! We Sang "All the Leaves are Falling Down" that I found at Preschool Express. We sang it to the tune of "London Bridge"
All the leaves are falling down, falling down, falling down.  (Imitate leaves falling down)
All the leaves are falling down, it is Fall.

Take the rake and rake them up, rake them up, rake them up.  (Imitate raking up leaves)
Take the rake and rake them up, it is Fall.

Make a pile and jump right in, jump right in, jump right in.  (Children jump forward)
Make a pile and jump right in, it is Fall.
(C) 2001 - 2011 Jean Warren www.preschoolexpress.com 


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 "I" insects in the bug box. All the other letters? I think they have to find a different home!

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 used our ink pads and crayons to make fingerprint insects.

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

I found this worksheet with a Sesame Street theme and I love it! The children have to say what the pictures are and decide if its a long i or a short i sound.

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!

We watched a video first about a young boy making his first Igloo. I also found this video, whitch was much more in depth. This started such a great conversation about igloo building, and my class is really hoping that this coming winter brings a LOT of snow. After this, we also made igloos with blocks of snow (aka, white squares on blue paper).

The children turned a capital letter I into a insect. 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.

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

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

Friday, May 16, 2014

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!