Being Healthy (Ff, 3, Octagons)

The theme for the 8th week of the school year was "Being Healthy". We continued our Letter of the Week study, with the letter F. This week we also focused on the octagon shape, and we kept going on our number study with the number 3!

This week we read: Grandmas Are For Giving Tickles by Harriet Ziefert
                                        Grandpas Are For finding Worms by Harriet Ziefert
                                        Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late by Mo Willems
                                        The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food by Stan and Jan Berenstain
                                        Gregory the Terrible Eater by Mitchell Sharmat

Our question of the week was "What is one reason that you like the fall?"

The shape of the week: octagon was fun to talk about. At our morning meetings, we would talk about the shape and things in real life that are an octagons. We also practiced drawing octagons in the air, which to be honest, is really kind of difficult! The children worked on their fine motor skills and shape recognition by finding octagons. I made this sheet myself based on recognition sheets that we have already done.

For our song this week we sang "This is an Octagons", I wrote this one myself based on some of the shape songs that we have already sang. There's not a whole lot of catchy songs out there for octagons. :/

"This is an octagon, this is an octagon,

How can you tell? How can you tell?

It had 8 sides,

And looks like a stop sign, 

It's an octagon, it's an octagon."

For the number of the week: 3 we started off by counting to three and backward from three. The kids had no problem with this one. ;) The kids also practiced writing the number and word for three.

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 3. 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 "Being Healthy", we touched on how to stay healthy in different aspects of life. We started off my talking about how to keep our smiles and teeth healthy. I made this large tooth, and each child told me something that they do for their teeth. We watched these short videos that I found on Sesame Street. There were three videos on the Healthy Teeth, Healthy Me toolkit. Captain Mega Super Ultra Smile Man is pretty cool too.... I think I got his name right... =].

I drew plaque infested teeth on white boards and the children used toothbrushes to clean them!

We exercised using the parachute! Parachute games are so fun, and there is just a certain excitement that fills the air when the kids see the parachute coming out. =]

I also made this exercise activity cube (you know in the spirit of my cube making every week... I've gotten quite good at them!) Each child had turns to roll the cube and we all participated in the direction. It really got us moving!

We sorted different foods into what we thought were healthy choices and not so healthy choices. Then we talked about the kinds of food that we should be eating more than others.

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

The children turned a capital letter F into a fish. 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 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 "F" fish in the Fishbowl. All the other letters? They needed to find a different bowl!

We went "fishing for F's". On cutouts of fish I wrote letters A-F. I put a paperclip on each fish and the kids used a fishing pole with a magnet on the end to catch a fish! They had to name the letter they got. If it was and F, they got to keep it, and if it was a different letter they had to "throw it back in".

Grandparents joined us for a breakfast to celebrate how much we love them. While they were visiting our class, we all finger painted fish for our Alphabet Wall. 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. By the way, watching grandparents paint is really fun!

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.

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!

We danced the Hokey Pokey while we pretended to be foxes (bushy tails, pointy ears, paws) Love it!

I made a cube of cardboard and glued pictures of "F" things one each side. The children say "Firefly, firefly 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!

Also from a Mailbox Book we made A Flower for Fox!

During the week we made a list of words that begin with the letter F. I totally forgot to take a picture.. coming soon!

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

Turkeys, Pilgrims, and Native Americans! (3-7)

Our theme for the third week of November, our theme was "Turkeys, Pilgrims and Native Americans".

We read this week: Red Fox and His Canoe by Nathaniel Benchley
                               The Thirsty Moose by David Orme
                               1 Little, 2 Little, 3 Little Pilgrims by B.G. Hennessey
                               Thanksgiving Cats by Jean Marzollo
                               The Very First Thanksgiving by Rhonda Gowler Greene

Our question of the week was "What one thing would you bring on the Mayflower with you?"

For our theme of the week, we discussed Pilgrim and Native American life. We focused on how they lived and what their homes and villages were like.  The kids had fun deciding
which life they would rather live.

We made strawberry juice using strawberries, water and a little bit of honey. The kids got to squish up the strawberries and watch as the juice developed. Everyone tried it, which I was super proud of, and about half of them wanted more!

The kids also worked on coloring their Thanksgiving placemats. Our director got them for all the kids from Oriental Trading. The kids loved them because they were like giant coloring pages.

We sang "Indians and Pilgrims" to the tune of "Row your boat" which I found here.

Beat, beat, beat the drum.

Beat it loud and clear.

Tell the Indians everywhere,

That hunting time is near.

Cut, cut, cut the logs,

Make them long and short,

To help the Pilgrims build a house

A warm and friendly fort.

One of our amazing teachers in the school brought in a special guest for the kids to see. They voted and decided that his name would be Giblet.

We did not talk about a letter, number or shape this week. In preparing for parent teacher conferences, we worked on portfolio assessments. We went over numbers 1-30, all the shapes, patterns and the alphabet, lowercase and capitals.

Each day we did an activity that focused on a letter, 3-7.  I got these activities from this book. The kids had to color three of each item in a group.

They did a number 4 color by number.

Colored 5 of each flavor of ice cream.

Color by number for 6.

They had to draw 7 apples on a tree. (I didn't get a picture. =[)

Our class had two birthdays this week! We love to celebrate in my class.

Here's an update from our "planted" pumpkins! We planted them the week of Halloween, and we got a sprout!!

Up next week: Number review week and "We Are Thankful".

Falling for Fall! (F, 3, Octagon)

Our theme this week was "Falling for Fall" and we focused on the letter Ff, the number 3 and the shape octagon.

We read this week: Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson
                               The Frog Prince (Classic Fairy Tale)
                               The Frog Prince Continued by Jon Scieszka
                               One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
                               Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban

Our question of the week was "What is one reason you like the Fall?"

theme of the week, we talked about and did activities that highlight some seasonal changes that happen in the fall.

We made a fall themed tree using paint and Q-tips. I like to let my kids create their own art. so they even made their own tree trunks! (great cutting practice!!) I saw this done on this page.

We made fall wreaths with fall colors. We used orange tissue paper, red and brown construction paper and yellow feathers. This project let us talk about why we associate the colors with the season.

We had fun collecting leaves from all around outside and then sorted them by size, and then by color.

Using those leaves that we collected, we then made leaf rubbings!

I made a new mural for our library center and the kids made acorns! I drew the outline of the acorn on brown construction paper. Then they glued torn up brown paper bags fro the "cap" and we glued on oatmeal for the bottom.

We talked a lot this week about the shape octagon. I couldn't find a song that I really liked, so I wrote my own modeled on the ones that we've already done..

"This is an octagon, this is an octagon,

How can you tell? How can you tell?

It had 8 sides,

And looks like a stop sign, 

It's an octagon, it's an octagon."

The kids practiced recognizing octagons.

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

I made these worksheets that reinforces the one to one concept. They 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 F,  and the sheet that helps work on letter recognition, both are from books that are mentioned in the "All About Me" post. The students also wrote in their journals for the letter F.

 
We went "fishing for F's". On cutouts of fish I wrote letters A-F. I put a paperclip on each fish and the kids used a fishing pole with a magnet on the end to catch a fish! They had to name the letter they got. If it was and F, they got to keep it, and if it was a different letter they had to "throw it back in".

We danced the Hokey Pokey, pretending that we were foxes (bushy tails, pointy ears, paws) Love it!

We turned F's into Fish.

For our alphabet wall we made fish that we finger painted.

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

I didn't realize until now that my little  pond looks a little bit like Texas...

We got into a competition with the older class for who could think of more words.. by the end of the week both classes tied! It was an awesome job done by both classes. Our list for words beginning with F's was awesome. Here it is!

Up next week: The letter Gg, the number 4, hexagon and "Creepy Crawlies".