Farm Animals! (Hh, 5, Hexagon)

The theme for the 10th week of school and first week of November was "Farm Animals". We continued our Letter of the Week study, with the letter H. This week we also focused on the hexagon shape, and we kept going on our number study with the number 5!

This week we read: Duck for President by Doreen Cronin
                                        Humphrey's Farm Adventure by Sally Hunter
                                        The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle
                                        Little Oink by Any Krouse Rosenthal
                                        Barnyard Banter by Denise Fleming

Our question of the week was "What would you grow on your farm?"

The shape of the week: hexagon was fun to talk about. At our morning meetings, we tried to think of things that were hexagons in real life. We also practiced drawing hexagons in the air, and counted the sides. The children worked on their fine motor skills and shape recognition by finding hexagons. I made this sheet myself based on recognition sheets that we have already done.

For our song this week we sang "A Hexagon has 6 Sides". I found this cool song on Pinterest to the tune of "Head, shoulders, knees and toes."

"A hexagon has 6 sides, has 6 sides.

A hexagon has 6 sides, has 6 sides,

The sides are equal and angles are the same.

A hexagon has 6 sides, has 6 sides!"

For the number of the week: 5 we started off by counting to and backward from five. The kids had no problem with this one, and we made it to a whole hand! ;) The kids also practiced writing the number and word for five.

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 5. 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.

From the Complete Book of Numbers and Counting, we worked on this coloring page with a key for the number 5.

For our theme "Farm Animals", we really got into character! We Sang Old MacDonald A LOT! So fun!

We danced the Chicken Dance!

We made animal handprints to go on this farm mural. I let each child pick what animal they wanted to do, and we did it!

We played farm animal charades! It quickly dissolved into giggles and all of us pretending to be the animals, but it was a lot of fun.

The letter of the week: H activities that we worked on this were were helpful! The book Sounds Like fun, Phonemic Awareness has great phonics activities for the alphabet. For the letter G, the children have to cut out and glue the words that "Begin like Horse". 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 put the "H" H items in the house. All the other letters? Find a realtor!

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 hummingbirds out of pom poms and feathers. I have not quite figured out how to get these onto the wall.

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 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 H into a horse. 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 a Letter of the Week book, we made these cool "hats" that have h pictures you can slide through the flower. They were a bit difficult to make, but the kids really liked them.

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

 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".

Happy Halloween! (H, 5, Pentagon)

Our theme this week was "Happy Halloween" and we focused on the letter Hh, the number 5 the shape pentagon.

We got to compare the weather in October this year and last year. I love getting the kids thinking about what is different and the same about the two graphs. We always have such good conversation. I like this activity, because I also thinks that it makes them realize that what we do at morning meeting really does matter.

We read this week:  Scaredy Cat Splat by Rob Scotton
                               What Was I Scared Of by Dr. Seuss (Last in The Sneetches and Other Stories)
                               Curious George Goes to a Costume Party by Margret and H.A. Rey
                               Mouse's First Halloween by Lauren Thompson
                               Duck and Goose Find a Pumpkin by Tad Hills

Our question of the week was "What is your favorite candy?" This turned out to be a little tough for them to answer, they had trouble picking just one!

For our theme of the week, we actually didn't talk about Halloween that much. We did a little bit, but we focused more on pumpkins this week. I just have to say, I rediscovered that fresh pumpkin is one of my favorite smells. This of course prompted all of my kids to repeatedly come over and smell the cut open pumpkin. =]


First we cleaned out our large class pumpkin and separated the pulp from the seeds. Their faces when they stuck their hands in the pumpkin were priceless! The class voted on how I should carve our pumpkin. A silly face won over Frankenstein and sad face.

After we cleaned it out I roasted the seeds using a recipe that I found on this blog. I never would have thought to boil them in salty water first, but man, did it help make those shells nice and crunchy! My few kids who were adventurous really enjoyed them.

Each child in my class got a small pumpkin that they got to paint. I gave them white, blue and green paint and let them paint however they wanted. I love how each child does just how they want to.

I found the idea to "plant" a pumpkin from this blog. AMAZING! Just put dirt in the pumpkin and let the seeds sprout. Genius! I cut the pumpkin open and we talked about what was in there, what it looked like, what they thought about the inside of the pumpkin. Then they each got to put some dirt in the pumpkin... and we're just waiting for a sprout! (All that day they kept coming to tell me that we didn't have anything growing yet. I don't think they really believe me that it's going to take a couple weeks. =])

We had our school Halloween Parade, which is always fun, and the kids really love to show off their costumes. It's always nice to have a fun school day like Halloween.


I drew a cross section picture of a pumpkin. We talked  about the different parts and they colored it. I was sad that i forgot to save some of the raw seeds to clue on, so we used some macaroni to represent the seeds and pieces of string for the pulp.

We talked a lot this week about the shape pentagon. I couldn't find a song, so I wrote one like others that we sing to the tune of "frere jacques"

"This is a Pentagon, this is a Pentagon.

How can you tell? How can you tell?

It has five sides that are the same size,

it's a pentagon, it's a pentagon."

The kids practiced recognizing pentagons out of other shapes.

When we worked on our number activities, we practiced writing the number and word for the number 5.

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. (I forgot to take a picture =[)

We also used a color by number page with the numbers 1-5. My kids are really getting good at this, and it's only the second/third time for them! They are getting better and sitting and listening for the directions, working at their own pace. I love it!

For our letter activities, we used our handwriting sheet for the letter H,  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 H.

We turned a H into a Horse

We played Monster Munch. The kids have to feed the monster candy, but he only likes to eat "h" candy.

We freeze danced and hopped to music.

For our alphabet wall we made hummingbirds and watched this video. I watched this with my kids last year too. It has great imagery of the hummingbird up close and in slow motion. We talked through the video about what they were saying. At one point we were standing up and "feeling" the difference between eagle bird flaps and hummingbird figure 8 wing movement.

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

Here are the words we came up with this week!

Up next week: The letter Ii, the number 6, heart and "Farm Animals".