We Are Thankful!

The theme for the last week of November was "We Are Thankful". Since it is a short week, we focused on Thanksgiving and Turkey themed activities. We finished out the month with our ABAB patterned turkeys!

This week we read: A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting
                                        Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks by Margaret Sutherland
                                        Bear Says Thanks by Karma Wilson

We have gotten to the end of another month, which means comparing weathers!

                                
Our question of the week was "What are you thankful for?"

For our theme "We Are Thankful", we did a lot of fun activities. We made Turkey headbands to wear at our school's Thanksgiving feast. Speaking of feast... yum!!

We sang "Turkey Dinner" to the tune of Frere Jaques.

Turkey Dinner, Turkey Dinner

Gather Round, Gather Round

Who will get the drumstick?

Yummy Yummy drumstick

All sit down, all sit down.

Cornbread, muffins,

Chestnuts, stuffing,

Pudding pie ten feet high.

We were all much thinner, before we sat for dinner!

Me, oh, my me, oh, my.

The kids colored and put together a turkey "puzzle". I couldn't decide if I wanted letters to help them, or numbers, so I did both!

I gave the children a turkey maze and a pumpkin maze, that they had a lot of fun with.

We looked at pictures to find out which ones were different.

The kids wrote in their journal about what they are thankful for.

We sang "Let's Be Thankful" to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

Counting from 1-30 is much more fun while making a Turkey dot-to-dot!

We talked about the Cornucopia, and the the class colored and cut vegetables and fruits to make a Cornucopia collage.

We also had our first "real" snow of the season!!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

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

Turkeys, Pilgrims and Native Americans! (Jj, 7, Star)

The theme for the third week of November was "Turkeys, Pilgrims and Native Americans". We continued our Letter of the Week study, with the letter J. This week we also focused on the star shape, and we kept going on our number study with the number 7!

We celebrated a birthday!

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

Our question of the week was "What would you bring on the Mayflower with you?" My favorite part of this question was a conversation that it sparked between a child and parent at pickup. P: What was a the Mayflower? C: A boat. P: Do you know who was on the Mayflower? C: Yea, some old people.

The shape of the week: star was fun to talk about.  We practiced drawing stars in the air, and talked about where we see stars. 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 "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"

For the number of the week: 7 we started off by counting to and backward from seven. 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 seven. 

When I started in my room I found some papers in my room I found a random number page like this from education.com, so I made my own for the number 7. 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 "Turkeys, Pilgrims, Native Americans", we talked about the way Native Americans lived before the pilgrims. We looked at some materials from the Lenapes (which is our local tribe).

We sang the song "Indians and Pilgrims" to the tune of Row your Boat.

Beat, beat, beat the drum, 

Beat it loud and clear.

To tell brave 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.

(C) Copyright 1997-2014 by Preschool Education

We talked about how corn was a staple crop and used it in an art project, which conveniently doubled as cool Thanksgiving decorations! =]

We made handprint Mayflowers! I love hearing my kids' giggles as i paint their hands, and they're always fascinated by the amount of things that we turn their handprints into.

Speaking of which, we turned their handprints into turkeys for a keepsake Thanksgiving placemat. So cute!!

We made strawberry juice while channeling the Lenape Indians. I cut the tops off of strawberries and put them into plastic baggies. The kids did all the work mashing them, to which we added hot water. I let the strawberries sit in the hot water and we observed the juices coming out of the berries. It was really cool to watch. For a little sweetness I added some honey. I was really happy that almost everyone tried it... and liked it!

The letter of the week: J activities that we worked on this were were jubilant! The book Sounds Like fun, Phonemic Awareness has great phonics activities for the alphabet. For the letter J, the children have to cut out and glue the words that "Begins like Jaguar". 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 "J" patches on the jacket. All the other letters? Not on this fashion statement!

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 colored and cut out pictures of jet planes. I attached them to toilet paper rolls so they popped a little!

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.

Using 7 Jellybeans, the kids sorted and colored the pictures. This helped them work on their color matching and one-to-one correspondence.

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!

From one of the Letter of the Week books, we made little flip books about a Jet flying around. I love these because we can work on whole group activities and following sequential directions. They are also simple enough that when finished they can look through it and tell the story to themselves.

The children turned a capital letter J into a jaguar. 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 made a cube of cardboard and glued pictures of "J" things one each side. The children say "Jaguar, Jaguar, 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 J. Here is what we thought of!

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

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!