Landscapes! (X, Y, Z and 1-10)

 Our theme this week was "Landscapes" and we focused on reviewing the numbers 1-10, and the letters X, Y and Z. This week we also got ready for Father's Day!

We read this week:  Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
                                Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barret
                                I Love My Daddy by Sebastien Braun
                                I Love My Daddy by David Bedford
                               The Night Before Father's Day by Natasha Wing

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

For our themes of the week,  we took long walks outside and down our nature trail. Our school is in such a great location, and my classroom looks out on the woods behind us. The playground has trees and plants all around it and our nature trail goes down in to the woods, so we are always talking about the plants and nature around us.

We painted pictures of trees and forests.

One of the other teachers in our school made paint ice cubes by mixing some tempera paint and water together and freezing them with popsicle sticks in them. These were so fun! I had planned for us to paint outside, but the day that we were going to, we had torrential rain, so we had to make do with indoor ice painting! The finished products look so cool!

This was a neat alternative to just using watercolor paints I think. I will say that there is a small window of when the paint cubes are the perfect temperature. Once you pass that and they start to really melt we ended up with very wet paper and drips on the floor under our drying rack. I'm not afraid of a little bit of cleaning, and I actually think the "drippy" pictures are super cool! They remind me  of the style of paintings that my sister does!

For father's day, we drew pictures of our dads.

We wrote in our journals about why we love Dad.

And we made our gifts for Dad. This year I wanted to do something a little different, and something that my kids could use with their dads. First they drew and colored pictures on a page that I had drawn out puzzle pieces. Then I glued them to a piece of construction paper and then cut them out. I thought about having the kids cut them, but I realized that the curved cuts and the thicker paper would be really hard for them. Then I put the pieces in an envelope with a little poem glued on the front and tied it together with 2 chocolate chip cookies. When I talked to my kids the following Monday, they were all so excited about sharing a cookie and doing the puzzles with their dads.

The teachers in our school also hosted a "Donuts for Dad" breakfast.

Our song of the week was "We Are Here to Graduate", to the tune of London Bridge. We will sing this song while we walk into graduation. It's getting close!

"We are here to graduate, graduate, graduate.
We are here to graduate, on this special day."

For our numbers, I found these great review sheets for the numbers 1-10 in The Complete Book of Numbers and Counting.

For our letter activities, we reviewed writing and finding the letters that we are talking about; U, V and W. These pages came from Letters for Little Learners.

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 "X" page came from Book 1, the "V" page came from Book 2, and the "N" 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.

Speaking of sight words, from Confessions of a HomeSchooler, I got these great sight word pages. We continued this week with the words "you".

Our American Toads wanted to model this week. =]

Birds and Bugs! (O, P, Q and 29)

Our theme this week was "Birds and Bugs" and we focused on the number 29, and reviewed the letters O, P and Q.

We read this week: Duck & Goose by Tad Hills
                              Duck, Duck Goose by Tad Hills
                              Little Hoot by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
                              Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late by Mo Willems
                              The Pigeon Wants a Puppy by Mo Willems

Our question of the week was "If you were a bird, where would you fly to?"

For our theme of the week, searched the skies for birds and the ground for bugs!.

Hand-print Bumblebees are the perfect way to celebrate bugs (they are my absolute favorite!). I found this project right here! I modified the project so my kids could draw a background and scenery, but cutting them out and putting them around the classroom would be super cute as well.

How about a hand-print bird as well? We used feathers to make them fancy and even gave them a nest out of ripped up lunch bags!

We wrote in our journals about what kind of bug it would be the best to be!

Our song of the week was "The Itsy Bitsy Spider!". 

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 29.

For our letter activities, we reviewed writing and finding the letters that we are talking about; O, P, and Q. These pages came from Letters for Little Learners.

The kids made a really cute book from  Letters for Little Learners. about the things that an Octopus can sit on. My class enjoys working on projects that they can all do together at tables and at their own pace.

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 "O" page came from Letter if the Week: Book 2, the "P" page came from Book 2, and the "Q" page came from Book 1.

From the book Alphabet on Parade I got the idea to give my kids "P Riddles" to solve. I gave them a clue like, "What is black and white and lives where it's cold? A penguin!" This was a lot of fun. They even carried on with this during lunch and tried to make riddles for each other to solve.

Also from Alphabet on Parade We talked about different animals and whether they were "Quick or Quiet". It's so fun to see and hear your class/child really thinking through something, and even defending their opinions!

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 "please".