Weather! (U, 18, Orange)

The theme for the final week of February was "Weather". We continued our Letter of the Week study with the letter U. This week we continued talking about colors with the color orange, and we kept going on our number study with the number 18!

This week we read: The Rain Came Down by David Shannon
                                        Bear's Busy Year by Marcia Leonard
                                        Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett
                                        Little Cloud by Eric Carle
                                        Bear Feels Scared by Karma Wilson

Our question of the week was "What is your favorite weather?"

The color of the week: orange was a lot of fun to explore.  We talked about things that are the color orange and went on a hunt around our classroom to find things that are orange.

We sang "We Love Orange" to the tune of 3 Blind Mice.

"We love orange,we love orange,
Yes we do, yes we do,
Crunchy carrots so good to eat,
Juicy oranges oh so sweet,
Pumpkins ready for trick or treat,
yes we love orange."
I got it from here!

(C) Jean Warren www.preschoolexpress.com

For the number of the week:18 we started off by counting to and backward from eighteen. 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 eighteen. 

When I started in my class, I found a page like this from education.com, so I made my own for the number 18. 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 "Weather", we became meteorologists! In the sensory table I made soap clouds out of Ivory Soap (microwave for about a minute until it gets puffy.) The children had fun breaking it apart and making dust. PSA: Ivory soap dust floats in the air and makes everyone cough! So I added some water into the dust to make a fun soapy water sensory table. The next morning, it mysteriously turned into a very slimy consistency. We played with it like this for a bit, and then I added some more water to loosen it up.

We painted clouds using shaving cream and glue. When it dries, it stays puffy the way that they painted it. I can't show you the final projects because this is something we will be putting into our Eric Carle themed art show in April, but here's a preview!

With colored water, pipettes, a glass jar and shaving cream, the kids made it rain! Each child had a pipette and one color of water. They squeezed their color into the shaving cream "cloud" until the could because full and began to "rain" down. They were so excited when they saw their color start to rain down from the cloud!

I thought that the coolest part of  this project was that the final "storm" looked different for each group. Awesome!

The letter of the week: U activities that we worked on this week were ultra cool!! 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 place the "U" fish in the underwater tank.  All the other letters? I hope there's another tank somewhere around here!

From this Alphabet on Parade book, I got the idea to have the kids practice the concepts of "over" and "under". I drew and umbrella and 12 small pictures for them to cut out and glue either over or under the umbrella. I let them pretty much do their own thing on this project and then tucked it away in their portfolios.

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

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 made sea urchins. The children crumpled and glued tissue paper onto white circles.

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.

 The children turned a capital letter U into a unicorn. 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.

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!

My kids did a great job of turning shapes into an underwater picture! I cut out the different shapes for them ahead of time, they picked three, and then let their imaginations run wild! It came from this Letter of the Week book.

From Sounds Like Fun, I got the idea to buy little paper party drink umbrellas and say different vowel sound words. Anytime they hear a long or short u sound, they had to put up their umbrellas! So fun. Bonus, they got to keep the umbrellas and were thrilled!

I found these short videos about "u" animals that we watched through the week. There was one about sea urchins. They went nuts for it! The kids really enjoy when randomly throughout the day we take a break to watch an animal video.

We also made a class book about people that wear uniforms. We brainstormed a list together, and then each child got to pick what they wanted to make their page about.

I made a cube of cardboard and glued pictures of "U" things one each side. The children say "Unicorn, unicorn, 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 for the letter A, 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 U. Here is what we thought of!

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

Weather! (T, 17, Purple)

Our theme this week was "Weather" and we focused on the letter T, number 17 and color purple.

We read this week: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett
                               Little Cloud by Eric Carle
                               Duck by Randy Cecil
                               The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons
                               Bear's Busy Year by Marcia Leonard

I got this huge box and decided to bring it into school to make a puppet hut. The kids colored and decorated it and then I put it in the library center so they could play with the puppets. They were so excited about it!

Our question of the week was "What is your favorite kind of weather?"

For our theme of the week, we paid extra attention to the weather depicted in each of our stories this week. Even though we do the weather report every morning, I asked the kids, "what is weather?" because I wanted to see what they really thought.

Using ice, a plate, a glass jar and some very hot water, we made our own rain! We talked about the water cycle and how water is in the air all around us. Then we did this very cool experiment together as a class. As the hot water rises in the jar, it condenses on the bittom of the plate that is very cold and "rains" back down. The kids were fascinated.

Using some paint, straws and our breath, we made wind art!

We talked about the color purple, and we sang "We love purple"

"We love purple, we love purple,
yes we do, yes we do.
Purple grapes and eggplant too,
Purple plums and grape juice
Just for me and just for you,
we love purple."
I got it from here!

When we focus on a color I love to do "color hunts" in our classroom. Each child takes a turn to walk

around the classroom and bring back something that they found that is purple. Here is what we found.

Using only purple crayons, the kids made pictures that I then cut into "puzzles". I put them in baggies and put them out for a few days so the kids could put their friend's puzzles together.

When we worked on our number activities, we practiced writing the number and word for the number 17.

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.

With my math boxes (check them out on this post- at the bottom), we counted out 17 items. Then I had the kids divide it into two groups. Using this worksheet that I made, we started doing and talking about addition.  They liked being able to make up their own groups to add.

For our letter activities, we used our handwriting sheet for the letter Tt from this book.

The students wrote in their journals for the letter T. It's really cool to see the children thinking about what they want to put in their journal. They love these books and always want to go through them when they're finished writing for the day.

We turned a T into a Turtle! This book is great.

With some sugar cookie dough, the class made their own turtle cookies. (Once they baked, they flattened out, but they sure looked like turtles before they went in the oven!)

We acted out a poem called "Tired Turtles" from this phonics book. They love theses kinds of activities.
"Turtle is too, too tired today. (yawn)
But Turtle didn't run, and Turtle didn't play. (shake head no)
Turtle is too, too tired to talk (slump over tired)
Just because he took his turtle walk." (walk very slowly in place)

They made a book about a tiger getting ready for a tea party!

For our alphabet wall we made turtles!

Here are the words we came up with this week!

We had a special guest come to visit us this week too: Lincoln!

 Check out the pumpkins! We have what I'm calling little "bud pods"! I remain amazed watching this plant grow. It all started here, back in October.

Up next week: "Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss" (and me =]) and a focus on the letter Uu, number 18 and color orange.

Winter Numberland!

Our theme for the last week of December was "Winter Numberland". Because our school had a half day for New Years Eve and was closed for New Years Day, we did not talk about a letter, number or shape. *We also had a snow day because of storm Hercules, so we did not get to do all of our planned activities.* Yikes! It was such a short week, only 2 1/2 days!

  

We read this week: Chicka Chicka 1, 2, 3 by Bill Martin Jr.
                               1, 2, 3 To the Zoo by Eric Carle
                               How Do Dinosaurs Count to 10 by Jane Yolen
                               1-2-3 Peas by Keith Baker

We also got to compare December weather from 2012 and 2013. I love doing this, and so do the kids. It's really cool how they are starting to look more at the weather patterns rather than just the actual paper or colors.

Our question of the week was "What is your wish for the new year?" This kids had fun thinking about their answers during morning meeting. What they answered then, they wrote in their journals too.

Our song of the week was "The Months of the Year" I remember singing this when I was little too. To the tune of "10 Little Indians"

"January, February, March and April,

May, June, July, August and September,

October, November and December,

These are the months of the year!"

For our theme of the week, we did a lot with numbers!
We started off the week by painting with number stencils. The kids had fun painting on their numbers and then asking what they had created.

This was a challenging activity, but we worked through it! We used the letter clues in the number words to figure out what number it was. I was so proud of my kids on this one, even though it was super tough, they stuck through and were really happy with themselves when they finished.

We sang the song "5 Little Ducks" by Raffi. When we do this we make little duck puppets and then act out the song while we sing. It's so fun to quack!

To celebrate New Years Eve, we played Bingo with a board that I created.

*I just had to share this project. Another class in the school did it and I think it's so cute!*
The teacher cut out the outline of an elephant for the kids to color, and then used noise makers for the trunk. What a cute project for New Years!

We also practiced counting backward from 10. To help with this I used my math "junk boxes". I got this idea from here. Basically I went to the dollar store and bought some small containers, then I filled them with small items: beads, legos, fun erasers, pieces of ribbon, etc. We pull these out whenever we want to quick count something or practice our addition and subtraction beginning skills. UPDATE: I changed the actual containers and they're so much more compact! See them here.

Singing "10 Little Monkeys" is also a fun way to practice counting back from 10.

We made Fruit Loop necklaces with some cereal and yarn. I taped off one end of the yarn so it would be easier for my kids to string the cereal.

To get the blood pumping, we practiced counting with hops! My kids had so much fun doing that they wanted me to call out 100 so they could hop 100 times! I was a little tired by that point so we only went as high as 30.

*Here is an update on our pumpkins! We planted them the week of Halloween*
I've been watering them , and I'm a little sad to say that the plants that sprouted out of the first pumpkin all died. =[. On the other hand, the second pumpkins sprouts seem to be doing marvelously. I just hope they can stick it out! Any tips?

Up next week, we're back in the swing of things: "Hibernation", the letter Nn, number 11 and brown!