Self portraits

Today Addie and I made matman. Matman is from the curriculum Hand Writing Without Tears. I used this activity and song while teaching in my preschool classroom. It is amazing to see the difference in their self-portraits after teaching them this song and using the pieces to build him.

Book review

We got Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd from our local library this past week, well several weeks ago, and Addie and I have enjoyed reading the story as well as giving Dog colorful spots and the wiping him clean. It is a good story for learning colors, retelling the story, and jut good fun.

Flower Life Cycle

In our theme of Growing and Changing, I decided to focus on the flowers lifecycle as well as parts of the flower. The girls each colored and sequenced pictures of a flower that grew from a seed to sprouting and then growing into a flower. 

As you can tell he is really into purple right now. :-) 

We read the book Sunflower Life Cycle  by Jeff Bouter.  It is perfect for showing pictures of each stage. 

We also told the story of Jack in the beanstalk. It was a very short story but we used little props and pretended to plant a seed. I feel like we could have gone a lot further into the story and planted our own seeds and over the next two weeks watch them grow in little windowsill plastic bag planters. Maybe that will be an activity for just me and Addie. 

Then we decided to focus on parts of the flower; we talked about the roots, stem, leaves, and the flower petals. The girls made two pictures. The first picture was placing pieces of the flower in order to create a whole picture. 

The second picture I had them paint glue and use pieces of tissue paper to decorate their flower. These look especially nice hanging in the window. 

We also learned three new songs that taught us all about flowers. 

The Seed Song 

Seeds are planted deep deep deep 

In the ground they sleep sleep sleep Yellow sunshine bright bright bright Raindrops falling light light quite 

Gentle breezes blow up blow blow 

Seeds begin to grow grow grow and grow and grow and grow and grow. Song to the tune of twinkle twinkle little star. 

Flower Garden 

The farmer plants the seeds 

The farmer plants the seeds

 Hi ho and Merry-O

The farmer plants the seeds. 

 

Sung to the tune of the farmer in the Dell the following verses are as follows. 

The rain begins to fall… 

The sun begins to shine… 

The plants begin to grow…

The buds all open up… 

The corn is growing high… 

The farmer picks the corn… 

The farmer eats the corn…

Plant a Little Seed 

Plant a little seed in the dark dark ground. 

Outcomes the warm sun yellow and round. 

Down comes the cool rain wet and slow. Up comes the little seed grow grow grow. 

Sung to the tune I'm a little teapot. 

Jack and Jill

This morning we stared off by talking about the nursery rhyme, Jack and Jill. The girls colored a picture and they each had to trace their name and write it once as well as the words Jill and Hill.

Addie was practicing her lower case e's. For circle time we recited the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill and used felt pieces to retell the story. We then moved on to focus on rhyming words. I was planning on doing a rhyming concentration game but seeing the skill level that the girls were on with rhyming changed my plans to create a matching game. 

Each girl took a turn to choose a card from the bottom pile they then had to identify the picture and find the matching picture with the one on the board. Once they found their match they put it in their own pile. When we were finished they each organized their rhyming pairs into piles. 

We put them back on the board while singing a rhyming song by Dr. Jean. 

For example:

"Whale, tail, these words rhyme 

Whale, tail, these words rhyme

Whale, tail, these words rhyme 

Now let's sing some more"

Sung to the tune: Skip to my Lou

Craft stick Puzzles

These number puzzles are so great! I got the idea/printout from MakeTakeTeach@blogspot.com. She has wonderful products, some are free but mainly I love getting ideas from her blog. It was fairly easy to do and I love that I can put any picture on the craft sticks and use whatever symbols I want on the bottom (numbers, letters, etc.) The ones shown here are print outs from the previously mentioned blog but using a variety of pictures and number if sticks could be a great way to keep kids quietly entertained. 

Addie loved figuring out the puzzle and she used the numbers to help her figure it which stick was next. Great for those counting skills. 

Luke on the other hand liked destroying the puzzle and of course eating the puzzle. 

Preschool- Vegetables

Picture search: I spy. 

 Told the story of Stone Soup with flannel storyboard pieces. Each child cut out pictures if vegetables and glued them to their own black pot.

We made play dough and the girls used it to create their own salads. I gave them plastic knives and plates and let them have at it. By then end they were creating cakes, but I guess cake is tastier than salad. 

Jack be Nimble

Today we discuss the nursery rhyme Jack Be Nimble. First we introduced the nursery rhyme by singing it several times through. Then for fun we put each girls name in place of Jack's name. As we recited the rhyme with the girls names they got to jump over the candlestick. 

Next we worked on some math by arranging four candlesticks from smallest to largest. 

Next, we went back to the nursery rhyme.   We looked for all the uppercase and lowercase J's, circled them and then counted them all up. 

Once we finished, it was time to make our own candlesticks. We used paper towel rolls cut in half; the girls decorated those with markers and stickers and then brought them over to be glued to paper plates. I use a hot glue gun to attach them to the plates. To add the "flame" we use orange tissue paper that we twisted, placed in the hole and fluffed at the top. 

I is for Igloo

Today in preschool we talked about construction, specifically the construction of an igloo. The girls constructed the letter I using circles and rectangles; they made uppercase and lowercase.

After we read through and talked about how to make an igloo. We used the book Igloos by June Pressler and Curious George Builds an Igloo. Then I had the girls use marshmallows to cover the igloo. After they finished with the marshmallows they counted how many it took to build their igloo.