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. 

Stone soup

This week we read the story Stone Soup and each of the girls made their own pot of soup by cutting vegetables out and gluing them in the pot.

 

We sorted fruits and vegetable cards and made a salad with play dough. The girls used plastic knives and plates to create their salads, however, when I asked them what they were making they all responded with cake or cupcakes. 

They also did a picture search where they each had their own cards and used whiteboard crayons to mark the pictures they found. They spent 20 minutes doing this activity and probably would have gone longer but it was time for playtime. 

Apples

Addie's apple prints; she used an apple to make these, but the star in the middle of the apple didn't show up. Still she had fun. 

Addie also put the apple stickers on the apple tree. 

It was a great fine motor activity and kept her busy. 

We read The Riddle of the Star and for a snack made apple muffins, which dissapeared as quickly as they were made. 

Favorite Friends

This week, school was at another person's house but Addie and I still had fun working on favorites, friends and the letter F. 

Addie and I looked for things that started with the /f/ sound. We found fish, frog, fan and flashlight. 

This is Addie's book of favorites. It is personalized with Addie's favorite color, food, toys and other things like that. 

For this activity I had printed pictures from the computer then I cut them into strips made guidelines and it was her job to cut and then glue. 

We also worked on our numbers. If you type in childcareland.com  there are many great resources on that site. This is one of the books we made:

One other activity was an I Spy worksheet. Addie used small little picture cards and then located each picture on the worksheet. When she found it she colored in with a white board crayon. 

 You can print this for free at JustSomethingIMade.com. 

First week of preschool

Last we Addie and I has our first week of preschool. We are doing a joy school of sorts with three other little girls. The main focus was to get the girls used to a schedule and structures activities instead of just playtime. For our structures activities we read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and then made cookies:

Our song we learned was who stole the cookie from the cookie jar. The focus was on name recognition. 

For our second day at preschool we read the same story and they each had a turn to put our vocabulary words on the word wall. 

We did however learn a new song, Dr Jeans katalina Madalina. The girls each made a heart of gold for our craft. 

 We used the song pieces to help us sing the song and make Katalina over and over again. 

We also developed two rituals for our preschool. One is a song and the other is a way of greeting or goodbye. The song we sing for our signal that the preschool day has begun, but I started using it for every transition. The greeting is simple and mainly for Addie's benefit but she was to greet each of her friends as the arrived with a handshake, highfive, hug or a smile.