Wednesday, October 29, 2008

One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pumpkins!!

Today we started by making a fun pumpkin puppet. They loved talking with them and making scary noises with the mouths, especially the boys! Our LBQ -What is your favorite Halloween treat?




After our morning pledge, weather, and calendar we read The Tiniest Pumpkin, a first-start easy reader by Janet Craig. Then we played Is It 3? This game uses six pictures that either have three objects on it or a number other than three. It is held up and the kids are asked to smile for yes if indeed their are three objects on the card. If their is not three objects they are to frown for no. We record this on the board and then move to tables so they can do their own worksheet suing the same format.






We then read One Little Pumpkin and sang
(to the tune of Ten Little Indians)



One little, two little, three little pumpkins,


four little, five little, six little pumpkins,


seven little, eight little, nine little pumpkins,


ten pumpkins growing in a patch.



Ten little, nine little, eight little pumpkins,


seven little, six little, five little pumpkins,


four little, three little, two little pumpkins,


one pumpkin growing in a patch.






After reading the story and singing the song they were then able to put their own books together. We discussed a front cover, or title page, and its importance. Then we helped them put their book in numerical order. They could then either color them a little or save it for home. Next we played I spy. Today we wanted them to spy the colors orange or black to review the new colors we learned for the month.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Pumpkin Soup! Yum!!Yum!!!




Welcome Activity-File Folders
LBQ-Can you name something black? Orange?

Weather, still sunny and windy!!!! Calendar, days of the week and the pledge always start our morning right!!

We read Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper again and everyone stirred really well and we all tasted our class pumpkin soup!! Miss Laura got some great pictures. I told you we would make up for Tuesday:)


After snack we finished our jack-o-lanterns we painted on Tuesday. They sure did a good job of remembering where the parts of a face go!





We also did a fun Bag-O-Bones worksheet working on matching shapes. The kids had a small bag of candy bones that they put on their paper. Then they sorted them onto the matching bone picture using the candy to place on top. They thought this was so cool and did really good, they only ate a few before we even started!!!



For fundamentals we colored Is It Orange? review page. Their were four total pictures with two being orange and two being black. Their was a picture of an orange, bat, pumpkin, and a cat.




Next we all came to the floor to review our letters we have learned for this month. These letters are Hh, Nn, and Pp. We reviewed each letter for recognition, sound, and sign. Each child drew a card with a picture on it and then they were to place it under the correct letter.












Tuesday, October 21, 2008

5 Little Pumpkins!!!!

Today was great! We are still on our Halloween theme so we started off painting paper plates orange. After they dry we can finish them by gluing faces to make jack-o-lanterns. You know I have never met a kid who didn't like to paint and your kids are no exception! LBQ- Where do pumpkins grow? On the ground or in a tree?


We read Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper.http://www.amazon.com/Pumpkin-Soup-Helen-Cooper/dp/0374460310/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225171647&sr=1-1. All the kids loved the story and it was fun to stir the pretend pumpkin soup.


We then recited and acted out 5 Little Pumpkins.


Five Little Pumpkins sitting on a gate.


The first one said, "My, it's getting late."


The second one said,"Their are witches in the air."


The third one said, "But we don't care."


The fourth one said, "We'll run and run and run."


The fifth one said,"It's just Halloween fun."


"Whooooo" went the wind.


And out went the light.


And the five little pumpkins rolled out of site.


((c) Copyright www.preschoolprintables.com)




After learning the song we then were able to make our own 5 Little Pumpkins. Make sure to have your child sing and act out the song, it's adorable.




We also traced different pictures based upon ability. This is a great pre-writing exercise for many of these kids. A great tracing site for you to print from for extra practice is http://http//www.kidzone.ws/tracers/index.htm .







Fundamentals included the letter Pp picture cards, review of colors, shapes and ABC's. Today not many pictures were snapped. We just sometimes have so much fun we forget to stop and seize the moment. We will try better because we know you want to see your kids in action!!!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Pumpkins, ORANGE you Happy!!!!

Today we talked about pumpkins. Our welcome activity was to color and trace a pumpkin sheet. They took these home so make sure they practice cutting on the dotted lines.



LBQ- Do you like big or small pumpkins better? Why?








Every day we do the pledge, calendar and weather. Miss Laura and I are waiting to take the kids to the window and see snow!!! OK, we are dreaming but we want something else for them to see besides sunny and windy!! We read The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything by Linda Williams and Megan Lloyd one more time so the kids could take turns with a new prop and act out the story. They loved it and what fun it is to see them acting out this story.









After snack the kids then colored the pictures that looked the same in each row. They had a row of pumkins, cats, and ghosts. This was a challenge for most and probably something we will do more of to help them recognize differences and similarities.









Fundamentals today were introducing the letter Pp with its sign and sound.



The Letter Pp


to the tune of Frere Jacques




The letter P. The letter P. (make ASL sign for letter, showing one hand then the other)

Has a sound. Has a sound. (bring 1 hand to ear and then the other hand to the other ear)

What sound do you make? What sound do you make? (palms facing up, shrug shoulders)

/p/ /p/ /p/! /p/ /p/ /p/! (Make ASL sign for letter, move hand forward and backward for each sound)



After learning about the letter Pp we traced it with our fingers on our Pp alphabet page and then colored it so we can add it to our books.


We also played Is It Orange? Pulling out objects from a jack-o-lantern that were either orange or black and asking, Is It Orange? each time.




Wednesday, October 15, 2008

I am not afraid!

This day was a fun day because we got to read my favorite Halloween story The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything! by Linda Williams and Megan Lloyd. After welcoming and calendar and a few different renditions of The Itsy Bitsy Spider. We read the book, then we read it again with props. The kids had a lot of fun acting it out.

After the story we made a little mini-reader. "_____________'s Not Afraid." We read it together. Make sure they read it to you too!

During our fundamental review we talked about Nn. We sang our song and looked at some pictures that start with Nn.

The Letter Nn
to the tune of Frere Jacques
The letter N. The letter N. (make ASL sign for letter, showing one hand then the other)
Has a sound. Has a sound.
(bring 1 hand to ear and then the other hand to the other ear)
What sound do you make? What sound do you make?
(palms facing up, shrug shoulders)
/n/ /n/ /n/! /n/ /n/ /n/! (Make ASL sign for letter, move hand forward and backward for each sound)

We also reviewed SQUARE.

OK, this one looks a little like a diamond.... but they got the point. :)





Thursday, October 9, 2008

ooo-ooo-oooo!

We welcomed everyone with a spider puzzle. We sent the puzzles home so they can practice some more if they want. :)

You can't see this picture of Corey very well, but I had to put it in because he looks so triumphant!

After calendar time we looked at our Halloween pictures and sorted them into different colors, things that are pretend or real, and things that are scary or not scary.

We read Stellaluna by Janell Cannon.

We finished the bats (well, Mrs. Amber and Mrs. Laura finished them... we showed them the finished product).

These are our ghostly footprints. The children later added eyes and a mouth to turn them into ghosts!

We reviewed our fundamentals, including 3. We let each child stamp their index card 3 times.


We introduced the letter Nn. (I just realized we forgot to sing our Nn song! Oh man! I guess we'll have to just sing it next time.)

The children colored their Nn page for their alphabet books.

Then we played and danced! :)

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

we're going BATty!

After calendar time we reviewed SQUARE and we did a little "square dancing". We danced, jumped, marched and walked around the square to music and when the music stopped we had to FREEZE! They did a great job. I bet some of you didn't know your child could hold still for at least 5 seconds, huh?! :) We also danced in, outside, and on the square.




Then we looked at our picture bank of Halloween things and added words. We decided to focus on BATS today. We did a picture walk (we looked only at the pictures and talked about what was happening.) of Stellaluna by Janell Cannon.

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Then we learned a few bat facts:
  • Bats can be found in most parts of the world.
  • They live in forests, deserts, jungles, and cities.
  • There are over 900 different kinds of bats.
  • They come in all sizes, from the bumblebee bat which is the size of a jellybean to the Bismark flying fox whose wingspan is the size of a man!
  • Bats can be separated into two groups: fruit eating bats and meat eating bats.
  • A long time ago, people used to think bats were birds, but they are mammals!
  • They are special because they are the only mammals that know how to fly!
Then we used watercolors to paint a bat either brown or black. We'll finish them Thursday so they can bring them home to decorate!

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After a yummy s'mores snack, we played "Is it black?" We had a black bucket with different items in it. They took turns choosing something from the bucket and telling us if it was black or not.
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We reviewed Hh. We sang our song and looked at some pictures that started with the Hh sound.
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Then we had a haunted house picture that had a number on it. The kids took turns adding ghosts that matched the number.