ABC & 123

We changed site for this year...

2009-07-29T11:27:00.001-07:00

Come check us out HERE

Let's Party!!!!!!!

2009-07-08T22:11:00.000-07:00

I first have to apologize for this entry taking so long to be entered, I am so sorry!!!

This was the last day of school and we combined both classes. We can't believe the year has come to an end and we have enjoyed learning with your children so much. Thank you for support and help this year, it always makes a difference.

Our morning started much the same as always with a morning welcome activity. We had folders, shapes, and puzzles out. We sang our learning box question song which is a great cue for the kids to clean up and make their way to the preschool room. Our LBQ today- What is your favorite thing you learned in preschool?

Next we did the pledge/ weather/ calendar. We also sang our days of the week song and the today is?... song. We really wanted you parents to get a feel for our morning routine. We then reviewed one of our shapes by playing freeze tag. This has been one of our favorite activities all year.

Next we read I Love School by Philemon Sturges. After the book we sang our ABC'S in our favorite Opera and Dinosaur voices. We then reviewed some letter recognition and sounds. We also sang our letter sound song using the letter Bb.

The Letter Bb to the tune of Frere Jacques
The letter B. The letter B. (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)
/b/ /b/ /b/! /b/ /b/ /b/! (Make ASL sign for letter, move hand forward and backward for each sound)

After that we counted to 20, reviewed our colors and shapes, ending with our color song.

Now we were all ready to eat and party!!!!!! Thanks for all the yummy food, it sure was delicious!! We headed over to the park planning on the kids getting wet in the splash park and Miss Laura even called the previous day to get the hours. We had no idea it was broken and it was just bad luck. Hopefully it was still fun and no one was too hot!!! We had lots of water and ice to cool off with, but not the same as the water spouts!!

What a fun year and we hope you all enjoyed it as much as us. We love what we do and thank you for supporting us and sending your wonderful children to learn with us... See you next year!!!

last day pictures...

2009-06-09T14:04:00.000-07:00

goodbye!

thank you!

Review Time!

2009-06-06T10:45:00.000-07:00

I know you all thought I'd forgotten the blog!! I just took a much longer break after the last day then I had intended! But here we go....

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Today we started out coloring an alphabet page that looked just like the one that hangs in the preschool room.

The LBQ was, "What is you favorite letter of the alphabet?" All the kids liked the first letters of their name and a few of them also liked the letters that showed pictures they liked ("O" because of the Octopus).

After the rest of Calendar time we read two fun books that talk about what makes us unique, Do Lions Have Trunks? by Peter Curry and Look at Me! by Allia Zobel-Nolan. Then we went and colored a picture of ourselves.

Next we finished our Alphabet books by decorating the front cover.

After snack we reviewed our numbers, ABC's, shapes, and colors, and we danced to our color march!

Taking CAre of our Bodies!!

2009-05-26T14:40:00.000-07:00

May 21, 2009

Welcome activity- Building blocks
LBQ- What can we do to exercise our bodies? Some great answers were

swim
ride your bike
yoga
run
somersaults
jumping jacks
arm circles
breathing :)

Pledge/ Weather/ Calendar

We then sang Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear and added some of our own exercise moves.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear

Teddy Bear, teddy Bear,

turn around,

Teddy Bear, teddy Bear,

Touch the ground.

Teddy Bear, teddy Bear,

Wiggle your nose,

Teddy Bear, teddy Bear,

Stand on your toes.

Teddy bear, teddy bear,

(added an exercise that the kids picked and started from the beginning each time)

We then read My Amazing Body by Pat Thomas. This was a great review because Miss Laura had read it on Tuesday.

Next we cut out and then glued in order our bodies. We talked about what was at the top, middle, and bottom of our bodies and matched the pictures accordingly.

Fundamentals-

ABC's sing and review.

Color review. Letter Xx card review.

We also reviewed the number 10 and played Is it 10? Then we did our Is it 10? worksheet before playtime.

Our Bodies Can Do Amazing Things!!

2009-05-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, May 19th

Today we started building towers with blocks. When we were all gathered we started calendar time with our Learning Box Question: "What are healthy things you can do for your body?"

After calendar, we read My Amazing Body by Pat Thomas. We learned about all the amazing things our body can do like, think better than a computer and move better than a robot. Then we felt our heart beats, got up and exercised, then felt our heart beats again. The kids saw how exercise makes your heart beat faster. And we sang:

The Healthy Army

(you're the drill sergeant and your child repeats after you)

We are healthy little ones! (We are healthy little ones!)

Watch us jump and watch us run! (Watch us jump and watch us run!)

Healthy bodies, healthy hearts! (Healthy bodies, healthy hearts!)

We are winners from the start! (We are winners from the start!)

Next we fed Mrs. Healthy Foods and Mrs. Bad Foods (Yes, I realize I could have been more creative with the names, but the kids liked them.) We had two bags with faces on them. One had a smile cut out (Mrs. Healthy Foods) and one had a frown cut out (Mrs. Bad Foods). The morning class cut food out of magazines and then we fed our bags accordingly. The afternoon class finished feeding them, then glued the food on a poster with the healthy foods on one side and the not healthy on the other.

Next we went and had our snack. The children were quick to point out what was healthy and what was not! Have you noticed this at home too? :)

After snack we counted and filled out our number 10 postcards.

Then we sang our ABC's and introduced Xx. We learned the sign for Xx, sang our song, and went and colored our alphabet page!

The Letter Xx

to the tune of Frere Jacques

The letter X. The letter X. (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)

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

I'm sorry! My camera's battery ran out! :( No pictures today. I'll take a picture of our food poster and post it here for you too see!

The Dino Ditty!!!!!!!!

2009-05-19T14:13:00.001-07:00

May 14

Happy Birthday Mary-Kate!! Today she turned 4 and we celebrated in style! She brought yummy birthday doughnuts and we sang to her. She was so excited to turn 4 and we hope she had a fun day!

This morning we colored a dinosaur picture for our welcoming activity. This is our last dinosaur day and we have had so much fun learning all about dinosaurs. Some of the kids like Cade, Tyler, and Cameron might be sad we are done. Others like Mary-Kate, Sadie, and Sarah might be happy.
Our LBQ- Can you act like a dinosaur? We got a few great pictures here of the kids being such loud and scary dinosaurs! It was great to see how they moved around and growled at each other.

Pledge/Weather/Calendar

Next we acted out our Hiding Dinosaur poem.

Dinosaur, Dinosaur, where can you be?

Hiding behind me (hands behind back)

Where you cannot see,

Now you see one. (bring out one hand)

It's waiting for you.

Here comes another, (bring out other hand)

And now you see two!!

We also sang The Dino Ditty-

Here he comes just a stomping with his feet

Singing Dino, ditty, ditty-dum, ditty do

Searching all around for something to eat

Singing Dino, ditty, ditty-dum, ditty do

He's huge(echo). He's strong(echo) He's huge, he's strong.

Won't be hungry very long

Dino ditty, ditty-dum, ditty do

Yeah, Dino ditty, ditty-dum, ditty do.

We read Dinosaurs in the Treasury of Animal and Nature book by Learning Horizons. This book was a great review and end our dinosaur theme.

These last few weeks in school are also a time to review what we have learned throughout the year. Today we decided to have a little bit of fun with colors! We used three colors, blue, red, and yellow to make three more colors. The kids each picked two colors to start and each hand was painted a different color. Then they put those hand prints on the paper and then rubbed their hands together for the magic trick. That's right they made a new color!!! They loved it and thought it was awesome! Some of the kids knew what color they would get when their hands rubbed together, but it didn't make it any less cool!!! This was messy but so worth it.

After snack we moved onto fundamentals. We reviewed our ABC's and counted 1-20. We also reviewed the letter Qq and introduced the picture cards.

we love our MOMS!!

2009-05-14T06:11:00.000-07:00

Today's LBQ was "What do you love most about your mom?" We learned that the children all have great mom's who make them cookies, tuck them in at night, and give them hugs and kisses! Good job MOMS and Happy belated Mother's Day!!!

After calendar time we read, Mama Do You Love Me? by Barbara M. Joosse and made a fun craft for our Mama's! If you haven't found your surprise yet, make sure to check folders and cash in on each flower. :)

After snack time we reviewed what a semi-circle is and sang our song and played 'freeze!' around the semi-circle. The kids were all smiles as they danced, jumped, ran, and even crawled around the shape. Whenever the music stopped they all did their best to FREEZE!

Then we reviewed our ABC's. We sang the alphabet song opera style (a favorite) and dinosaur style and plain old 'in our best voices' style. We looked at different letters and remembered what sound they made. We especially reviewed Dd. We sang our song again and looked at pictures of things that start with Dd: Dog, Dinosaur, Diamond, and Ducks.

Then we introduced Qq. We learned the ASL sign for Qq and sang our song and colored a page for our books!

The Letter Qq
to the tune of Frere Jacques
The letter Q. The letter Q. (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)
/q/ /q/ /q/! /q/ /q/ /q/! (Make ASL sign for letter, move hand forward and backward for each sound)

Get ready for a lot of pictures!! I think we were trying to compensate for the last class!

Dinosaurs, ROAR!!!!!

2009-05-11T15:03:00.001-07:00

May 7th

Today we had camera difficulties again so only one picture is posted. And as you can see it is a great picture!! Well the kids sure loved it!! We are talking about dinosaurs and the kids are mostly fascinated, although a few say they are grossed out, and one or two are a little scared. Most of these books and dinosaurs are from Cade's personal collection and we are happy he so eagerly wanted to share.

Our morning started with blocks. The kids usually work well together and create some interesting buildings.

LBQ- What dinosaur would you be and why?
This was really fun today because of the toy dinosaurs we had in the room. This allowed the children to really see what they might like or dislike about a dinosaur.

Some interesting dinosaur facts we discussed are:

they are extinct
smallest species was the size of a chicken
the biggest ones were bigger than the biggest whales
lived 65 million years ago
Dinosaur means "terrible'' or "fearfully great", "lizard" or "reptile"

Next we sang a great song called 5 Crazy Dinosaurs-

5 crazy Dinosaurs sweeping the floor 1 got swept away, then there were four

4 crazy Dinosaurs chased by a bee, 1 got stung, then there were 3

3 crazy Dinosaurs playing with glue, 1 got stuck, then there were 2

2 crazy Dinosaurs out for a run 1 fell down, then there was 1

1 crazy Dinosaur acting like a hero He went out to save the others, then there were zero

After our song we read Meet the Dinosaurs by DK Publishing. This is the same book that Miss Laura read last class.

Next we made our very own dinosaurs! Our shoeseratops!! Using the kids foot as an outline we traced each of their footprints onto paper. Then we had only two requirements, a head and a tail needed to be on their dinosaur. After that they could design and decorate however they wanted. We decided we will do more of this next year. They need to have more freedom in their art projects so they can be more creative. They loved this and they turned out so cute, we of course personalized each dinosaur and named them in their honor!!!

Snack

Fundamentals-

Abc's

Reviewed the letter Dd using object cards with pictures of items that begin with the letter Dd.

Lastly before we could play we had a tracer page to complete. Every student had a page with their name on it to trace. This is something that you child could practice over the summer break. Go on-line and print off their name and have them practice tracing it again and again.

http://www.kidzone.ws/tracers/none/index.asp

Welcome May!

2009-05-07T14:48:00.000-07:00

May 6th

Welcome back to preschool! I feel like we took a long vacation.... well, not so much a vacation for me, but I missed the kids and it was fun to have them back! :)

We started off the day playing with blocks.

The LBQ was "Do you like dinosaurs? Why or why not?" Most of the kids like dinosaurs and especially the Tyrannosaurus!

After calendar we introduced our "fun"damentals for May.

10: We played follow the leader. One child got to wear the 10 necklace and name an action that we all did 10 times.

semi-circle:

A semi-circle goes around, (hold hand up above head like a circle)

But only half the way. (drop hands down to form a straight line around chest level)

It is like a circle (use hand to form a circle)

With a missing half. (shrug shoulders)

So it cannot roll away! (shake head "no")

Pattern-ABC: I did an action in an ABC pattern and had everyone follow, when they caught on I switched it a little until they caught on again. (clap, knee, shoulder, clap, knee, shoulder, etc.... clap, knee, head, clap knee, head, etc...)

Colors-We reviewed all of the colors we have talked about this year by finding different colors around the room.

Next we finished our butterfly books. We've been reading them over and over, make sure they read them to you!

After snack, we read Meet the Dinosaurs by DK Publishing. We introduced our new theme and talked about if dinosaurs are real and what extinct means.

Then we reviewed our letters and introduced Dd. We sang our song and colored a page for our alphabet books.

The Letter Dd

to the tune of Frere Jacques

The letter D. The letter D. (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)

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

BUgs in YouR BackYarD!

2009-05-06T23:17:00.000-07:00

Today we started with puzzles and learning folders. This is a great way to start our morning!
LBQ? What is your favorite bug? Why?
Most of the kids said that ladybugs were their favorite. Why? Because they were pretty and crawled on you and tickled your arm!! I wonder if I had brought in a pill bug if that would have been the number one answer.

Pledge/Weather/Calendar

We next went in and marched to the tune, Ants Go Marching One by One! It was such a cute song and they all marched with so much energy and excitement!! The pictures posted here are great and show some of their great expressions.

Next we read a short, sight word reader book called Bugs in Your Backyard. The author is Rozanne Lancaaz Williams and the illustrator is Bernard Adnet. This is a great book to also practice counting. The pages were filled with cute drawings of different bugs you might find in a backyard.

After reading a book we went and did page 5 in our Butterfly books. We also reviewed our two colors for the month, pink and orange. A great way we review our colors is to do our Is it Orange? Is it Pink? worksheet. We have four objects on the paper, two that are one color and two that are the other. We discuss the colors that match the object and then color them in accordingly.

Snack

Fundamentals-

Abc's(recognition and letter sound)
Shape
AABB(pattern)
#9

After counting to nine and recognizing the number we played Is It 9? This is first done on the white board together and then we have a worksheet that we do as a class. The sheet is great practice for cutting, counting, following directions, gluing.

Playtime!!!!!

LadyBuGs Are CraWLinG On Me!!

2009-05-06T14:56:00.000-07:00

Our morning class started our day coloring our letter Ss from Tuesday. The afternoon class was able to finish that already. The afternoon class did puzzles and matching games while waiting until class started.

LBQ- Have you ever held a ladybug? How did it feel?

Most all the children said that they had held a ladybug at least once and some even like fifty!!!! They said that ladybugs make your arms tickle, they are soft, and pretty. Next we all took turns holding a REAL ladybug. I caught one at my house right before school and was hoping that I could find more. But one seemed to be just enough after all. We also pretended to "play dead" just like ladybugs do when a predator is coming!!!!

Pledge/Weather/ Calendar

Ladybugs Facts

ladybugs are beetles
4,000 different kinds of ladybugs around the world
active in Spring and Summer
not fast flyers
protect themselves by "playing dead"
eat aphids that could destroy the crops that we eat

After learning a few fun facts we sang a song as we passed along our paper ladybug we had made on Tuesday. We pretended our ladybug was a girl ladybug flying from each of us to one another.

Ladybugs Fly

Ladybugs fly, fly, fly

They fly over here, they fly over there,

They fly up high and they fly down low,

Around, and around, and around they go,

They fly really fast, and they fly really slow,

Ladybugs fly, fly, fly!

Next we read a great book called Red, Fiery, and Bright by Mia Posada. This is another fabulous book I have purchased through Scholastic books. After reading the book and discussing it we did our bug worksheet.This sheet was to help teach recognition and matching same items together. The directions were to circle and color the matching three items in a row.

After snack we went back to the pre-school room to review our fundamentals. Today was a good review for the colors pink and orange. This review helped us prepare for our Is it pink/orange? worksheet that we will do on Tuesday. We reviewed our letters and their sounds. Also reviewed today was colors and shapes.

The last project today before playtime was page four of our butterfly books. We are almost done with these and they will making their way home soon!!

bugs bugs bugs!

2009-04-23T06:56:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, April 21

Welcome Jolie!

Jolie has joined our afternoon class and we are so excited to have her!

Guess what I'm thinking of....
* I'm thinking of an insect

* It can be yellow, orange, pink, or red
* Some are red with black spots and some have no spots
* They eat 75 aphids per day (aphids are little bugs that suck the sap from plant stems and leaves)
* They flap their wings 85 times a second
* They smell with their feet
* They secrete an oil that smells and tastes bad so enemies won't eat them
* 4300 species
* They are sometimes called ladybirds or ladybeetles

Ladybug!! Good job! :)

This is the game we played after we welcomed with blocks, had calendar time, and reviewed a little about butterflies.

Then we sang a fun song.

You Are By Ladybug

Tune of You Are My Sunshine

You are my ladybug, my special ladybug.

You eat the aphids to save my plants.

You'll never know bug. How much I need you.

Please don't harm this spotted ladybug.

We made up some great actions, too. Sarah and Jacob and I spotted a ladybug on Wednesday and Sarah said, "Sing him our song!" Then we did. I thought it was cute. :)

Next we read The Very Lazy Ladybug by Isobel Finn and did a great ladybug craft!

Then we completed another page in our butterfly books and finished our butterfly craft from last week.

After snack we reviewed the alphabet and introduced the letter Ss!

The Letter Ss

to the tune of Frere Jacques

The letter S. The letter S. (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)

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

The afternoon class had time to color the worksheet also, but the morning class will be coloring it Thursday! :)

Fly Like a Butterfly!!

2009-04-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

Today was a day filled with flying and butterfly wishes! We all pretended to be a beautiful butterfly that could fly around the sky. We would stop on a flower for food, or follow the wind up to the top of a tree!

Our morning class welcomed Ian, although most of the kids recognized him. Ian was in our afternoon class and just made the transfer to morning for the last month left of school this year.

Pledge/ Weather/ Calendar followed our pretend butterfly flight!

We sang our rectangle song and then used our bodies to make a rectangle. Our shape was a bit more recognizable in the a.m. pictures because of the class size. But no matter the size we did it and sang our song!! They love this song and I would be surprised if they had not been singing part of it or doing the hand movements for you at home. Are any of you able to sing the rectangle song by heart yet????:)

Next we read It's a Butterfly's Life, by Irene Kelly. This book is almost too full of information about butterflies to cover in one day with pre-school age kids. It is a great book I picked up through Scholastic books. I get so many great books through my daughter Zoe's school, but anyone can go to http://www.scholastic.com/ and order.

After reading and talking about our favorite part, which by the way did you know a butterfly can taste a cupcake by standing on top of it, we made a butterfly. We painted coffee filters with water paints and then let them dry. We did not get time to finish them today and so on Tuesday they will be completed. Before snack we opened our Butterfly books and to do page 2. This time we colored a fence and a doll. We then glued our butterflies below the fence and above the doll. This is great for the kids to practice pointing to the spot before they glue their butterfly there. We all point to the words that are under the pictures and read aloud together. So many say but I can't read, but with repetition they should be able to read this book. After we completed page 2 we read the all the pages we had now finished.

Fundamentals today were reviewing our ABC's and some of the sounds that a letter makes. We introduced the letter Bb to our a.m. class and reviewed it with our p.m. class.

The Letter Bb to the tune of Frere Jacques The letter B. The letter B. (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)/b /b/ /b/! /b/ /b/ /b/! (Make ASL sign for letter, move hand forward and backward for each sound)

We then read a great book to introduce the letter BB. The Berenstain's B Book. What a hard book to read, well it is after a few times!!!! Miss Laura was having a good laugh at my expense!!

PLAYTIME!!!!!

a beautiful butterfly!

2009-04-14T17:17:00.002-07:00

Today, as we welcomed everyone to preschool, we made patterns with the color bears.

Then, after calendar, we talked about butterflies! I asked the children where butterflies come from. Some thought they might come from flowers or bushes, one answer was, "a caterpillar goes in his house and comes out as a butterfly" (impressive!), and another answer even involved the chrysalis (wow!!). Then we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, to find out where they come from. While we read we did these hand motions to help us remember.

*Egg - hand clutched in a fist

*Caterpillar - index finger extended, scrunched, extended, scrunched

*Chrysalis - index finger of one hand wrapped by other hand

*Butterfly - interlock thumbs, wiggle fingers, and do flying motion

More Butterfly Facts

Insects

3 body parts: head, thorax, abdomen

6 legs

2 sets of wings

2 antennae - helps to feel, smell, and explore.

Active during the day and sleep at night

Next we pretended to be caterpillars that turned into butterflies, then we made super cute caterpillars (in an ABAB pattern). They are hanging on the wall of the preschool for everyone to see. :)

Then we began our Butterfly Books that teach prepositional phrases (over, under, above, next to). We'll be working on these over the next few weeks.

After snack we reviewed numbers and made our number 9 cards. Then we reviewed letters and introduced Bb.

The Letter Bb

to the tune of Frere Jacques

The letter B. The letter B. (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)

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

Jumpin Jelly Beans!!!

2009-04-14T17:17:00.001-07:00

Our morning started with a bunny hop dance off!! We all jumped our very best bunny hop to Little Bunny Fu Fu!! The kids love to dance and I can tell they get a lot of practice at home with all of you!!!

LBQ- Are you going anywhere for Easter?

Pledge/ Weather/ Calendar

Next we sang our Jelly Belly song from Tuesday that the kids loved so much, what a tongue twister!!

This morning we also sang a wonderful song called Hippity- Hoppity Easter( to the tune of Eensy Weensy Spider)

The Hippity-Hoppity Easter Bunny is coming straight at me.

Closer and closer he hops upon my knee.

Up to my shoulder the Bunny's much to near.

Happy Easter, he whispers in my ear.

After singing we moved on to read a cute, short book called Little Duckling's Colorful Easter by Eleanor Hudson. This book was full of colorful pages with raised glitter on the pictures. The kids loved to feel the pages as we discussed the colors and flowers that Little Duckling picked for her mother. We suggested that maybe all of them so kindly see if their dad's would help them pick Easter flowers for mom. Did anyone get a bouquet of beautiful flowers?

Next we incorporated our jelly belly beans into our math for the day. We had a jelly bean sheet that had a different color in each line with numerous jelly bean shapes on the line. First we had everyone find the matching crayon and underlined the name of the color. After they knew which colors matched the words, they received a small cup full of colored jelly beans. Next they were to match up the jelly beans with the line that was the same color. At the end we asked for them to point out the line with the most jelly beans, and the one with the least. Most of them understood this and were able to point out the line with the most. And at the end they were so happy because they each ate a jelly bean from their longest line.

Snack time is always fun, loud but fun. They all seen to make noises with their snack and somehow whatever they are eating comes to life!!

After snack we had a blank rabbit drawing that was missing something so important, a face!! We talked about what was missing and how important all the parts on our face were. The kids said he or she needed two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. Some said he/she needed eyebrows, earrings, cheeks, and lipstick! Kids are so cute!!!

Lastly, before our Easter egg hunt could start we needed to review our Fundamentals. We counted to nine, sang our rectangle song, practiced our AA BB pattern, and found pink and orange items around the room.

The kids were so excited for the Easter egg hunt and it was so fun to watch them scatter so fast to look for them. These pictures don't show enough of their excitement, it was so fun!!!!

Hoppy Easter Time!

2009-04-09T07:09:00.000-07:00

We started the day out coloring Easter eggs! Hurray for Easter time! We love it!
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After calendar time, we reviewed rectangle and played "rock around the rectangle". We walked, danced, jumped, marched, crawled and tip toed around the rectangle and we would FREEZE when the music stopped. We also talked about in, out, and on the rectangle.
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Next we re-read The Story of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. We reviewed the front, back, title, pictures and words of a book.
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Then we sang!

Al and Etta

tune of alouette

Al and Etta both went out to get a

Jumbo jar of jolly jelly beans.

Jolly Jelly beans of pink

That's exactly what I think

Beans of pink (sing high)

Beans of pink (sing low)

Beans of pink (sing high)

Beans of pink (sing low)

Ooooooooooh!

Al and Etta both went out to get a
Jumbo jar of jolly jelly beans.
Jolly Jelly beans of green
That's exactly what I mean

Beans of green (sing high)
Beans of green (sing low)
Beans of green (sing high)
Beans of green (sing low)
Ooooooooooh!

Al and Etta both went out to get a

Jumbo jar of jolly jelly beans.

Jolly Jelly beans of blue

This is what I'm telling you
Beans of blue (sing high)

Beans of blue(sing low)

Beans of blue (sing high)

Beans of blue (sing low)

Ooooooooooh!

.
Al and Etta both went out to get a
Jumbo jar of jolly jelly beans.
Jolly Jelly beans of red
That's exactly what I said

Beans of red (sing high)
Beans of red (sing low)
Beans of red (sing high)
Beans of red (sing low)
Ooooooooooh!

.
Al and Etta both went out to get a
Jumbo jar of jolly jelly beans.
Jolly Jelly beans of orange

Nothing really rhymes with orange.

After a hearty rendition of Al and Etta (which will be stuck in my head for at least the next month), we made our Easter bags. The kids all tried to cut around the bunny head themselves. It was hard to get around all those grooves!
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Then, after snack, we reviewed colors and played "Is it Pink or Orange"? The kids each took turns picking from my bag of colors and placing the items in the pink or orange piles.
.

Next, we reviewed Ee. We looked at pictures that started with Ee, then I said some words, if the word started with the /e/ sound the kids gave me a big smile, if it started with another sound, they gave me a frown.

Hippity Hoppity!! Easter is Here!!

2009-04-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

We wanted to first welcome Caleb and Taryn to our afternoon class. They are both a great addition to our group and we are happy to have them!!

This morning was the start of a new month which means new fundamentals to learn. We started our day with our educational fun folders. These are folders with matching numbers, shapes, letters, and colors inside for practice.

It's time for the learning box, it's time for the learning box, let's gather 'round and all sit down it's time for the learning box. This short song is the cue for the kids to stop doing their welcoming activity and clean up so that school may start. It is really great in transitioning them into the start of our day. Our LBQ(learning box question) What is your favorite Easter treat? (chocholate eggs, bunnies and candy were a few of the answers!)

Pledge/ Weather/ Calendar are always next.

After calendar I had the new cards in my hand and had the kids draw one for us to learn about. First we looked at the colors pink and orange and had someone find an item in the room one of these colors.

Next we drew the number nine and played follow the leader. We all stand in a circle and whoever is wearing the number nine gets to pick something to do nine times(clap, jump, spin, hop on one foot, roll, nod).

Our shape this month is a rectangle. Our song goes like this,

Two sides are short(hands in close), Two sides are long(hands spread out)

This makes our shape very strong(flex muscles)

It's a rectanlge that's it's name(draw shape in air)

All the sides are not the same(nod finger and head to say no)

AABB is our new pattern for the month. We always do a body movement to help the kids understand what a pattern is. For example,

clap, clap, touch head, touch head(4x)

clap, clap, pat legs, pat legs(4x)

touch floor, touch floor, shoulder, shoulder(4x)

clap, clap, touch head, touch head (ending where we started)

We then read, The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. What a classic story and is always a kid favorite. After reading the story and discussing our favorite parts we colored an Easter bunny of our own.

The last fundamental of the day introduced the letter Ee and its sound.

The Letter Ee
to the tune of Frere JacquesThe letter E. The letter E. (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)/e /e/ /e/! /e/ /e/ /e/! (Make ASL sign for letter, move hand forward and backward for each sound)

a TRiP to the BeaCH!

2009-03-31T15:34:00.000-07:00

Today after welcoming and calendar some of us read Somewhere in the Ocean by Jennifer Ward and T.J. Marsh. ...somehow I forgot the story for the morning class... SORRY!! They have read it before, though, so they already know what a fun story it is.

Next we looked in the beach bag I packed for our trip to the beach and talked about all the things you might see on the beach. It was fun to see the kids pretend with me. We ran our fingers through the sand and found seashells of all sorts of colors. Kids can be so creative it's amazing!

After that we talked about scuba divers and went "scuba diving" outside while we looked for things we'd find in the ocean.

Then we took my blue blanket (the ocean) and bounced a beach ball on it while singing...

(tune of Farmer in the Dell)

The waves move up and down.

Without making a sound.

They move through the water and through the air.

The waves move up and down.

Then we talked about how we might feel the ocean spray us while we're on the beach and we threw soaked sponges to each other to feel a little spray. :) I'm pretty sure the kids were throwing them at each other instead of to each other!

After snack we reviewed letters and numbers. Then we reviewed yellow and green and did our worksheet.

Then some of us played "guppy, guppy, shark" (duck, duck, goose). You see, since I remembered the story for the afternoon class, we didn't have time for the game!! It's a really fun game, so we'll definitely make it up to them!!

Then of course, we played!

Glad to have all your kids back!

This is a random song we sang through out the day...

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Once I caught a fish alive. (Hold fingers up one at a time, then throw hands in the air.)

6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Then I put it back again. (Hold fingers up then throw arms out like your throwing the fish back.)

Why did you throw him back? (In a really low voice.)

Because he bit my finger so! (In a really high voice.)

Which finger did he bite? (Low voice.)

The little finger on my right! (High voice.)

Usery Mountain FIELDTRIP!

2009-03-29T09:57:00.000-07:00

I'm glad some of you were able to make it to our field trip to Usery Mountain Regional Park. It was a lot of fun. We got there and the Park Ranger was reading Way Out in the Desert by T. J. Marsh. She had the kids act like all of the animals and it was really cute to watch them all. Then we went for a very short wilderness hike. Beforehand she reminded the children to be careful and taught us all what to do if we encounter a rattle snake (hold very still, find it, back away slowly)! When we got back the children looked back through the book and found a number hiding on each page. Then we sat and ate lunch and the rangers passed out junior ranger badges to all of the kids. There was also a little playground they got to play on. I loved it, but I'm a sucker for desert stuff. If you didn't get to make it or are just interested in going again they do all sorts of activities through out the month and you can find them here.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

2009-03-29T09:14:00.001-07:00

Your kids are so cute in green!! We had a fun St. Patricks day and I'm glad it worked out that we were here on the 17th.

After welcoming and calendar we talked a little about what the holiday is then we read Looking for Leprechauns by Sheila Keenan.

Then we colored a rainbow and experimented with colors. We put shaving cream in a bag with drops of food coloring. The kids mixed it up to see what happened!

After snack we reviewed the letters Ff and Oo. Then we reviewed patterns and did our St. Patty's pattern worksheet.

Next we went on a treasure hunt! Everyone got a pot and went searching for gold to put in it. :) It was a lot of fun and then we played!

WE love the OcEan!!

2009-03-25T21:40:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Sarah!!! Today we celebrated Sarah's 5th birthday and she was so excited! She even wanted to wear the crown for a bit, she wore it like a princess!

Our welcome activity today was puzzles.

LBQ- What fun things can you do in the ocean?

Pledge / Weather/ Calendar

Next we sang once again our Five Little Shells song.

Five little shells lying on the shore,
Crash went the waves! Then there were four.
Four little shells, down by the sea,
Crash went the waves! Then there were three.
Three little shells, smooth and new,
Crash went the waves! Then there were two.
Two little shells, sparkling in the sun,
Crash went the waves! Then there was one.
One little shell, all by itself,
I took it home and put it on my shelf.

We then read Smiley Shark by Ruth Galloway.

Next we learned some fun facts about sting rays.

cousins to the sharks

200 species

2kinds -benthic, or bottom rays that are rounded in shape and pelagic, or swimming rays that are bat shaped.

the benthic rays eat mainly worms, clams, shrimp, crabs, and snails

the pelagic rays mainly eat plankton and a few of the small animals listed above

not all sting rays sting, such as the butterfly or devil rays.

After learning some new facts about sting rays it was time for our craft project. Today we made a sting ray and decorated it with spots, eyes, and some spikes on the tail!

We then reviewed our letter Oo cards and sang our Oo song. We also reviewed words that might or might not start with the letter Oo. This is great to see how much sound recognition they might have for the letters. If the word does start with an Oo then they simply smile. If not then they will give me a big frown.

Is it 8? First we play the game together on the white board and then we all move on to doing our own cutting, counting, and gluing.

Playtime and clean-up! What a fun day!! We love our pre-school and we hope the kids are sharing all the fun things we do with you at home! Thanks!!!

Fishy Tales

2009-03-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Today as the children arrived they laced up a diamond.

After calendar we learned a poem that reinforced counting back from 5.

Five Little Shells

Five little shells lying on the shore,

Crash went the waves! Then there were four.

Four little shells, down by the sea,

Crash went the waves! Then there were three.

Three little shells, smooth and new,

Crash went the waves! Then there were two.

Two little shells, sparkling in the sun,

Crash went the waves! Then there was one.

One little shell, all by itself,

I took it home and put it on my shelf.

The kids had so much fun clapping their hands for every 'Crash!' and taking the shells away one at a time.

Then we read Fishy Tales by Linda B. Gambrell. It is a non-fiction story about animals that live in the sea.

After that we talked about crabs. The kids learned to do the crab walk! For some it was more of a scoot, but everyone gave it great effort. :) And we made a crab out of our handprints.

After snack we reviewed colors and shapes. Then we counted and made a number card with the number 8, the word 'eight', and eight "starfish".

Next we introduced Oo. We learned the ASL sign and sang our Oo song and colored a picture for our alphabet books.

The Letter Oo
to the tune of Frere Jacques

The letter O. The letter O. (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)

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

Something is FiShY!!!

2009-03-11T15:37:00.000-07:00

We started off our morning sorting our color bears and lacing our shapes.
Our LBQ- Can you name something that lives in the ocean? Lots of answers were sharks, dolphins, and whales. After a little discussion we named sea horse, turtle, and starfish.
Next was the morning pledge/ weather/ and calendar. All of the kids are getting so good at reciting the pledge, it is so special to hear them.

Today is freeze dance day and the kids get so excited when they see the tape on the floor. They know just what this means, dancing time!!!! After the calendar we all make our way to the tape shape!! This month we are learning about a diamond. We walked forward and backwards, jumped, slide, crawled, marched, and anything else we can think of on, in, and outside of the diamond.

Next we read Somewhere in the Ocean, by Jennifer Ward and T.J. Marsh. This is a great counting book and really engages the children. This in another book worth investing in and having in your home library.

After reading and all picking their favorite animal from the book we moved on to make our own fishes. We had a shape of a fish traced and cut and ready to decorate. Each child got to paint on a layer of glue and water before pasting a variety of tissue paper to their fish. This was fun for them to choose the colors they wanted their fish to be and our only directions were to cover the whole fish and try to spread the paper out flat.

After our fish were done we moved on to snack time! Thanks for all the great snacks being brought, even when your snack day might be a day your child misses. We appreciate it!!

For fundamentals today we reviewed the letter Ff and the picture cards with objects starting with the letter Ff. I also asked them to smile if the words I said started with the Ff sound, or frown if not. These included; fish, rock, fan, food, shark, and ocean.

We ended our fundamentals playing Is it yellow? Is it green? I had each child pull an object out of my bag and tell me what color it was. We made a yellow pile and a green one. And then it was time to play!!!!!!!!!

The Deep Blue Sea

2009-03-06T08:24:00.001-08:00

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Today our welcoming activity was playing in the backyard. We wanted to take advantage of how nice it's been outside! After calendar time we introduced all of our fundamentals for the month of March.

Diamond:

A diamond is a pretty sight. (hold hands up to eyes)

It can sparkle and be very bright. (open and close hands like they're flashing)

With a point at the bottom, (hold arms down with fingertips touching)

And a point on the top, (hold arms up with fingertips touching)

A point on each side, (touch one elbow and then the other)

And that's where we stop! (hold up hands to mean stop)

Green/Yellow: We found the different colors somewhere in the room.

8 eight: We played follow the leader. Each child had a turn wearing the number eight and choosing an action we would do eight times.

AABC: We talked about patterns. I made an action pattern and the kids followed. For example: clap, clap, slap your knees, touch your head; clap, clap, slap your knees, touch your head; etc. After we followed the pattern for a while, I changed one action (clap, clap, slap your knees, touch your nose). I did this a few times then ended up with the original pattern.

Then we read Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea by Jan Peck. We talked about pretend stories and about all the animals that are in the ocean. One of which is an octopus which is what we made next. They turned out great!! And the kids always love having their hands painted on. :)

After snack we sang our ABC's and reviewed some letters, then introduced Ff. We learned the sign for Ff and sang our song and colored a page for our books.

The Letter Ff

to the tune of Frere Jacques
The letter F. The letter F. (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)
/f/ /f/ /f/! /f/ /f/ /f/! (Make ASL sign for letter, move hand forward and backward for each sound)

It's Hot In the Desert!! Already!!!

2009-03-04T15:55:00.000-08:00

We started our morning coloring a desert memory game. These are hopefully are making their way home and into your game bucket. These are great for the kids and help them use their memorization skills while learning about desert life.

Our LBQ today- Can you act out your favorite desert creature? We loved Cade's scorpion once again!

Pledge/Weather/ Calendar

We reviewed our desert flash cards and asked if they could tell us one fact about the plant or animal. They really remembered quite a bit and we were definitely impressed and smiling!

We then read Hide-N-Go Snake. It was a fun book that made us look really hard to find where our colorful snake was hiding. After we read it everyone got to pick where their favorite hiding spot for the snake was.

Next we finished our snake plates which are so cute. Miss Laura has such great ideas and these crafts the kids are making are so fun. We love to watch their reaction as they get so excited to take them home and show you!!

After the snakes were completed we counted and cut our animal chains. This was a great class activity to count together. This was also a great way to practice our cutting and gluing.

In our fundamentals today we reviewed the letters Zz, Vv, and Kk. We also looked and the colors pink and purple, the number 7, and the shape of a heart.

Our last activity of the day before playtime was to color our, Is It Pink? Is It Purple? worksheet.

Today we made our way to the grassy area to play, but kept walking when we realized the grass was super wet. So we just continued back to Miss Laura's and pointed out the desert cactus and flowers along the way!

Learning the Pledge of Allegiance

2009-03-01T18:04:00.000-08:00

We are always saying that the world needs to see how cute your kids are when they say the pledge. Neely sent this video of Tyler and it is precious (and impressive)! I had to share it with you. :) Thanks Neely!

you can pause the music at the bottom of the blog to hear Tyler

DeSeRt FuN!

2009-02-26T06:18:00.000-08:00

Tuesday Feb. 24, 2009

We started off the day sorting out our color bears and lacing around our shapes.

Our learning box question was "What kind of things can you find in the desert?" We wrote down their answers and after calendar time the kids took turns drawing out someones answer and acting it out. We weren't sure how it would go, but the children did really well coming up with ideas!

After charades we re-read Cactus Hotel by Brenda Z. Guiberson. Did you know that a saguaro cactus can grow to be 50 feet tall?! (after 150 years!) We went outside with a 50 foot piece of yarn to show them just how long that is. We also laid our first class down to see if they could be as tall as a cactus, but we didn't quite make it!

Next we painted a paper plate with brown, black and yellow, which will later be made into a snake!

After snack we reviewed the colors pink and purple. The children took turns choosing items from a bag and putting it in the pink pile or the purple pile.

Then we reviewed our February letters, Kk, Vv, and Zz. We reviewed the sound and with each letter I said three words, ie. for Kk I said, kite, kitten, and zebra and they would smile when it began with /k/ and frown if it did not. Then they took turns choosing a picture and placing it under the correct letter.

Then we played. :)

rabbit...
snake...
cactus
scorpion...

snake...
cactus...
owl...

Desert Creatures!!

2009-02-25T14:18:00.000-08:00

February 19, 2009

After our welcome activity of blocks, we had our learning box question. What is your favorite desert creature? This was a great way to review the desert that we had started to talk about and read about from Tuesday. We had a coyote and a snake as our number one and two answers. They were all so excited to howl and hiss, this might be why they were the top answers!

After pledge/weather/calendar, we reviewed some pictures of desert creatures and introduced a few more to learn about. A few fun filled fact cards introduced a scorpion, Gila monster, and also a few species of cacti.

After the desert review we read a wonderful book called Cactus Hotel by Brenda Z. Guiberson. This is a great book and one to have on your shelf, especially since we live here in the beautiful Arizona desert!!! After looking at the pictures and talking about what we saw, we read the book. This is always so fun to see how excited they are when what they guessed about a page was right. A fun way to get kids to think more about the book is to ask what their favorite part was and why.

Next we cut and decorated our very own saguaro cactus. They all are getting so much better at cutting. This is great for all of us!!!!They glued their cactus on a white background paper and then cut out flowers to go on the cactus. Then they could add any desert features they wanted to their picture.

We also reviewed the letter Zz and the number 7. We played Is It 7? This is a fun for all and a great way to involve all in counting the objects on the card. We always end this game by having all of the children do their own worksheet. This is another great practice for cutting and counting. We all count together to figure out if we counted 7.

Last we had playtime! Boy are they so excited when they hear those words!!!

We love you Arizona!

2009-02-19T07:46:00.000-08:00

Today after welcoming with some puzzles and calendar time, we introduced our Desert/AZ theme. We read Way Out West Lives a Coyote Named Frank by Jillian Lund. The kids had fun seeing Frank and his friends and their adventures with other desert creatures. They even howled at the moon a little. :)

After the book we did a writing activity. "_________ and _________" are my friends. We always ask the children to write down any sounds they hear first then we help them finish the words. Some of them are able to write down a few sounds. Some are able to tell me a sound and we're still working on knowing what the letter looks like that goes with the sound.

We also learned how to make a heart! The kids folded a piece of pink paper in half and traced half of a heart and cut it out. They opened it and found a heart. They did really well with this activity.

During circle time we played mailbox math. The kids took turns choosing a number and counting out hearts to put in a mailbox. We reviewed our ABC's, then introduced Zz and colored our Zz coloring page.

The Letter Zz

to the tune of Frere Jacques

The letter Z. The letter Z. (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)

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

We also reviewed our shapes.

I put my hands together, this is how I start.

I curve my hands right around and I can make a heart!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

2009-02-17T12:44:00.000-08:00

This morning was full of love and giggles. We all seemed extra excited about Valentine's Day and our party today. We started our morning coloring our valentine memory game pieces. We reviewed that the pieces that looked the same should be colored the same so they would match.
LBQ-Who is your valentine today? Most answers were about loving someone and playing with them and giving them hearts. Also we mostly heard about mom and dad and giving more hearts!!!!

Pledge/ Weather/Calendar

We also colored our letter Kk alphabet sheets and reviewed our Kk pictures.

Today we sang a cute song to the tune of, Fr ere Jacques, Be My Sweetheart.

Be my sweetheart, be my sweetheart, Valentine, Valentine

Hearts are all around us, hearts are all around us.

Please be mine. Please be mine.

Be my sweetheart, be my sweetheart, I love you, I love you.

I will always love you, I will always love you.

Valentine, Valentine.

Next we each picked a heart from a bag that had physical movements printed on them. For example a few were flex your muscles 10 times, jump up and down 4 times, and nod your head 2 times. This was a great way to get up and move!!!!

After moving and shaking we then read a cute story. It was called Celebrating Valentine's Day, My Special Valentines by Kimberly Roark. The book was great in showing different ways people can show us love. Mom can tuck you in at night, dad can help you learn to tie your shoes, and your teacher can help you learn to read.

Just before snack we wrote our names on our Special Delivery hearts and decorated them so they could dry in time to wear home. After a great snack from Cade, whose 4th birthday was the very next day, we then got ready to have our party!!! We then went back into the pre-school room so we could pass out our valentine's and celebrate!!!!

Be Mine

2009-02-11T12:46:00.000-08:00

I know I already did this (sort of) in the last post, but I didn't have the traditional picture in front of the calendar, soooooo

Introducing Cameron!!

Cameron joined our afternoon class last week and he is a great helper in our class! We are excited to have him!

Feb. 10, 2009

Today we started by coloring some cute valentine pictures to decorate our valentine bags with.

Next, of course, was calendar time, which just to refresh your memories or to tell some of the newbies, consists of a Learning Box Question (LBQ), The Pledge of Allegiance, Weather, and Calendar.

After calendar time, we did our heart freeze dance. This is still my favorite part of preschool. I love watching the kids dance around our shapes! They are so cute! We danced, jumped, marched, walked on our tip toes, and walked backward. We danced in the heart, on the heart, and outside of the heart.

Next we read The Night Before Valentines Day by Natasha Wing again. We reviewed the title, front cover, back cover, pictures and words in the book.

We colored and decorated our Valentine "mailboxes" (mailbags). The kids concentrated and did great at lacing the yarn through the top!

After snack, we counted and made a card with the number 7, the word seven, and 7 hearts.

We reviewed Vv and looked at some picture cards, Valentine, Vest, Vase.

We introduced Kk.

The Letter Kk
to the tune of Frere Jacques
The letter K. The letter K. (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)
/k/ /k/ /k/! /k/ /k/ /k/! (Make ASL sign for letter, move hand forward and backward for each sound)

Then we played and danced!

U R A Q T

2009-02-05T18:25:00.000-08:00

Happy month of fun! We have Valentines Day this month which is always fun, no matter what anyone says, and also on Feb. 14th is AZ statehood day! :) We will have a chance to celebrate both!

February 3, 2009

Today we drew all over the tables (covered with paper) for our welcoming activity.

Our learning box question was, "What do you think love means?" Most of the kids just named people they love (mom and dad). Someone said "I love Santa." And Taylee said "I feel my heart bumps about my mom and dad and brother and sister." :)

Next we sang a fun song.

Five Pretty Valentines

Five pretty valentines waiting at the store. (Child's name) bought one and then there were four. Four pretty valentines shaped like a V, (Child's name) bought one and then there were three. Three pretty valentines said: 'I love you'(Child's name) bought one and then there were two. Two pretty valentines, this was so much fun. (Child's name) bought one and then there was one. One pretty valentine sitting on the shelf. I felt sorry for it, so I bought it for myself!

After the song we introduced the "fun"damentals for the month.

7 seven - We played follow the leader. The "leader" wore the number 7 necklace and chose an action for everyone to do seven times.

heart -

"A Heart"

Two humps on the top, (use hands to make the top part of a heart)

And a point at the end (draw a heart in the air and end at the point)

This makes a heart, (cover your own heart with your hands)

Big enough to send! (open arms out wide)

pink/purple - We found the color somewhere in the room.

AABB pattern - We did actions in an AABB pattern. ie. clap, clap, knee, knee...

Next we read The Night Before Valentine's Day by Natasha Wing. We talked about what people might do to get ready for Valentines Day. Then we made a Valentine to take home and give to someone.

After snack we reviewed some letters and introduced Vv.

The Letter Vv

to the tune of Frere Jacques

The letter V. The letter V. (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)

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

Introducing Cameron! We have a new student in our afternoon class! :) We are so excited to have him. I took a great picture of him in the preschool, but alas my camera is still a clunker and sometimes when I take a picture it disappears. We'll try again next time!

Weather Review-What is your favorite???

2009-02-02T15:02:00.000-08:00

January 29, 2009
Today was our last weather day so the day was full of review and completing our weather books.
LBQ-What is your favorite weather? Why?
Pledge/Weather/ Calendar

After calendar I asked all the kids a few weather riddles to see who could remember what we learned.

I'm puffy and white, floating un in the sky. I can change my shape before you eyes. I am...(cloud)
I's a bright yellow ball shining so bright. With you I share my heat and light. I am...(sun)
I fall from dark clouds down to the ground. I make lots of puddles for you to jump around. I am...(rain)
I keep you kite up in the sky. Although I'm unseen, you can feel me pass by. I am...(wind)
I am a could floating across the ground. It is hard to see when I am around. I am...(fog)
I'm a small ice crystal, shiny and white. When I cover the ground it is a beautiful sight. I am...(snow)

Next we read and discussed How's the Weather? by Rozanne Lanczak Williams. During our reading we talked about what clothes are usually worn during each type of weather.

We had three pages to finish in our weather books. First we colored our sun page and read the words. Next we colored and drew in rain drops for our rain page. After reading the words on this page, we did our last page for a foggy day. We colored and then placed a tissue paper over our people on the page and then painted glue over them so they would be hard to see.

After our snack we played our dressing for the weather game. The object was to pick a card that showed a piece of clothing or object and place it under the correct type of weather. For example, the mittens went under the snow, and the kite under the wind.

At the end of class just before playtime we reviewed all our fundamentals for the month. We looked at the letters W, I, and U. We sang our oval song and played I spy to find colors blue or white around the room.

It's Raining!! It's Pouring!!!

2009-02-02T14:06:00.000-08:00

January 27, 2009

LBQ- Do you like the rain? Why or why not? Most of the answers were yes. Many kids said that they loved to play in the puddles and catch rain drops in their mouth. These were perfect answers for what we would be doing later in the class! It was like they knew what we were going to do!!

I had a small bucket and sponge and after we discussed the rain we all got to see how rain clouds formed. We dropped our sponge in the water and watched it soak up the water. This sponge representing the clouds filling with moisture. Then I held it up and slowly squeezed all the water out. This was the clouds releasing the moisture and raining on the earth. Each one of the kids loved this and they all put their arms under the sponge to get rained on!!!

Pledge/ Weather/ Calendar were next.

After this we sang a fun song about the rain. (Many of you may recognize this song from Barney the dinosaur)

If all the rain drops

were lemon drops and gum drops

oh, what a rain that would be!

Standing outside with my mouth open wide

Singing, Ah, ah, ah

ah, ah, ah,

ah ,ah, ah, ah

If all the rain drops

were lemon drops and gum drops

Oh what a rain that would be!!

We then read Rain Song by Lezlie Evans. We love to look at the pictures first before reading the words and guess what we think the story will be about. Then we read it and talk about our favorite parts.

After our story we did another page of our weather books. Today we glued on our snowflakes and read all of our pages we have done so far. We wanted to do our foggy page but we used a little too much glue and our pages needed to dry first. We decided to save them for Thursday to complete.

Thanks for our yummy snacks Jacob and Ian. We are so thankful all of you parents are so willing to take a turn bringing snack. We are seeing lots of healthy snacks make their way to pre-school and we are glad!

Our puddle hop came next. We had a room filled with "puddles" after our rain and we all jumped and danced in them. We talked about jumping over them and on them. This was lots of fun!

We then counted rain drops falling from our cloud. Each one had a turn drawing a number and then counting the right number of rain drops to fall from the cloud. We reviewed our fundamentals before our last project. We finished our day coloring our, Is it white? Is it blue? worksheet.

PLAYTIME!!!!

Cloudy and Foggy!

2009-01-26T21:53:00.000-08:00

We started our morning playing blocks. We made bridges and castles and tried to stack them to the ceiling!
LBQ- Have you ever seen any clouds shaped like an animal or something else?

After the pledge/ weather/ calendar, we sang a Weather song.

(to the tune of Oh My Darling Clementine)

How's the weather? How's the weather?

How's the weather, for you?

Is it windy? Rainy? Cloudy?

Or is the sun in skies of blue?

We read, What Will the Weather Be Like Today? by Paul Rogers. First we flipped through the pictures to see what we might understand about the story by just looking at the pictures. Then we read it to see if we were right. This is a fun way to read a book. After reading it we chose our favorite type of weather from the book.

Today we focused on clouds and fog. We talked about how earth is covered with clouds that are made up of H2O. Some are fluffy. long and wispy, dark and gray. The wind can move the clouds around the sky and sometimes a cloud can be near the ground. This is called and fog and it can be very hard to see in.

Next we started our weather books. We read the first two pages and glued our clouds on the first and our kites on the second. These books will be coming home on our last day of weather. Please look for these so your child can read it to you.

We reviewed our Ww pictures from Tuesday. Then we played is it 6? This is a fun way to have the kids count and decide if the objects add up to six or not. If they do then we place that picture under the happy face. If the objects do not add up to six then we place the picture under the sad face. We do some together on the white board and then we do the worksheet.

WEaThEr, Sunny today!!!

2009-01-26T21:09:00.001-08:00

So first of all I want to apologize for the lack of photos that are on this post and the next. We have had camera and battery issues between the two of us. So unfortunately, only a few were taken on the 20th and none on the 22nd. SORRY, we promise that more will be coming the next time. Thank you for your understanding. WE appreciate it!!!!

Today was our introduction to our weather unit. We started our morning playing puzzles and file folder games. Our LBQ?- What can you do on a sunny day?

Next after morning pledge/calendar/ and weather/ we sang a song about the sun.

To the tune of BINGO

Today the sun is in the sky, and sunny is the weather.

S-U-N-N-Y, S-U-N-N-Y, S-U-N-N-Y,

and sunny is the weather.

We then read Care Bears, Busy, Busy, Sunny Day. The girls really liked this book and the boys were not as excited! It was great to show some of the fun things that can be done on a sunny day.

After the book we played a Sun game. We talked about how when we see the sun there are children on the other side of the world who are sleeping and see the moon. It seems as if the sun is moving when in reality the earth is moving. We had a picture of the sun and all of us got in a circle and faced out. The person with the sun went around the circle and if you saw the sun then you were awake and dancing. If the sun was not in front of you and you could not see it then you went to sleep. The kids loved this and often times forgot to look for the sun and kept on sleeping!!!

We colored and glued our sun fans together so that when we were outside in the sun we could cool ourselves.

After snack we introduced our letter Ww and sang our letter song. This is always to the tune of Frere Jacques
The letter W. The letter W. (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)
/w/ /w/ /w/! /w/ /w/ /w/! (Make ASL sign for letter, move hand forward and backward for each sound)

After singing the song and tracing the letter we colored the page to add to our alphabet books. Then it was PLAYtime!!!

More Arctic Fun!

2009-01-20T10:30:00.000-08:00

Before any other news I need to introduce the new children in our afternoon class!!

Welcome Hailey!

Welcome Jocelyn!

Welcome Ian!

We love your great smiles and are so excited to have you in our preschool! :)

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

After calendar time, the p.m. class took turns introducing themselves and showing what was in their "All About Me" bags. It's always fun to see what they choose to bring and what they have to say about it!

Then, after a quick review of the polar animals, we all learned a new song/cheer.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, turn around.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, touch the ground.
Polar Bear, Polar Bear, lick your paws.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, show your claws.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, swim in the sea.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, slide on your knee.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, climbing high.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, say goodbye!

We learned a few facts about polar bears, then joined in a science experience. The children put one hand in a little glove of "blubber" (fat... in this case shortening), then put it in a bowl of ice water as well as their bare hand. They could easily tell which hand was colder and then we were able to talk about how animals keep warm in the Arctic. It was very cool!!

Next we tried our hand at a little tear art making Polar Bears. I'm pretty sure Miss Amber and I ended up doing most of the tearing, but it was worth a try!! The kids still had fun putting it all together.

After snack we reviewed numbers, colors, shapes and letters. We have a plethora of songs that go along with our reviewing, I hope the kids come home and sing some of them to you!

Then we introduced Uu and colored another sheet for our alphabet books.

The Letter Uu
to the tune of Frere Jacques
The letter U. The letter U. (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)
/u/ /u/ /u/! /u/ /u/ /u/! (Make ASL sign for letter, move hand forward and backward for each sound)

Oh yeah, and the p.m. class played with play-do that Ian brought to share during play time! So fun. Thank you, Ian!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

After calendar time we sang both our penguin song and polar bear song. Although, both extremely fun, I think the penguin song won out for favorite!

We talked about camouflage and then I hid some pictures of the Arctic animals we've learned about and the kids had to find them. After they were all hid and found a few times I read the back of each picture and they had to guess what animal it was without looking at it. They did pretty good!

Then we had a writing activity. If I were a (some Arctic animal), I would (something that Arctic animal would do). The idea was to show something they've learned. I loved that Sarah put that if she were a Polar Bear she would be nice. We had talked about how polar bears can be mean so she said, "but I would be human polar bear!" :)

After snack we went through all our review bags again and reviewed the letter Uu.

And Jacob had a birthday last weekend, so we got to sing Happy Birthday and eat cupcakes!

OK, so we're going to have to practice taking pictures of the afternoon class when we're by ourselves... I could have sworn I took pictures!! I blame it on my camera, it turns on and off at will and erases my pictures sometimes! Honestly. Dumb camera.

Arctic Fun

2009-01-08T21:32:00.000-08:00

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Today we began the day playing with color bears (a.m.) and lacing shapes (a.m. and p.m.).

After calendar, we recited our oval poem again and danced around a beautiful oval that Miss Amber taped on the ground! :) We danced, jumped, marched, walked backwards and more, around the circle. Then we stood in, out, and on the circle. It's always fun to watch the kids have fun trying to 'freeze!' when the music stops.

Next we read The Emperor's Egg by Martin Jenkins. We learned that the biggest penguins are bigger than some of the kids!

After the book we learned some more facts about penguins by taking turns hanging my fact penguins up on the wall.

Then we learned a song of course!

I'm A Little Penguin

tune of "I'm A Little Teapot"

I'm a little penguin.

Look at me,

Fishing and swimming

In the deep blue sea.

My wings are black

And my tail is white.

And I like sliding down

the snow so bright!

We made up some actions to the song, so be sure to have your child sing it for you!

After all this we made adorable penguins from our foot prints. They were supposed to rock back on forth (waddle like a penguin), but most of you will find that didn't work out too well...

After snack time we did another math game. The kids took turns drawing a number and "feeding" our penguin that many fish.

We drew some letters from the review bag, then reviewed Ii and looked at some pictures that begin with Ii (insects, iguana, ice cream cone, island).

Last we played, cleaned up, and danced!

Just F. Y. I, you can click on any of the pictures to see it enlarged.