Fishy Tales

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.

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

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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.

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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".

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

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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)

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Something is FiShY!!!

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

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.

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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)

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

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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.

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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.

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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. :)

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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.

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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)

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

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

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