Friday, October 31, 2008

Halloween week

This week we focused on lots of fun Halloween learning activities!

First we painted a small pumpkin to turn into a scarry bat!
OOhhhhh....they are fierce! It was fun putting these together!

I had Kylie take a picture of the process of making our spiders but then didn't get a pic of the finished product! We read "The Very Busy Spider" by Eric Carle, counted how many legs spiders have and then created our own creepy-crawly. We painted only the 4 fingers on each hand so when we pressed them on the paper it would make 4 legs on each side. THe children added eyes to their spiders and I hung them from the ceiling and doorway! They turned out very cute!
Here the children are completing simple number sentences and counting activities using Halloween stickers as counters.

Here we all are dressed in our costumes at the party. The children acted out "The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything" for the parents. I wanted to post the video but I accidentally deleted it from my camera!! We are going to do it again next week and get another video....which will be better because the children got a little nervous with everyone wathcing!
learning objectives: attempts to write messages as part of playfun activity; understands that writing is used to communicate ideas and information; begins to share and cooperate in group activities; begins to engage in dramatic play with others




Friday, October 24, 2008

Honey Horse

With the weather changing and the leaves turning colors we have been talking about the season of Fall. The children have been using different items to illustrate a book "Falling Leaves". Each page had a different colored leaf that needed to be brought to life! Here the children are covering their yellow leaf with tissue paper squares.

For the orange leaf Addy is mixing yellow and red together. We used glitter, markers and dead leaves to illustrate the other pages.

Here is their honey horse math rhyme. For some of the students I gave them 2-3 honey horses not cut apart and asked them if they had 2 already... how many more would they need to make 8. Then I would write that number sentence on their paper.

The children are using honeycomb cereal as counters in these activities.


We also discussed habitats this week. Each day we would take a few of our zoo phonic animals and sort them into 2 categories-land habitats or water habitats. Then they made this flip book.

They had fun observing these pumpkins with their magnifying glasses!

Here Addy is tracing a honey horse with honey. Every child learns differently so I try to provide various activities to cover all learning styles.

Our last activity for the week was to decorate a hat with words having honey horse words or pictures of those words. If the children were able they could stamp honey horse words onto their hat. It is fun to watch their face light up when they realize they can sound out a word and it make sense!
They all wanted their picture taken with their hats! It was a fun week!


learning objectives: shows a steady increase in listening and speaking vocabulary; listens to tapes shows an understanding through gestures, actions, and/or language; becomes increasingly sensitive to sounds of spoken words; begins to make some letter sound matches; begins to name "how many" in groups of 3 by not counting; describes properties of objects and characteristics of living things; uses a variety of materials to create original artwork.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

I sent home a note today saying each child would need to bring in a small pumpkin for an activity next week. I also said I would post the pumpkin activity so you could see what we would be doing....but it was not on the magazine's website. I will have the magazine in the classroom if you would like to see the activity.

Thanks!

Thursday, October 9, 2008

gordo gorilla week!

Here are some pictures from our week with gordo!



One objective I am trying to teach the children here is that letters make up words and words make up sentences. We do this in different ways. Chase and Kylie are circling words on this poem about geese.

I gave each student a bag with the letters a-g. They were to put the letters in order. It was fun to listen to them sing the song as they completed this activity.


We couldn't pass up the opprotunity to use gold and green glitter on our g!


Chase is adding the correct labels to the pages in his "Goofy Glenda" story. Each page had a different creature that popped out of the witches black pot. Each creature's name started with /g/ so I stressed the final sound to help them distinguish which word to pick. (i.e. the /n/ in gremlin or /t/ in ghost)
Sometimes I will enunciate the sounds heavily which will probably sound pretty funny. I have heard from some parents that their child will do the same at home and today Kylie demonstrated how to sound out "necklace" for me. It is like we have our own language!! Too funny...but they are learning, right!

The weather has been absolutely beautiful and the leaves are beginning to change. Last year I took some pictures of 3 different trees nearby as their leaves changed colors and then fell off. I made these into cards for the children to see the changes the trees go through. After discussing the changes in the leaves' colors the children made their own trees.

The highlight of the week was our fieldtrip to the grocery store-Piggly Wiggly! They were so wonderful to the children! It was even fun for the adults too!

I didn't get pictures at every stop we made but here are a few. The children could get their face painted. Then we went to the floral dept. where they each got a foam turkey(it doesn't sound cute but it was;)). Then they took us to the meat dept. where the meat manager cut up a chicken for them. The children also got to feel how cold -25 degrees felt like when they went inside the big freezer!

Today when I asked the children what their favorite part of the fieldtrip,most said the cookies! Mr. Tim from the bakery let the children help decorate their own sugar cookie. When we were done they had made up a "goody bag"-from the red reusable shopping bags- for each child with 2 mylar balloons, candy, a ruler, and a group shot with the Pig. It was such a fun time!!

Here is the thank you card we made for them this morning. I want to take this fieldtrip each year!

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Francy Fish week!

This week was all about /f/ and Francy Fish!

I placed objects with the /f/ sound on the table. After identifying each one(and exaggerating the /f/ sound) the children drew pictures in their booklets of /f/ words.

Addy is painting with a feather.

My children helped me color and laminate these fish. On the back I put one of our zoo animals. When the child would catch a fish they would say the sound and signal. Some I had tell me a word with that sound also.

Everyday we read the book "Rainbow Fish" . In the story the rainbow fish refuses to share his shimmering scales with his friends. He soon becomes very lonely and visits the wise octopus for advice. He instructs Rainbow Fish to share his scales with his friends. This made him very happy.
The children made their own Rainbow Fish with scales they could share with their friends. After every fish was assembled the children took turns asking their friends to share a scale with them. In the end they all had a different scale....one from each friend! Their fish turned out beautiful!

And we couldn't have a francy fish week without goldfish crackers! The children sorted their crackers and discovered which color they had the most of.
learning objectives: covers an area with shapes; cooperates with others in a group activity; uses different colors, surface textures, and shapes to create form and meaning