Thursday, February 26, 2009

Timmy Tiger

Although we were on Timmy Tiger this week, we just focused on the /t/ sound all throughout the week instead of having activities just on that sound or animal.
We started talking about safety last week(what are strangers, 911, safety gear, etc) and will continue this topic for another week. Here the children are making "stop" and "go" signs. I read some situations the children might find themselves in and they held up their sign to indicate what they would do....for example....what if you are at the park and a stranger gives you candy? do you take it?

Kolby and Addy are covering a "t" with tissue paper.

We talked about 911 and what an emergency is. The children practiced writing the numbers at the bottom of their paper. We also read some great books on being safe that allowed for some good discussion on this important topic!
This game is "Road Sign Bingo". Each card has 6 different road signs found around our town. They really liked this one. Isn't that a good lookin' bunch!!
learning objectives: knows not to accept rides or food from strangers; responds appropriately during a fire drill; uses different textures to create artwork
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fun with Sammy!

Here are a few activities we did during our week with Sammy Snake and the /s/ sound!
Each week we have pictures that begin with our featured sound and I have pictures that we stick on the bullentin board with the animal/letter. Kylie is writing out some of the words from the bullentin board. It is neat to see how much the children's confidence has grown in this area!
For an art project the children cut out a spiral shape and then decorated it. After attaching the triangle head it became Sammy Snake! They look really cool hanging from the fan in the preschool room!
One mother sent Skittles for a snack a few months ago. We haven't had an opprotunity to eat them yet but everytime I would take down the snack bin Chase would ask when we were going to eat them! I said we were going to save them for a math activity. He suggested we save them for Sammy Snake's week:) Such a smart boy! The children sorted and graphed their candy...and or course ate some!
learning objectives: produces speech sounds with increasing ease and accuracy; compares numbers of concrete objects; combines, separates, and names "how many" concrete objects
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Thursday, February 12, 2009

Valentine's Week

This week our sound was /r/ and Robby Rabbit. We did most of our sound/letter work for morning work and then the rest was spent doing Valentine's Day activities. Of course whenever a book or word had the /r/ sound I deliberately held out that sound for the children to hear;) They are really picking up the sounds-not just initially in a word but in the middle and end!

We couldn't celebrate Valentine's Day without working with the conversation hearts. Monday's group counted out 18 hearts(our number for the week) and then took turns calling out math problems....if I had 5 hearts and then gave you 3, how many would I have left?
We also did regrouping with our math rhyme. Isabel is the youngest student I have on Mondays and she does a variation of our activities that targets a different objective. Here she is working on her cutting and pasting skills...and yes those are important skills as elementary as they sound!
I wanted to teach the children about symmetry this week and how 2 halves make a whole. I introduced this lesson by chance during snack-time. We had all the children present this day(6) and only had 3 rice crispy treats. I could have gotten another snack but thought it would be a great way to introduce the symmetry/half-whole concept. I asked them how we could get 6 pieces from the 3 treats. We cut each one in half so everyone would have a piece. Then our activity after snack was to cut circles in half to make a heart. They each had a diamond and a circle to make their heart.
This is the picture of our heart math from Monday's group that I mentioned earlier. Chase is counting out the math problem with his fingers....so cute! Isabel enjoyed sorting hers and then eating them!
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sweet mailboxes....

I love Valentine's Day crafts. There are so many which makes it hard to narrow them down to 1 week's worth! We started the week decorating our mailboxes to hold our valentine treats on Thursday.

First they painted their boxes and then added the embellishments.

GLITTER! Who doesn't love an art project with glitter! I love to watch the kids faces when they add the glitter and then pour off the excess to reveal their design! They love being able to shake all the colored-wonder on their papers and even have enough coordination to pour off the excess in the plate themselves! They have really progressed this year!

Can't have Valentine's decorations without doiles!

Ready to go home and eat our treats! One child was excited to go home and see what the "Valentine Man" had brought him. At first I didn't know what he was talking about and then I realized it was Cupid! ha!
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Thursday, February 5, 2009

Queenie Quail week

This week was all about the sound /q/ and Queenie Quail. We also talked about how Queenie always has her friend Umber (letter u) when she makes words.
Addy is making a Queenie puppet and stamping question marks on her bag. The purple feather is Queenie's topknot which is how the children signal her sound(first finger on forehead curled like her topknot)
Our number for the week is 17. We got out the unifix cubes to count with....then the children started making large block towers which we measured objects(chairs, table, us) with.
Our big project for the week was making a quilt for Queenie and her babies. I brought in a quilt my grandmother made for me when I was a little girl to discuss how they are made. Each child then got a piece of paper to decorate with stickers, markers and glitter. Then we sewed them together to hang on our wall.
I think it turned out pretty good!!
We also did some activities with regrouping, counting and discussing what a "quality friend" would be! Another fun week at preschool!!
learning objectives: attempts to connect the sounds in a word with its letter forms; counts concrete objects to five or higher; recognizes and describes the concept of zero; begins to use tools to imitate measuring
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