Underground

This week we focused on the sound /u/. The animal that goes with U is the Umbrellabird. This is actually a bird found in Central and South AMerica. We call her "Umber". In our study of this sound we focused on what is underground!

First we learned a song about the wonders found underground such as foxes, mice, ants, worms, rocks, sticks, seeds, etc. This led into a discussion about seeds. We will be planting seeds in the near future.

I purchased a few different seeds for the children to sort.

One fun animal that lives underground are earthworms. For this math game the children had 5 gummy worms that they were to hide under their "ground"-the brown paper. I would pretend to be a bird and try to eat their worms....unless they were hiding underground! Check the next post to see the worm farms the children made!

learning objectives: begins to use words that indicate where things are in space;recognizes and reproduces simple patterns using concrete objects; sorting.

Worm Farms!

On Monday the children helped me create a class worm farm. We cut a 2 liter bottle in half and then scooped layers of sand and potting soil. Then we added 2 earthworms and covered the bottles with black construction paper.

In our reading about earthworms we learned how beneficial they are to plants, how they hate sunlight and how they mix the soil together as they dig their tunnels. We were going to give them 2 days to mix the soil and dig tunnels!

Isabel would have carried her worm around in her pocket if she could!

On Tuesday we made predictions of what the worms were doing. Then we compared our predictions to what really was happening on the next day when we uncovered the bottle. We weren't able to see many tunnels....maybe we needed more worms in there? The process sure was fun though and this was an activity that everyone enjoyed!!

We also took a couple of nature walks to discover what was under rocks and sticks and dirt. We did find some ants and termites! Then we came in and the children created a picture of different items that are underground. The children also LOVED digging for buried treasure last week.

learning objectives: begins to use words that indicate where things are in space; describes observations; asks questions about objects, events and organisms.

More Seuss...

Here we are making patterns and matching colors with red and white!

In the book "Hop on Pop" there were lots of action words. I found this idea for "Exer-dice" on the internet. The colored cube has pictures of different movements (running, walking, crawling, etc). One child would roll the cube and the other the die. The die would tell us how many circles we would complete while doing the movement. This was a huge hit!

"The Foot Book" is full of opposites! Here the children are making their own book with opposites.

This book was requested the most. It was my first Dr. Seuss book that I remember checking out from the school library! After reading, the children drew a picture of what they might see on Mulberry Street.

learning objectives: explores moving in space; enjoys listening to and discussing storybooks; frequently requests the re-reading of books; percieves differences between similar sounding words.

Dr. Seuss

This week we focused on the wonderful literature of Dr. Seuss!! We started out the week with the book The Cat in the Hat. The children made their own cats and hats. We talked about the problem the children had in the book(it was a rainy day and they couldn't go out to play) and what they would do on a rainy day.

We tried balancing objects like the Cat did in the book.

The most exciting part of the day was when The Cat came to visit!! The Cat(aka Sue Harris) read Green Eggs and Ham to the children and then they got to eat green eggs(only 3 wanted to even try!)

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

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