More About Plants

This week we learned all about the letter F!

The morning kiddos made their own fishpond and letter F fish food for their fish.

We also had lots of fun finding things in our classroom that start with the letter F!

We also had a few new farms games at centers this week. (This website sometimes loads pictures sideways and I have no idea why.)

This week we learned more about the things that grow on farms. We explored fruits and vegetable by painting with them!

We also talked about the difference between fruits and vegetables and worked on our sorting skills.

On Thursday we celebrated Johnny Appleseed day by watching the classic Disney short film about Johnny Appleseed and talking about tall tales. The kids had a good time coloring apples and making their own Johnny Appleseed hats.

Plants of the Farm

Thanks for being so understanding about me taking a day off this week!

This week we learned about the letter E and squares. We also started a few new centers this week! The kids have been having fun working on colors and shapes with some matching games.

During science this week we learned about how seeds grow and planted some seeds of our own. We will be taking care of them at school for the next few weeks and then they will be coming home. 

After planting our seeds we made pictures out of some other seeds!

On Thursday we talked about the different things that can grow on a farm and what we would grow if we could grow anything we wanted. We also made our own tomatoes!

Animals on the Farm

This week we learned all about the animals on the farm and why they're there. We talked about all the different jobs that animals do. We had some fun with matching, worked on writing and worked on our scissor skills.

Thursday was one of my favorite days of the year! We learned about The Little Red Hen. We talked about helping and hard work.

 After reading the book we to do some of the things we had read about! We ground wheat into flour and made our own bread (morning) or cookies (afternoon) with it. The kids did such a good job!

On The Farm

This week we started our new unit for September, On The Farm. On Tuesday we talked about what you would find on a farm. We did one sort together as a class and then the kids got to do one of their own.

With our class sort, we colored everything that we decided belonged on the farm and put it up on our bulletin board. I was so impressed with the creativity of these kids! I was just planning to have them color the pictures, but they had to have mud for the pigs, hay for the horses and cows, a hose to wash the dog off when he gets dirty (the red paper below the barn), and grass for the tractor. They made all those extra things on their own!

On Wednesday and Thursday we talked about the animals on the farm. We talked about sheep on Wednesday and used our fingerprints to make pictures of sheep. Thursday was all about pigs! We read the story of the three little pigs and then acted it out, which the kids absolutely loved. After that we made pig windsocks.

At centers this week we worked on the letter C, squares and numbers. The kids counted items in plastic bags and matched the numbers to the bags. They all did so well! 

Faces

Our centers this week were focused on the letter B and the color red. The kids had a lot of fun thinking of things that start with the letter B and in pre-k they did a great job with decorating their B bracelets.

We had a few new games at centers this week, but the kids really loved the file folder games!

Our science time this week was all about our faces and the 5 senses. We learned about each sense and learned fun games to go with them, like I spy; red light, green light; and simon says. While learning about hearing, we also worked on our school rule 'I will listen and follow directions'. They all did a great job at it!

On Thursday we got to finish up the senses with some senses testing. I blindfolded the kids and gave them different items to touch, smell and taste to figure out what the item was. They figured out almost every item immediately. The only one that tripped them up was popsicle sticks. Possibly because they didn't know what they were called.

Hands and Feet

This week we started on the alphabet with the letter A. I hope all the pre-k parents have had a chance to read through the story that came home about Andy with your child! They had a lot of fun sneezing along with him in class.

Along with the letter A, we also started talking about circles and played a few games to see how solid the kids are on their colors. 

During science time this week we talked about things we can do with our hands and feet. We played a fun game where the kids had to see how many cotton balls they could pick up with their hands and then how many they could pick up with their feet. Using their toes to pick things up wasn't as easy as they were expecting!

In Pre-k on Wednesday we talked about left and right. We had a good time with the hokey pokey and twister to help us practice right and left!

Thursday I introduced the face and we talked about what makes up our faces. The kids got to make their own faces out of some funny things. Most of them started out as faces and then quickly became monsters or aliens. These will come home Tuesday!

SEEL

This post applies to Pre-K only.

This week will be our first of many weeks learning about the alphabet! During this time, we will be doing a lot of activities from the SEEL (Systematic Engaging Early Literacy) program. This is an amazing program that gives the kids great opportunities to learn about the alphabet in a fun and meaningful way. Please take some time to read a little bit about it here.

Almost every time we do a SEEL lesson in class, your child will bring home a 'SEEL at Home' page. These will give you an activity to do at home that is an extension of our lesson. Some of them are super fun and some do sound super cheesy. Please do as many of them as you can with your child to help reinforce what we are learning in class! It is so good for kids to take the knowledge they have gained in one setting and be able to use it again somewhere else. 

First Week of School

It has been a great week this week, getting into the swing of things, learning all about each other and learning how preschool works.

So, let's start out this week by talking about centers. Every day, the kids rotate around 3-6 centers where they learn and play independently, with a partner or with me! Centers change every day, but I'll tell you about some that we've done this week.

We have a listening center where the kids get to watch Sesame Street podcasts about the alphabet, listen to songs and hear stories. (If you haven't read the pigeon books by Moe Willems, check them out, your kids loved 'Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus'.)

Every day, one of our centers is writing in our journals. I start the kids out with something like a letter, shape or simple picture and then they get to write or draw whatever they want. It's been fun to see their creativity!

We've also been starting out with some basic skills this week like tracing, cutting and gluing, 

Of course there are also centers that are more sneaky and teach kids things while they play. Some that we've tried out this week are lacing cards, puzzles and blocks.

We've also started learning about our bodies this week. The kids helped me label this guy with all the parts they knew. Please note that the addition of the beard was all them.

They then got to practice drawing all these things on their own bodies, after I traced them!

Another fun body activity we did this week was making faces with playdough. This was one of my favorites.

It has been a blast and I am loving getting to know you're kids! They have amazed me every day with their knowledge and their kindness.

February So Far

Apparently blogging is going to be my downfall this year! I will try to do better, but I make no promises. With all the fun of pregnancy, I am just not able to do as much as I used to.

So far this month we have had so much fun and learned lots of new things! We've had some really good SEEL lessons, my favorite being the letter W and learning to 'Whistle While We Work'. They found so many words that start with W and our classroom was beautifully clean! The best part was how much they loved doing it! I hope your took advantage of this awesome lesson to get some cleaning done and solidify the letter W at home.

We've also had a lot of fun with holidays this month! Valentine's Day was great for learning about hearts and patterns. We got a lot of practice cutting and drawing hearts.

We also took some time to learn a little history as we talked about President's Day. The kids all thought George Washington's hair was hilarious and had fun making their own wigs for him.

Of course, we've also learned a lot about outer space. So far we have talked about the sun, the moon, and the planets. Next week will be all about stars.

Desert Animals

This month we have been focusing a lot on shapes and numbers and the kids are getting so good at recognizing them! We've also learned about Q and R. I've been very impressed at how good the kids are getting at recognizing words that begin with our letter of the week.

This month has also been about Arizona Animals!

Last week we learned about what kinds of animals live in the desert. It was fun to talk about the difference between what animals the kids have seen in Arizona (at the zoo and the farm) and what animals are actually native to our state.

This week has been all about birds of Arizona. We have read lots of books and the kids have loved finding pictures of birds that they have actually seen before.

We spent the most time this week on Elf Owls, Roadrunners and Woodpeckers. This week we have watched a couple of clips from Wild Kratts to learn about these birds. The kids loved it and were always sad that we didn't have time to watch the whole episode. So if you're looking for something to let your child watch, Wild Kratts would be a great choice! There are tons of episodes about Arizona animals.

The favorite activities of the week have been making bird feeders and pretending to be woodpeckers. If your bird feeder hasn't come home yet, it will be sent home on Tuesday. Please take the time to help your child hang it somewhere the birds can find it!

As we talked about woodpeckers, we did a science experiment to find which surface in our classroom made the loudest tapping sound and found that the table was the loudest. We also talked about some of the surfaces that woodpeckers like to tap on. After that we practiced our woodpecker skills by using our beaks (toothpicks) to pick bugs (beads) out of a cactus (playdough). If you have all these supplies at home, this is a fantastic activity! It is great fine motor skills practice and the kids had so much fun doing it. Seriously, they all sat focused and silent for about 10 minutes doing it over and over again. The supplies are still sitting on the preschool table because my son has asked to play this game again at least 5 times this weekend.