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.

Israel, England and the USA

We had lots of fun this last week before break! On Tuesday we traveled the Israel and learned all about Hanukkah. We had lots of fun making our own menorahs and talking about the history and traditions of Hanukkah. I hope everyone has had a chance to play the dreidel game at home!

Wednesday was all about England, which is where Christmas cards originated. The kids really enjoyed making their own cards!

Thursday was our class party and all about Christmas traditions in the USA. We played pin the nose on the snowman,

made our snowmen,

made ornaments and played lots of fun games!

It has been a fun month! The kids' suitcases are now yours to do what you want with them.

Have a wonderful break and I will see everyone January 6th!

Mexico, Brazil and Sweden

This week was lots of fun learning about different holidays and ways of celebrating! We also got to learn about the letter O this week, which is always a lot of fun. Most kids pick up on O pretty quickly, which gives us room to do some fun activities! This week we made an 'O Ocean' in the classroom and thought up different things that start with O that could go in our ocean. We also experimented with different ways to use our bodies to make the letter O.

On Tuesday this week we traveled to Mexico. There are so many different holidays, festivals and traditions in Mexico that it's hard to decide what to teach about! We talked about several festivals, including my personal favorite, Night of the Radishes. People in Oaxaca, Mexico make some pretty amazing radish sculptures! We also got to try a traditional Mexican holiday treat, bunuelos (fried tortillas covered in cinnamon sugar). Since pinatas are common at Christmas time in Mexico, we made pictures of pinatas!

Wednesday we got to visit Brazil. We also got to try another treat, Panettone. A cake that can only be purchased at Christmas time in Brazil. It was less popular than the previous days' treat, not many of the kids liked it. We also got to talk about the fact that Christmas happens during the summer in Brazil, so their holiday celebrations often include going to the beach, barbecuing and fireworks. We made pictures of fireworks, or at least gave it our best attempt! We used straws to blow paint into a firework shape, which turned out to be pretty tricky.

Thursday this week was all about Sweden and St. Lucia Day. We talked about the traditional foods that they eat on St. Lucia Day and made our own pictures of Lucia.

Italy and Germany

This week was the beginning of our Christmas Around the World unit. 

We started out in Italy on Wednesday, talking about La Befana who brings gifts to the kids in Italy. Each of the kids got to make their own broomstick just like the one Befana rides! 

On Thursday we traveled a short distance to Germany. So many of our Christmas traditions stared in Germany that it was hard to choose just a few to focus on! We learned about how candy canes, which were invented in Germany, are made and made some candy canes of our own, reinforcing the patterns we learned about last week. We also made salt dough ornaments, as children in Germany often do!

We also got to learn about another German holiday, St. Nikolaus day, when St. Nikolaus comes and fills the childrens' shoes with treats. He was even kind enough to stop by preschool and left treats in the kids' shoes!

We also incorporated Christmas in our learning as we talked about the number 6 and the letter L. We got to do a fun number review with this alphabet roll and color game. The kids rolled dice and then colored the gingerbread man who matched the number they rolled. They did an awesome job!

Thanksgiving!

This week was all about Thanksgiving. On Tuesday we incorporated Thanksgiving into our lesson on patterns by making turkey patterns and turkey feather patterns.

We also had our final visitor for the month! Greg Hadley came in to talk to the kids about being a pilot. They got to see some of the tools that a pilot uses, learned about how an airplane flies and about the many different jobs a pilot can have. 

Wednesday was our Thanksgiving party. We made turkeys to show what we're grateful for and learned about the first Thanksgiving.

The Letter M and More!

This week we got to learn about triangles and the letter M. M is a fun letter to learn about because it's easy to make the M sound and there are so many good words that start with M!

Two of my favorite activities for the week were the letter M maze and our M monsters!

On Tuesday this week, the morning class had a special visitor! Randy Smith came to talk to us about his job as a power plant operator. The kids got to learn a lot about how power is generated and how it gets to our homes. They also learned about conserving power and water. It was really neat!

The afternoon class got to learn about construction workers on Tuesday. We talked about the many different tools that construction workers use for their job, from tractors to hammers and screwdrivers. We got to practice being construction workers by building our own things out of Lego's. It was really neat to watch the kids figure out how to snap the Lego's together and using their creativity to build things!

On Wednesday we were lucky enough to have another special visitor. Michelle Butters came to talk to us about her job in insurance claims. She talks to us about what happens when there is a car accident. We learned about what the police and tow trucks do and what the insurance company does to help people who have been in an accident. The kids loved it!

Thursday was one of my personal favorite days of the year, our trip to the fire station!

It is always so neat for the kids to get to see what fire fighters do every day. Of course, being able to climb in and investigate the truck is also super cool. This was my first year going and the first time they have gotten a call while we were there, so that was kind of fun!

At class on Thursday we talked a lot about fire safety and did a fire drill. If you haven't had the opportunity to do so recently, please take some time to talk to your child about how they would get out of your house if there were a fire and where your family would meet up outside. We talked about 911 and when it is appropriate to call that number. I think they understood when it's appropriate to call, but most of them had trouble remembering the number for more than a few minutes at a time, so that might be a good thing to review at home as well!

Letter L and Occupations

This week we got to learn all about the letter L. The kids did such a good job identifying words that start with L. I was very impressed with them! They also had lots of fun writing the letter since (in their words) it's "easy-peasy lemon squeezy"!

We have been having so much fun this month with all of our visitors coming to teach us about their jobs.

Last week we got to have Marcella Maher teach us about being a florist. The kids got to hold so many different flowers and help to arrange them. I know I heard all about the flowers (especially snap dragons) from my kids for days afterward! As part of her lesson, she asked the kids what their favorite flowers were and I was so impressed by all the answers they gave! Almost every student had a different favorite flower.

This week we got to have two visitors! On Wednesday, Jaime Flood came and taught us about being a speech pathologist. She taught the kids all about the different ages of people a speech pathologist works with and what she does with each age group. The kids got to learn a little bit about the brain, a fun song about letter songs and they even got to practice making the letter L sound. It was so neat!

On Thursday this week our visitor was Wendi Blair who came to teach us about being a fitness coach. She talked to the kids about what foods are healthy and about making sure that we are eating lots of different colors of food. She also showed the kids some exercises they can do to stay healthy. They had tons of fun!

D is for Dinosaur

This week was all about the letter D, which is perfect for learning about dinosaurs! We had lots of fun with dinosaur related letter D activities!

We also had lots of mysteries to solve this week! On Tuesday we found this footprint beneath our rug and figured out what kind of dinosaur was in our classroom by observing the shape of the print and measuring it. It turned out to be an Apatosaurus footprint. We also discovered that all 8 kids could sit inside it!

Our next mystery was some white lumps we found in the backyard. The kids decided that they looked like eggs. Since vinegar dissolves eggshells, we put them in vinegar to test their theory. It worked and they each found their own dinosaur inside!

On Wednesday we got to imagine what it would be like to have our own pet dinosaurs. The kids each made  a picture of their pet and told me a little bit about their dinosaur!

On Friday we talked about how big the dinosaurs were and made some measurements in the backyard. We found that a Stegosaurus was as long as all 8 kids put together! The kids really wanted to measure out a T-rex, but based on the Stegosaurus measurement, we decided that a T-Rex would be as big as my backyard and my neighbor's yard put together. The kids decided that a T-Rex would probably not make a very good pet.  

After that we got to have some fun painting dinosaurs!