Week 6 - Autumn, Acorns, & Yellow Fun

We started off the day reading about autumn leaves. The kids pointed out the colors and we learned about the color YELLOW. We also sang songs about the 5 little acorns that fell off the tree and were eaten by a hungry squirell. The kids all had turns holding up the acorns and the squirrel puppet sticks. We also took turns matching leaves and sorting leaves (laminated matching game). We sang a few more songs before moving to the table for another fun fall activity.

We turned on our attention goggles to listen to Mrs Rognon talk.

And then we matched and sorted colors to play a fall m&m tree leaf game. Kids had to match up the colors (YELLOW) of m&ms with the colors on the paper.

Then Mrs. Call took us out on a leaf hunt. We found all sorts of fun things.

And the kids also wrote about what they were "nuts" about with the fall, telling us what their favorite thing about fall was. I can't remember what they all were off the top of my head, but there were some good ones. 

And of course we had to sneak in some shots of the baby girls. :) Annabelle did not like her mom putting her down.

Week 5 - O is for Octopus

The kids all had a blast at preschool this week. Well, I hope they did anyways! :)

We started off school by holding up the letter "O" cutouts and saying the name of it. We talked about the letter O, and then we quizzed each other on the colors of the letters. Then we held up some stars that were the color YELLOW. The kids were really good about their colors, and Kaylee even stood up to show off her YELLOW shirt.

Then I held up the book with an Octopus on it and asked what it was (Octopus! was the happy reply!) and what does Octopus start with? (They were a little less certain, but were happy to find it was an O!). Then I read the book, and when they saw the Octopus they were supposed to raise their "O" cut outs up.

We then sang the fun Octopus song.

Slippery fish, slippery fish 
swimming in the water 
slippery fish, slippery fish, 
gulp, gulp, GULP! 
Oh, no! It's been eaten by a... 

Octopus, octopus, 
squiggling in the water. 
Octopus, octopus, 
gulp, gulp, GULP! 
Oh, no! It's been eaten by a... 

Tuna fish, tuna fish, 
 flashing in the water. 
Tuna fish, tuna fish, 
gulp, gulp, GULP! 
Oh, no! It's been eaten by a... 

Great white shark, great white shark, 
lurking in the water. 
Great white shark, great white shark, 
gulp, gulp, GULP! 
Oh, no! It's been eaten by a... 

Humongus whale, humongus whale, 
spouting in the water. 
Humongus whale, humongus whale, 
gulp, gulp, BURP! 
EXCUSE ME!

The kids loved the song. Kaylee wanted to sing it over and over and over and over again. Issaac in particular loved the song and enjoyed singing it through out the lesson. In fact, he loved it so much, that whenever Jared or Everett would try to join in he let them know it was his words and his song so they had to stop singing/talking. (ha!)

Then we read some more fun stories, and the kids would point out when they saw an Octopus and when they saw the color YELLOW. The kids also helped me hold up some ABC books, where we learned about Oscar who loved his Octopus.

We also played a few games with the Octopus puzzle cutouts. The kids each chose a color and had to find the match. Then we turned the pieces upside down and played a form of memory, where the kids tried to match up the tops and bottoms via their color.

At this point my baby was done and crying a lot, and RJ was sweet and kept asking to help put her binky back in. Amber was there and was a life saver finding the kids a Wild Kratt's episode about squids, who are very similar to Octopus', so we watched that for a few minutes so I could feed the baby.

Once she was fed, we headed to the kitchen to trace "O's" and color our Octopus. Max spent the lesson downstairs because he was sick this weekend with a cold, but he joined us for snack and coloring portion.

I had a fun idea to glue cheerio's to the picture but it was pretty much a failure. I think I needed glue that either stuck better, or that I could get more out of or something. We also traced the kids hands for another project we'll complete next class.

And of course we ended the day with a yummy snack - of an Octopus out in the Ocean, of course.

And of course, have to show a shot of the babies in the family. ;) One slept the whole time, the other? not so much! ha!

Ice is fun

We had a blast doing experiments with ice. I went to a training recently where we talked about teaching with purpose, and letting youth lead the learning. I wanted to try some youth led science with preschool. I think it was awesome.

Each child had ice. They were able to feel the ice, try stacking it, rubbing it together. Since they are all little and they have oral sensory, they all tasted it as well. I didn't ask them to taste it. It was student led. Then I gave them cold water, and warm water. They felt the two waters with their hands. Then we hypothesized which temperature of water they thought the ice would melt faster in. I can't remember what they thought. The group was divided though, I do remember that.

Then they put some ice in the cold, and some ice in the warm, and watched the ice melt. Some of the darling children were very concerned about their melting ice, and they rescued it.

Then we talked about what happened to the ice. Where did it go? They thought it disappeared, and then they figure it turned into water. If I was smart I would have read them the Shel Silverstein poem about the snowball that wet the bed, but I didn't think of it.

Then we tasted some of the ingredients in ice cream: sugar, vanilla, cocoa, cinnamon, and lime juice. I think that was all. The favorite was the sugar, and the cocoa-which was actually dry hot chocolate. Max really, really liked this activity. He kept wanting more of everything. I was surprised how many of the little munchkins liked the lime juice.

The kiddos also painted with watercolor, and made icecream cones out of paper and snowballs. We had fun with ice.

I is for inchworm

So, we  learned about the letter "i." But first we did the pledge of allegiance. That is my favorite part. The kiddos have to figure out which hand is their right hand, which one is their left hand, and then they put it on their heart or their bellies. You know...somewhere in the general vicinity of heart location. Totally cute.

Then we tried cutting inchworms with lower case and upper case i's, so we could match them. It turned into a big paper carnage without any matching at all.

We went outside and gathered little crab-apples and stuff that fell from the neighbor's yard. Also some tomatoes from the vines. Then we counted them with Everett. Because, he likes counting.  He really wanted to give his mom a little apple. I think he did.

We also sang some songs, and did some preschool yoga. They were good at downward dogs. Cutest little dogs ever. (R.J. did not want to try the yoga. Not at all, no matter how much he likes dogs, he did not want to do a yoga dog).

Day 2: Lines and Weather

During circle time we emphasized what the weather was like today. The children all decided it was sunny and windy. We read a story without words about the weather. It had pictures and I described the details in the pictures. The children were super attentive and loved the part about the wind. In the picture people, hats, trees, paper, etc. were being blown all over and all the children thought that was neat.

To learn about lines we first had a demonstration on the white board about what a line was. Everyone wanted to draw a line on the whiteboard :) Then we used our fine motor skills and practiced cutting lines, that I before hand, had drawn on each child's paper. I encouraged them to draw more lines and cut them all out. Some had difficulty using the scissors so it was a great time to teach them how to hold and use scissors, as well.

We then did a craft about the weather. Each child looked up in the sky and told me what they thought they saw in a cloud. We got a lot of creative answers and then they made what they thought they saw out of cotton balls to represent the cloud. It was really cute. This is what they each thought they saw.

Everett: Train

RJ: Circle

Kaylee: Heart

Jared: Cow

Max: Dinosaur

They then enjoyed their weather inspired snack. They had popcorn to represent clouds and it was buttered popcorn, the butter to represent the sun. They all loved it and had fun playing with the toothpick, cloud and sun, that were in it :-) The toothpick representing the line.

After that they each made a wind streamer. They adorned them with tissue paper (all colors of the rainbow), glitter glue, sequins, you name it! Then they practiced their large motor skills by putting our windy day to the test and running with their wind streamers in the wind!

Loved seeing their HAPPY faces this morning!!!

Om nom nom

Kaylee proving that we did indeed have sunshine today :) And Everett intently looking at his cloud.

Day 1: E is for ELEPHANT

Today we learned about the letter E. We started off with circle time. Everyone was super excited to help with the weather! Dino the Dinosaur started off reading our book "Green Eggs and Ham". Eggs start with the letter E I told them. And all of them agreed that they did not want to eat green eggs and ham from Sam... We then read a book titled "Are you ticklish?". Every child loved tickling all of the animals in the book and laughed and laughed as they did!

We went on and used our fine motor skills to use elbow macaroni to trace our letter e. The kids did a great job! Everett and RJ were very particular and took the longest on this activity, making sure they put them just right while munching on a few noodles along the way ;-) . Isaac, Kaylee, and Jared were super speedy and done in no time! Those that finished quickly moved onto the other worksheet that had pictures of words that start with E like Elephant, Eskimo, and Egg. They colored and traced on that worksheet. 

After that everyone enjoyed their Elephant sandwiches with peanuts! Peanuts are an elephant's favorite snack, right? :-) Even baby Michael wanted in on these Elephant sandwiches, luckily I had an extra. 

Once snack was over we used our large motor skills and went on an elephant treasure hunt. We all used our arms as a trunk and made elephant sounds to try and find where the elephant's treasure may be. We looked in rooms all over the house and then made our way outside. Once outside we turned the corner and found the elephant treasure! Can you guess what it was? PEANUTS!!!! The kids had a great time stomping on the peanuts with their big elephant feet!

RJ wanted to enjoy his elephant treat... literally!

Everett was such a good elephant :)

Jared even had two trunks on his elephant!

Isaac's trunk was really long and went over his head ;)

Kaylee was such a cute elephant!