C is for Caterpillar/Clown

Tuesday there was a oops on the schedule, which the teacher didn't catch, and as a consequence wasn't really organized. But we had a good day learning letter C anyway.

We read about the Hungry Caterpillar and played the Hungry Caterpillar Game (thanks to Jenni!). The boys practiced making letter C on the chalkboards and with play-dough. Snacks were some caterpillar food (fruit). (There was more but I don't remember what :)

Thursday was more organized. We read about clowns in What Clowns Do When They Go On Vacation. Then we tried making our own clown hats!

We also talked about the color black. The boys practiced cutting some black paper into pieces and gluing the pieces into the letter C.

J is for Jesus (Plus the Letter M & Color Red)

We were combining lessons this week because we were playing catch up, so we learned about a few different letters and colors. We reviewed the letter S, and then introduced the letter M and J. The boys were all excited when we were naming things that began with the letters because we named a few of them too! (J is for Jared and R-J!, & M is for Max!)

We started learning about the letter J. We talked about Jesus, sang Jesus wants me for a sunbeam, and even read a few books about Jesus and Jesus' birth. We quickly were losing their interest, so I read a curious George book because he is a curious Monkey and monkey starts with M! I don't think I've seen the boys act so good!

We reviewed colors too - we pointed out things that were white (from previous lesson) and then pointed out things that were red. Jared liked to show off his awesome red shirt.

Then it was time to practice writing the letters we were learning. We started with M & J, and used the cute individual chalk boards to do that. The kids all enjoyed that. (The video makes it look like not all of them did, but I promise they did haha!)

                                         


And then of course it was time to get creative, so the boys cut out strips of red paper to make red and white upside down candy canes in the shape of a J. And since J was for Jesus the boys also cut out yellow strips of paper for straw and glued that on the bottom of the J with baby Jesus.

And then my RED berries decided to go bad, so we enjoyed colorful goldfish crackers. The boys all had to pick out the red ones to show me before they could eat them, and they all had fun with that too.

Thanks Amber for helping out. :)

S is for Snow & Snowmen!

We had a really awesome preschool lesson about the letter S and how it stands for SNOW! (I think our curriculum knows we live in Nebraska so we have two lessons about snow apparently? haha!) We read some fun stories about snow and winter. Then we learned a little more about the letter S and practiced writing it and practiced saying Sssss.

For our activity we did water coloring in the snow. It was actually a lot of fun and the kids seemed to enjoy it. I tried to have them do a little sensory play with it first - they all agreed that it was cold, but had a hard time telling me that it felt wet. (As they wiped the 'wet' snow off their fingers on their shirts, ha!) So we learned that snow is cold and wet, as opposed to dry like they kept thinking. :)

And then we ended with a fun snowman snack - cut up bananas, with mini chocolate chips for eyes & buttons, and then pretzel sticks for arms. The kids could choose to put the snowmen together themselves or just eat it. I think Jared & Isaac decided to just gobble it up, but everyone else seemed to have fun playing and making their snack.

And of course here is a pick of the growing babies that are troopers! Thanks Amber for helping!

S is for Snowman

We really missed little Miss Kaylee. Looks like we are now an all boy team! Go team Boy!!! This week we learned about the sneaky letter S. He says "ssssssss" just like a snake, even his shape reminded us of a snake. We sang a fun song about a snowman who melts and comes back alive with a frosty gust of wind. Since snowman also starts with S we read a fun book "What do Snowmen Do At Night?" Then we used moon dough to make S shapes. Next the boys practiced with chalk and chalkboards. Next we moved on to cutting shapes with scissors. RJ has pretty good cutting skills! We ate a snowman made of cottage cheese, carrot, and olives. He was not a winner, most of the kids did not enjoy their snacks. For a craft the kids made snowmen out of the letter S. The weather was pretty temperate so we headed outside for a hands on activity playing with water beads that sat outside all night. The beads were half frozen! The kids handled the beads, squashed them, threw the beads, stomped on them, and then our activity went to crazy level. We enjoyed the rest of our day playing outside.

Thursday I hosted a play dough ice cream party instead of preschool. Only Isaac could come and play that day. I made the best play dough using a regular salt dough recipe, just add some glycerine to the mix for a soft malleable dough. The kids played with chocolate, lemon, and strawberry ice cream dough.

X is for Xylophone

Christmas Treats and Xylophone crafts

The letter H, rectangles and manners

Today was a full day because Thursday is Thanksgiving!

We started with rectangles. Everyone said they already knew what a rectangle was so each person took a turn picking an item out of a bag and deciding if it was a rectangle shape or not. Everyone got their shape correct.

We then moved to the letter H and read The Hippo-Not-Amus. I then gave the kids 3 items to make the capital H with like 3 markers, 3 crayons, and 3 sticks. Everyone had fun making their letter H, but we also had some serious wiggles going! It was time for some music and a whole lot of dancing...and jumping :)

Once a majority of the wiggles were out we watched a short video where Crawford the Cat showed us how to have good table manners. We then had a snack and practised our table manners.

After snacks it was time to make the letter H with play-dough until moms came. There were also some turkeys made. Sadly this was the last day Kaylee will be with our group. We will miss you Kaylee!

 
Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving and the Color Green! :)

We were learning about the color Green today. I had Everett show his GREEN toy he brought with him & Kaylee showed her GREEN key chain she brought with her too. When we read books the kids also pointed out the GREEN leaves.

We read a few books about Thanksgiving. We read about what Thanksgiving was (Sorry, not sure if they actually learned anything about it. It was hard keeping their attention for the book reading). We also read about 1 little 2 little 3 little Pilgrims/Indians/Turkeys.

And we also sang some songs about Thanksgiving and Turkeys. We watched a small excerpt explaining about how Thanksgiving came about & sang about Albequerque the turkey. The kids learned that turkeys "Gobble Gobble".

We traced the letter T for Turkey at the table, and did another fun handprint art project.

Sorry, I meant to get more pictures but baby was not happy today.

Their handprint turkey placemat said

"This isn't just a turkey
As anyone can see.
I made it with my hand
Which is a part of me.
It comes with lots of love
Especially to say
I hope you have a very
Happy Thanksgiving Day!"

We had popcorn for a snack because we learned that the Indians shared food with the pilgrims, including CORN (which the kids all agreed was yummy!)

After we were done with the art project the kids ran some laps back and forth from the couch to the door to get out some energy, then we put on our shoes and went exploring out front to wait for moms. The kids all looked for GREEN leaves since that was our color of the week. Then we played "Turkey, Turkey, Feast" (Duck, Duck, Goose) while we waited for mommies to come. RJ and Everett really enjoyed it and liked to run and jump in my lap to get to safety. Annabelle was happy outside because she had plenty of leaves to try to eat too, so it was a win-win scenario. :)

Thanks, Amber, for helping this week!