Thursday, December 19, 2013

Winter Holidays

We had a fantastic day in preschool today.  We reviewed the letters we've already learned this year and then spent our literacy block picture reading books and doing some one-on-one quick assessments to judge where were are at this point in the year.  You can find my preschool assessment in the "A Year in Review" Pack on Teacher's Notebook.
We spent the rest of the day learning about Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas and New Year's.  We practiced rolling dice and graphing snowmen, singing winter holiday songs and reading stories galore. Have a great break everyone!  We'll see you in the new year!

Don't forget to swing by and enter to win the Jan-May Preschool Curriculum!

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Winter Holidays

It was fun to learn all about winter holidays in tot school this week.  We enjoyed playing with the 250 balloons in our winter wonderland classroom for the first quarter of our day.
 After snack time we learned how to play Dreidel and sing the dreidel song.  We also learned about Christmas, and what makes the New Year so special (the earth goes around the sun!).  We also enjoyed drawing pictures of our favorite winter holiday.  We had so much fun!

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Ocean Animals

We had such a fantastic day today learning all about the letter J and ocean animals.  We enjoyed playing with 250 balloons at the start of our day, then we moved into talking about Jellyfish and making the /j/ sound. Everyone got 5 J stickers to put on themselves (EMan put his on his tummy).  We had jell-o for snack with carrot tentacles.  It was so yummy!  We're moving on to separating phonemes in words and stretching the words out super long.
 Art was oodles of fun.  I love this activity.  Everyone got a letter J on their paper and he was going to have a party.  All of the other letters were invited to the party with the letter J.  It is always so much fun to listen to the conversation about, "Please pass the O" to "T is coming to the party too!"  Then they would stamp the letter onto the party page.
 We also worked on the J the Jellyfish Amazing Action Alphabet art page and the Montessori style ocean animals games from 1+1+1=1.  What a fantastic day of school!

January-May Preschool Packs GIVEAWAY

Yay! The January to May Preschool Packs are now all completed with their updates!  The set includes 1121 pages of lesson plans and printable activity pages for preschoolers 3-5. You can now download the Jan-May Preschool Packs Bundle HERE.  Our preschoolers learn so much and are reading by the end of the year.  Yours could be too if you follow along with us.  Find more details on our Preschool Page.

Be sure to scroll all the way down to enter to win the 1121 page download of preschool lesson plans! (Giveaway ends 12-26-13)

34. Snowmen {Download}
I love the Snowmen preschool pack.  It's the first pack for the second half of the year and contains everything you need to get started.  There are pages to help you set up a learning wall of colors and shapes, counting 0-9 and what good readers do.  You'll also find a calendar set for Jan-Dec to help your student(s) start to understand time.  There are also a couple of directed drawing activities.  We review many of the concepts that we've already learned throughout the year including letters and blending short vowel words, tic-tac-toe, graphing, short path games, and making words.  There are pages to practice cutting and then can be used to decorate your house.  It's such a delightful pack!

35. Opera and Talents {Download}
Opera and Talents covers an introduction of what talents are and what opera is.  We talk about the letter O (O the Ostrich sings Opera).  The story of Little Red Riding Hood is introduced in a companion reading book and there are pages of large characters to practice acting out the story.  We talk about how opera is where you sing all the words and a play is where you say the words.  There is a letter O Go Fish game as well as an introduction to patterns on a piano keyboard.  There is a game of charades and a like vs. dislike game to determine your preschooler's talents.

36. Moms {Download}
The Moms themed day came about because after learning the letter O kids love to do a YMCA of sorts and spell MOM.  We continue talking about patterns, letter O (in do-a-dots and tracing) as well as a draw and write about your mom activity.  Preschoolers work on putting simple sentences together and counting the quantity of moms in clip cards.  We practice location words with a moms in the house matching game. Preschoolers love playing with all these creative activities!

37. Manners {Download}
The January Manners pack is called (Naughty!) Manners because we talk about the letter N and say "/n-n-n/" when someone isn't doing the appropriate thing.  There is a fun No, David! activity where we practice saying /n-n-n/ to David when we read his books.  There is an eye contact activity that explains the cultural manners of looking in another person's eyes when they're speaking to you.  We also start playing patterns on the piano and talk about final phonemes in words.  We sort capital and lower case letter N's and play a few games that work on identifying the best behavior in a situation.  There are classroom and home rules to help remind preschoolers about the importance of manners everywhere.

38. Nursery Rhymes {Download}
This fun nursery rhymes pack introduces a nursery rhyme for every letter that we've studied so far.  Each one has its own game to play or idea to work on learning the nursery rhyme and practicing the letter.  We also practice our patterning, piano skills and writing letters.

39. Dancing {Download}
The dancing preschool pack is oodles of fun!  We talk about the story of The Princess and the Pea with an interactive companion reading book to challenge your preschoolers to find the letters and words they already know and read them in an engaging text.  We continue working on sight word "and" as well as patterns.  There is a really fun interactive page that talks about the different types of dancing and gives video examples to watch and try yourself.  We also do an instrument go-fish game and a dancing puppet!

40. Dinosaurs {Download}
Dinosaurs is such a fantastic theme for preschoolers.  Many children love dinosaurs at this age.  There is a fun puzzle piece dinosaur skeleton for burying in sand to be found with paintbrush diggers and then reassembled.  There are also puzzle pages and shadow matching.  There is a 12 piece puzzle, a find those dinosaurs reading game and much more in this exciting pack!
41. Giggles and Gumdrops {Download}
I LOVE doing giggles and gumdrops in February! It's an introduction to the letter G and great for thinking forward to Valentine's day.  There is a long path game, tic-tac-toe, an alphabet floor puzzle, matching dots, learning circles and other shapes and so much more. In February we talk about 2D shapes and this pack is a great introductory to them.

42. Hearts {Download}
The hearts preschool pack is oodles of fun with games to help reinforce what we've been learning all year long.  We continue the letter G, review patterns and sight words and play a super fun game of spelling with heart tiles.  The kids love talking about hearts as we head into Thanksgiving.

43. Sun {Download}
With the introduction of the letter U we talk about the sun and our solar system.  There are oodles of sun specific activities from drawing suns and reading words in a sun to short path games and coloring pages with the appropriate amount of useful information for preschool aged children.  There is plenty of content about our solar system, the different planets and why we live on Earth along with fun activities like lacing suns and tracing triangles.  It's a pack not to be missed when you're learning about space!

44. Valentines {Download}
There are oodles of Valentine activities out there, but this one is special.  We have content based activities so kids aren't just playing, they're purposefully exploring and reviewing topics that are building their preschool knowledge base.  I love teaching my kids Valentine songs, playing tic-tac-toe and sorting capital and lowercase letter U. There is a 12 piece puzzle and heart letter and word wheels.  There is also a great balloon game that I'm really looking forward to playing with my kids!

45. Wheels {Download}
When I was making the wheels pack my preschooler walked into the room and with really big eyes he said, "Let's buy that game!"  There are learning based games galore in this pack!  We talk about diamonds (rhombus) we practice reading with our road to reading game, we practice writing the letters we've already learned, we sing songs and play a short path game.  We review left and right, work on quantity clip cards and there is even a steering wheel for your back seat driver!

46. Vehicles {Download}
Vehicles is a fantastic pack that we introduce the letter R with.  /r-r-r/ is the sound that race cars make when they're zooming around the track!  We practice sorting by color, finding vehicle names based on initial sound, we practice hexagons and get moving with a wheel and cones large motor game.  This day is packed with activity!

47. Dr. Seuss {Download}
Dr. Seuss text and figures © and TM Dr. Seuss Enterprises L.P.  All rights reserved.
Dr. Seuss has some great printables all about reading.  It's the first day that we introduce Reading Strategies (an idea that will take kids through their elementary school years while reading).  We talk about Dr. Seuss and his life, but due to copyright there are no Dr. Seuss images or stories.  We focus on the positive reading aspect of Dr. Seuss.  There is a fun beanbag game to review 2D shapes, a coloring shapes and reading pages and a spelling book for young readers to write in (or stamp in) words they know.
48. Karate {Download}
The Karate pack is fantastic because it really gets kids moving.  There is a super fun karate exercise card game that I'm sure I'll introduce on this day and then keep around for random times when we need to get some extra wiggles out.  We learn the letter K because we say /k-k-k/ while we're practicing our karate kicks.  This also introduces March and 3D shapes with a sphere.  There's oodles of sorting and reading and writing activities to play as well!

49. Healthy Bodies {Download}
Healthy Bodies is an important idea to talk to our preschoolers about.  There are so many reports of childhood obesity and illness these days.  Let's stop that trend by teaching our children the importance of keeping their bodies healthy.  This pack introduces ideas such as how to wash your hands appropriately, hygiene skills, exercising and eating right. To me, eating right is about eating fruits and vegetables in a state as close to their original state as possible so we sort fruits and vegetables vs. icecream and candy.  We continue practicing the letter K by finding words that start with K and playing a kick the K cube game.

50. Elephants and Circus {Download}
Elephants and circus introduces the letter E. This pack is full of mini reader books.  There is an informational companion reading book about elephants and then a handful of beginning reader books that your preschoolers will be able to read.  We talk about the cone shape and build circus tents that look like cones.  We also get to read words with talented sea lions and their balancing balls.  There is also a 24 piece puzzle and a letter maze!

51. St. Patrick's Day {Download}
I love St. Patrick's Day!  We get to play with clovers in a slap jack type game as well as in a numeral mat and long path game.  Preschoolers love all the coin/money/gold counting activities and games in this pack as well.  We continue practicing letter E and introduce the cylinder.
52. Trains {Download}
Playing with trains is such a delightful thing for preschoolers to do and this pack won't disappoint you or them.  We practice reading words with tracks to reading, we use a little train to practice a pattern on the keyboard and there is a wand to practice letters on a train.  We also get to start introducing money, starting with the penny.  We also get to play "Making Words" with a word family train.

53. Animals in Spring {Download}
Animals in Spring talks about animals as well as the season Spring.  We make words with the "in" family inside the barn and match upper and lowercase letters in puzzle form.  There is a really fun game called Sequencing Sounds that we play with all animal sounds.  It's a great precursor for all the pre-readers.  The nickel is introduced and we practice the letters that we've already learned this year.  We continue working on piano patterns, tracing mazes and sequencing the seasons.

54. Wind {Download}
We love the wind day!  We take a large box fan and see how many things we can make fly in the wind it creates!  We learn the letter W and introduce the dime.  There is a long path game that reviews the most recently learned letters as well as a short path game with a color kite spinner. There are patterns to make a windsock and a paper kite.

55. Weather {Download}
We enjoy talking about weather as a whole after spending lots of time talking about each season of the year.  The quarter is introduced and we practice making words with a weather chart.  There is weather directionality practice as well as a cutting/gluing page to sort big and little.
April
56. Picnics {Download}
We love going outside as much as we can in the spring time.  Introducing picnics is great fun outside if possible.  We always invite our teddy bears to join us and we learn the song "Teddy Bear's Picnic".  We practice patterns and play a long path game.  We learn all about ant pheromone trails and follow the paths. We also get to start learning numerals with the numeral 1.  There is also the game "Smack that Fly!" where we practice our reading by smacking a fly with a *clean* fly swatter.  The kids love that activity!

57. Planting Seeds {Download}
Planting Seeds and learning all about gardening and where our food comes from is a big part of the Little Adventures Preschool curriculum.  In this pack we practice planting paper seeds as we read the word printed on each seed.  The numeral 2 is introduced along with the letter Y.  We sequence the jobs a farmer does as well as the steps to planting a seed and watching it grow.  There are a few mazes and a long path game that focuses on reinforcing the most recently learned letters.

58. Vegetables {Download}
We love vegetables around here.  What a great way to learn the letter V.  We also introduce the numeral 3.  There is a vegetable word family wheel as well as an instructional book about making vegetable soup.  We practice sorting vegetables by color, making puzzles with 3 pieces and using beginning sounds to find each vegetables name.  There is a cut and paste salad making activity and a "Gather the Vegetables" game to practice letters.

59. Fruits {Download}
Fruits go hand in hand with vegetables. We continue matching colors as well as matching pictures of fruit to their names according to beginning sound.  The numeral 4 is introduced and we play making words with the "ed" family. We review "Guess My Secret Rule" from the fall and sort fruits and vegetables.

60. Mud and Worms {Download}
Mud and Worms is one of our most remembered days every year.  We set up two kid pools outside.  One has water in it and the other has dirt.  Kids come and explore the water and dirt all day long.  We also learn about worms and how they help the soil.  The numeral 5 is introduced and kids practice making 5 piece puzzles.  We review right and left, match upper and lower case letters in go fish, start learning about dot-to-dot games and read worm words.

61. April Showers {Download}
April showers is a great introduction to the water cycle.  We learn about the numeral 6, review beginning sounds, practice tracing letters and play with numeral clip cards.  We also review shapes and colors.

62. Trees {Download}
This exceptional pack introduces the letter x and discusses the differences between trees vs. other plants.  There is a fun trees slap jack game called "Slap Trees" as well as lacing cards and beginning spelling/writing pages with a word list so you don't question what each picture is representing.  There are trees to sort according to size/age as well as a family tree with spaces to add pictures.

63. Plants {Download}
The plants pack is all about understanding a plants development and the parts of a plant.  The numeral 8 is introduced and kids practice color by number pages and a cut and label the picture page.  We review ordinal numbers from earlier in the year and there is a fun "Spelling Bee" activity to review words we have been practicing reading.

64. Zoo Animals {Download}
Zoo Animals is such a fun pack to play.  We LOVE the zoo animal puppets in this pack.  They're made to stand by themselves and are a great dramatic play tool.  The numeral 9 is introduced and there are 9 piece puzzles. We match zoo animals to their beginning sound and practice directionality.  There is a fun zoo animal dice with a graphing activity as well as a long path game where you draw a card according to what animal you landed on.  It acts as a review of letters, numbers, shapes and colors.


May
65. Quilts and Patterns {Download}
Quilts and patters introduces the letter Q and the numeral 0.  We practice short path games and patterns.  There is a long path game that focuses on the most recently learned letters as well as a lacing activity and making words with quilt squares.

66. Mother's Day {Download}
Mother's Day is a great pack that talks about the importance of the moms in our life.  It reviews the numerals 0-9, directionality, shapes and basic reading flowers.  There is a long path games full of activities each child could do to help their mother.

67. A Year in Review (with Assessment Pages) {Download}
This 150 page pack is a complete review of everything we've learned through the year as well as assessment pages to determine where each child's understanding is and where they're going.
Printables in this pack include: puzzles, alphabetizing the alphabet, beginning sounds, classificiation, color matching, counting mat, directionality, draw and write, exercise card game, graphing, hop along the path, left and right, letter tracing, letter wheels, location word book, mazes, more/less and equal, numeral clip cards, one-to-one correspondence, opposites, ordinal numbers, pattern review, phonics game board, play-dough mats, quantity clip cards, rhyming, sequencing, shape tracing, 2D shapes, 3D shapes, size sequencing, standing in line, tic-tac-toe.
Assessment pages include the following: cover page, letter names and sounds, beginning sounds, locating text, book handling, rhyming words, sight words, syllables, running record, coins, comparing and classifying, counting objects one-to-one, graphing, numerals 0-9, patterns, rote counting, 2D and 3D shapes, colors, cutting skills, pencil grip, puzzles, say name: first/middle/last, speech assessment, tracing.





**Preschool packs are lesson plans intended for a small preschool classroom or homeschool.  They are not to be used individually as they follow a year long curriculum that builds upon itself.  The themes specify what the underlying topic is that we'll be talking about with literature, in our art, and any science or social studies activities.  Reading and Math activities most often do not relate to the theme and these lesson plans are heavy in the reading and math department.  Printables expand on what we're able to cover in our 2.5 hours allotted to learn the materials and are often used as homework practice. The reading lesson plans are designed to be used with all the materials from the Amazing Action Alphabet and have been proven to teach children to be successful readers.

**Each preschool pack has 3 pages of lesson plan ideas.  Each child should be introduced to activities that don't involve something you can print from a computer, such as building blocks or painting.  These first 3 pages of lesson plans have all of the ideas that match the theme in one easy spot.  The lesson plans pages are organized by subject for easy referencing.  I've linked many of the materials listed to Amazon.com to provide you with more information about products you might want to consider using.  These packs have a lot of research behind them as I am a licensed teacher with experience teaching PreK-2nd Grade for 10 years.

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Preschool Polar Express

We had such a delightful time learning all about the Polar Express.  The kids loved watching the movie (a YouTube video with visual clips from the film as the book is read out loud).  We also sorted images according to syllables, practiced rhythm with our rhythm sticks and reviewed the letter F sound.  LittleA in the bottom left picture is signing "cold" and making the /f-f-f/ sound.
 We practiced reading bells with word family words, explored graphing some more and continued to make sets for "Guess My Secret Rule."  It was such a fantastic day of learning.  Find these activities and more in our Polar Express Preschool Pack.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Polar Express

We enjoyed pajama day today talking about the letter F and the Polar Express.  The kids love when I pull out the box of wood trains and they get to build all over the floor!
 We also played with fake snow and little blue beads in our sensory bin.   It was a big hit and they were making it "snow" on each other.  So, if you find little gel pieces in their hair that's what it's from.  They'll disolve in water.
 We also got to play with liquid glue and glitter today making paper snowflakes sparkle to decorate our classroom.  Boy that was fun!
 We loved playing with the Polar Express Tot Pack after watching the video/audio book on the SmartBoard.  We still have the snowflakes hanging from our ceiling from yesterday's preschool lesson about snow and the girls were so cute making one snowflake swing back and forth.
What a fantastic day!

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Snow!

I love snow day!  It's so much fun!  We play with snow and talk all about what snow is and introduce the letter F.  We do F on this day because it's the sound you make when you're freezing.  We started the day playing with snow in cookie sheets.  We decided to use the fake snow since it wouldn't melt or cause any problems like cold fingers. 
 We had so much fun with our reading lesson today.  We continued with our shared reading and finding the words we know how to read within the text we have.  The kids have loved marking the words they know how to read.
 I'm so sad I missed pictures of them dancing in our snowstorm.  We have snowflakes suspended from the ceiling at varying lengths and everyone thought it was the best game to make them swing and "snow" a little bit while we were dancing and singing.  We worked on the letter F art from the Amazing Action Alphabet, made snowflakes with silver pipe-cleaners and even graphed snowflakes.  It was an option to go out and play in the snow at the end of the day but the girls declined since they were working so hard on their beading.  The boys enjoyed playing outside though!