Karate, Quilts and Dr. Seuss

This morning in preschool we learned about the letter K.  We talked all about karate and keeping our bodies healthy.  We read a book called "The Great Race" about some barnyard animals that race each other.  It's super cute!  We also worked on blending our letter sounds to make words.

 We're still working on our b's and d's and had a fun time cutting out our K the Kangaroos.  We played with balls for math today as we talked about circles being flat and spheres being round like a ball.

 This afternoon we continued the Dr. Seuss celebration with today being his actual 111th birthday.  We read The Cat in the Hat and drew and wrote about our favorite parts.  We worked on our math matching game and in our Ready2Read units.

 We also talked about quilts and made a class quilt that is now hanging on the wall.  Just like the morning class we read "The Great Race" and there are TONS of words that your 4 year old should be able to read by themselves in this book.  It's a great companion reading book, so pull it out of their binder and practice reading together!

Dr. Seuss' Birthday

Today in preschool we celebrated Dr. Seuss.  We read so many books I hardly have a voice anymore.  I love when kids point out which books they also have at home and are familiar with.  

 We read Green Eggs and Ham before snack time and then enjoyed some hard boiled and dyed green eggs and some turkey.  (Turkey because I don't eat pork, but they didn't mind so much.) We read about Bartholomew and the Oobleck after snack and then played in our own Oobleck.  It was ooey and gooey and slimy and raining oobleck all over the place.   I love the activity, however, I'm not so sure about that large of a mess, whew!

 This afternoon started off with the Oobleck adventure and these kids acted like it was their sole purpose in life to play with the oobleck.  If you haven't been around the block with us before, Oobleck is cornstarch and water (I add green food coloring to the water).  It is a non-Newtonian fluid that possesses the properties of both a liquid and a solid.  It's super fun to play with and leaves a cornstarch film on EVERYTHING when you try to clean it up.

 After reading the oobleck book and Green Eggs and Ham we headed downstairs to write and draw about our favorite book.  I have another new sofa in the basement now.  It's kind of an experiment of sorts.  I'll write about that on NexusHomeschool one of these days.... it was fun to watch them spread out and work.  We also worked on our guided reading lessons and our math books.  Our math books are individual books that the kids are writing that represent numbers with a numeral and a picture of base ten blocks for each page.  It is a fun project that is really helping me see who needs clarity on place value of tens and units and who can recognize the teen numbers (or not, for that matter).

I love seeing how this class is working together and building such great friendships!

Preschool Dr. Seuss

We had such a blast learning all about Dr. Seuss today.  One of the little girls immediately piped up about taking her younger brother to the doctor to get shots, it was so cute.  We read quite a few Dr. Seuss books and CJ was even able to read them "The Cat in the Hat".  We had a blast eating hard boiled green eggs and bacon for snack (that's like Green Eggs and Ham, right?).  We also really enjoyed playing with Oobleck and coloring our Dr. Seuss pages.  We learned some really important reading strategies today and you can check out the preschool pack to find them (this pack is free, so be sure to stop by and get it today!).  Since Dr. Seuss is a great time to focus on readings skills, we talked all about what to do when we get to a word we don't know.  There are fun reading strategy cards you can print and practice while reading.  What a fantastic day of school!

Tot School Dr. Seuss Day

We always have so much fun talking about Dr. Seuss around his birthday each year.  We read oodles of stories by Dr. Seuss and played on Seussville.com on the SmartBoard.  We started making Popsicle stick "Thing 1 and Thing 2" but ran out of time to complete the project. 

 We made a fun fish hand print craft that we then practiced "reading".  The kids thought it was fantastic.  We had "Green Eggs and Ham" (eggs and bacon) for snack time, played with Oobleck (a fantastic sensory experience that is neither solid nor liquid) and pretended to the be Cat in the Hat with our paper bag hats!  What great fun!

February Tot Packs

Getting ready for February? Tot Packs are ready for you!

I create all of my lesson plans to share digitally with other homeschooling families and small classrooms.  If your child attends Little Adventures Preschool you can easily supplement their learning at home by downloading the lesson plans.  It will also give you a good idea about what we covered.  I always plan more than we will ever actually get to so there is often a great idea within the plans that you can share with your child to extend their learning.  You can find all of my toddler and preschool lesson plans here:http://www.teachersnotebook.com/shop/LittleAdventuresPreschool
Find the year long theme calendar {here} and follow along with us! This post gives details and pictures of all February Toddler Packs. Be sure to scroll down to see all of them. 

Tot Packs 25-28 Tot packs are about 20 pages in length. They each have 2 pages of activity ideas, book suggestions, and links to the materials I use. You can certainly use all or part of the lesson plans.  The printable pages include songs, matching games, drawing games and other activities. Tot packs are designed to be a first introduction to math concepts, letters, shapes and colors. They are not meant to obtain mastery in any subject. Let them be a guide for educational play between you and your child.

February
{Download all 4 February Tot Packs}

25. Hearts {Download}

Printables in this pack:

Heart Grid Game

My Shapes Book

 Letter G

G is for Gumdrops

 Heart Matching

Gluten Free Play-Dough

 3 Piece Heart Puzzles

 Shape Matching

Heart Lacing

26. Valentine's {Download}

Printables in this pack:

Valentine Play Dough

Shape Memory

Letter U

  Heart Color Sorting

 Valentine 3 Piece Puzzles

 Heart Tick-Tac-Toe

Valentine’s Day Tracing

27. Wheels {Download}

Printables in this pack:

Cutting Skills

Traffic Signs

 Shadow Matching

Size Sequencing

 Writing Your Name

Wheel Tracing

Shape Matching

 Letter Review ( m t a s b h c i l p f j o n d g u )

Color Matching

The Wheels on the Bus

28. Dr. Seuss {Download}

Printables in this pack:

A note about printables: All Dr. Seuss text and figures © and TM Dr. Seuss Enterprises L.P.  All rights reserved.  This pack is short on printables because I do not have rights to the images and will not violate copyright laws.  Please find oodles of printable pages at http://www.seussville.com/Educators/educatorClassroomResources.php?id=printables

Thing 1 and Thing 2 Labels

 Letter R

 A Short History of Dr. Seuss

Pick Up a Book Poem 

Continuing Dr. Seuss

Fortifying Friday was a continuation of the Dr. Seuss theme since it was in fact his birthday.  It gave us the opportunity to work on a few extra projects that we didn't get to on Wednesday.  We used our hot dots pens for "counting" and "first sound" cards.

 Then we read Bartholomew and the Oobleck.  I was impressed with their attention span since it is quite a long book.

 Next we had to make Oobleck.  It's a mixture of cornstarch and water.  I add a little green food coloring to the water before mixing it together to make a nice green goo.

 If you haven't played with it before you should try it.  It is a solid if you handle it quickly, yet a liquid if you handle it slowly.

 A fantastic element of Fridays: Green Smoothies.  EMan loves them and is always asking for more.

 C just didn't want to give up playing with the oobleck at snack time.

 We played, "Race to the Hat"

 and a matching letters game.

 EMan found a blanket and took a little break while we were playing :)

 We talked about how Dr. Seuss is an author and illustrator, a VERY LARGE idea for 3 and 4 year olds.  The next step was for them to be authors and illustrators themselves.  I love that C drew Humpty Dumpty and a Sun.  It was so cute!

Dr. Seuss Day

We had a fantastic day!  It was a lot of fun celebrating Dr. Seuss in preschool today.  I had to pick some of my favorite photos to share, but I also included a video collage of all the photos from today (I believe I took 64 pictures).
We started the day by coloring some "Cat in the Hat" hats.  I was so glad last night when I went to prep these hats that I had done extras last year and they were mostly done for me.  Yay!  If you want to make some yourself take an over sized white lunch bag and draw lines every two inches.  I drew a red "x" in the middle of every other rectangle and that's where the kids colored.  Then you cut out the inside of a paper plate and staple the bag to it.  I've made these every year for about 10 years and it is so much fun every time!

 Our first three to finish making their hats loved playing with them while the rest were finishing coloring.

 We headed downstairs next to read "The Cat in the Hat."

 I used printables from Mama's Monkeys and 2 Teaching Mommies. We had all sorts of activities.  I made lapbooks of a sort with these printables by taking a large sheet of construction paper, gluing some pages on the outside and an envelope on the inside and laminating them.   We traced the letter "H" and the word "Hat"...

 We played shape matching and shadow matching games...

 and then headed upstairs for snack time.  Here a crowd has gathered at the kitchen sink to wash, somehow the bathroom is "so yesterday!" and the kitchen is the new "hip to was my hands here" spot.  Awesome, some just need to grow a few more inches :)

 We put 10 eggs into a pan and started cooking them on the stove top (I secretly added food coloring).  While our eggs were cooking we read, "Green Eggs and Ham." The kids were uncertain about the green eggs and ham we had for snack, but everyone tried them and liked them in the end.

 We had a new friend "R" join us for preschool today.  She was a blast to have and we hope she joins us for preschool in the fall.

 We made these adorable "Thing" popsicle puppets that you can find at toddlerapproved.com

 "C" thought it was awesome getting attention for his red painted face, so he took the dot markers and painted his whole face.  What a silly kid.

 I love that the kids decided they should line up all their "Thing Puppets" on the piano like this.  How fun!

 For math today we worked on some size comparisons...

 and matching sets of trees to a numeral...

 and having "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" race to the finish line!

I love celebrating Dr. Seuss birthday and am excited that we get to do a few more fun activities on Friday for Fortifying Friday.  It's days like today that energize me to keep coming up with fun activities for our little preschoolers.  Thanks for sharing your kids with me!