Insects and Play Ball!

What a great day of learning!  In our morning class we talked all about Insects and the letter I.  We learned the sight words "I" and "my" and did some great hand print art from the Amazing Action Alphabet Activity Book. We spent lots of time in small groups today really working on learning our letters and sounds and blending the letters to make words.  Remember to reference the blending video found here to help you with reading at home.  We also got to pull out the rhythm sticks to start our month long study of rhythm in music.  Boy did we love that!

In their binders today you'll find the homework in the front pocket.  It's a game called "Catch that Bug!".  Spread out the bugs from the baggy (foam insects from Oriental Trading) and after successfully reading each word "catch" one of the bugs with tweezers and put it on the paper bug jar.  See if you can read all the words in the whole packet!  This is the only homework this week.  It would be very beneficial if you could work on it every day!

Our afternoon class started off with a bang reading, "Pete the Cat, Play Ball!"  It's impressive how many of these kids (3 and 4 year olds) can read SO MUCH of this book already by themselves.  We learned the sight word "ball" and the letter p today.  Continue your work at home reading the mini readers every day and add to it the Pete the Cat book.  Remember to read the big words and encourage them to read the highlighted words that they've been working on (we highlight the appropriate words with highlighter tape in class).

We'll be beginning our unit on patterning on Wednesday so we got to play with the HUGE tub of unifix cubes in math today.  They made towers that went the whole length of the room and had a blast!

Caterpillars and Insects

What a fantastic day of school!  We loved talking all about caterpillars today.  We read the letter C book and learned about the stages of a caterpillars life.  We even got to see a live caterpillar thanks to Lil'S bringing in her pet!  We were just like C the Caterpillar in art today.  We cut leaves!  This class needs A LOT of cutting practice and this would be a great activity to do at home this week while it is still warm.  Just head outside with a pair of kid safe scissors and let them cut all the leaves into confetti.  We also learned more about rhyming words today as we came up with rhymes for "at" and "am".  During math today we went outside and practiced "near" and "far".  The kids ran "near Miss Amanda" and "far from Miss Amanda".  They ran back and forth over and over until they were completely exhausted!

 In the afternoon we talked about the letter I and did a shared reading of "The Big Bug Dug".  It had many letters in it that we haven't talked about yet but most words are phonetic and we were able to read the majority of the book with help on a few advanced sight words.  We practiced reading in our reading groups and played the "i Word Machine" on Starfall.com.

 We continued working on graphing today in math.  Today we colored in different graphs.  We also had oodles of fun with the do-a-dot markers and insect stickers during art time!

Indians and Pilgrims

NOTE: This theme is meant as an introduction to Native Americans and Pilgrims. I have intentionally used the word Indian to introduce the letter I. Indian, however, is not an accurate description of Native Americans. For more information please see this link. There are also many different tribes of Native Americans that have very different traditions. Though the Pilgrims were in contact with the Wampanoag, this theme introduces ideas from many different tribes. 

Yay!  It's the holiday season!  We talked all about letter I in tot school today.  We made Indian headdresses (though I should remember to make the feathers smaller next time) and the kids loved them!  They all picked their favorite colors for the feathers.  It was funny that they all picked 2 of the same color. 

 We also were stringing beads to make necklaces and building houses from Lincoln Logs.

 We made totem poles with large cardboard tubes markers and stickers.  It was fun to watch them decorate their totem pole in so many different ways.  We also made a game with a stick, string and pipe cleaner.  The idea is that you swing the circle and try to catch it on your stick.  I was successful exactly ZERO times while trying to demonstrate it to the kids.  I hope they're having better luck at home with it!

 It was really fun when I started setting out green mats for story time they all ran over to find a mat right away without me being done setting up mats or even saying anything.  They love story time and we read oodles of books about Pilgrims and Indians.  We talked about the very basics of the events that led to the first Thanksgiving.  Each time I finished reading a book I'd hand it to a child to look at.  That ended up working really well because they were fully engaged in the books and wanted to be closer but all those kids in my space at the same time doesn't work.  I think I'll try it again next week where they each get a book to look at while I'm reading.   We had a fantastic day!  I look forward to seeing you all again next week!

Insects

For the start of November we're introducing the letter I.  We love talking about insects, who doesn't? So, though most insects are starting to hide from the cold, we're happily playing with plastic bugs of all sorts.  We learn different facts about insects, such as they use their antenna to smell and they have compound eyes.  Imagine a group of preschoolers wearing glittery antenna and "smelling" everything around the room.  It was so fun!  We also got to go on a bug hunt.  Our cute ladybugs had letters and sight words on them.  As we found them we got to read them to the group. Check out our Insects lesson plans for all 43 pages of the printable goodness :)

 We practiced reading our letter I book from the Amazing Action Alphabet.  It's the first really "hard" book that we encounter.  Every page isn't exactly the same anymore and we really have to pay attention to what we're reading.  We also introduce the sight words "I" and "my", which also make the book tricky.  As we were practicing our reading one-on-one the other kids were playing a "Catch those Bugs!" game with tweezers.  They LOVE that game!  Today we also cut, glued and handprinted the letter I insect. Our cutting is really improving!  Keep up the practice at home!

 Throughout November we talk about rhythm in music.  Today was the first day that they got to play with the rhythm sticks and explore playing them fast, slow, loud or quiet.  We also had fun playing with insects in math and exploring a Montessori style insect matching board.