Families

We had such a fun day today learning about families.  We were reviewing the letters M T and A today in our morning class.  I used a company called Create Jigsaw Puzzles to have each child's family picture made into a professional puzzle.  They turned out so fantastic!  Each child has their puzzle as homework.  Keep them at home and do them over and over again.  The minimum goal by the end of the 3 year old preschool year is to be able to do a 12 piece puzzle.

 We had fun with our reading lesson today practicing being a blender (like the video from last week).  We are practicing words like: at, am, mat, tam.  We talked about 'tam' being a nonsense word that isn't real but fun to read.  In math we started talking about ordinal numbers.  We talked about first, second and third.  At home point out different situations like: Mom will be served fish for dinner first, Daddy second and EMan third.  It was fun to watch the 3 year olds explore drawing people.  Some have been drawing people for a while and others are brand new to the idea.  We talked about the different shapes that make up bodies and how to draw them.

Our afternoon 4 year old class got much bigger puzzles.  Unfortunately the options available are pretty much 12 pieces or 100 pieces so we jumped to the big size. This is a REALLY big challenge that kids sometimes don't master until they are 5, 6 or even 7 years old.  Practice with them at home to make your fun family photo puzzle.

We had a great reading lesson with the letter S this afternoon.  We are continuing the strategies from the video posted last week.  Sound out each word slowly, reread the word quickly, move to the next word.  At the end of the sentence go back and reread the whole sentence quickly.  This strategy may seem very repetitive right now, but the books get much harder in the next few weeks and we'll benifit from practicing this way.  Some of our afternoon kids are working on the Moffatt Girls Ready2Read level 1 and are just about done with unit 1.  We're excited to move into the next word families!  We're still working on mastering counting one-to-one in preschool.  Today we played with the pattern blocks while counting.  We also built towers, forests, dragons and other cool things with the shapes.

We had a great day of learning!  I look forward to seeing everyone on Wednesday!

Letter T with the Dentist and Interest Led Reading

We had so much fun in our morning class today!  We started the day with the puppets and toothbrushes.  We had a silly time talking about where we use our toothbrushes (On our hair?, NO!).  The kids got a kick out of brushing the puppets teeth.  We then moved into our shared reading activity.  We reviewed all the things good readers do and read the "T Book" on the SmartBoard.  I love reading together that way because I can highlight letters and everyone can see what we're doing.  Next we read the dentist book together.  For this activity every child had their own copy of the text (it's in their binder, they get to keep it at home!).  I introduced my magic tape that can help us identify letters.  The letter "T" can be quite confusing.  There is a unique design that we call the "Princess t" to identify it.  It gets confusing with a capital "J" but they'll pick it up as they identify more letters.  With our magic tape we highlighted all the T's we could find on the cover and then a t or two on the following pages as we read it.  As you're reading to your children encourage them to point out the letters they know and what sounds they make.

 We had a ton of fun with our math lesson today.  It was our first time playing "Hop Along the Path" a game we'll play often during the school year.  The idea is to hop from object to object while counting.  It's the first step in learning how pieces move in board games, helps with counting one-to-one and is a FANTASTIC large motor activity!  Art was also a ton of fun because we had tiger teeth that needed a cleaning.  We "cleaned" them with toothbrushes and "toothpaste" (white paint).

 Our afternoon class got to look through the dentist book today as well.  We marked many different Ts as we found them.  It was really exciting to have our first day to pick our own theme to read about.  They thumbed through the encyclopedias and found a page that looked interesting.  Then they would read the words they knew or point out the letters and their sounds to their sock monkey.

This is such a cute example of what they do with their encyclopedias.  The volume is really quiet, so if you turn up your speakers be sure to turn them down after :). 

 We also played the "Hop Along the Path" game today.  The afternoon kids picked up the process of standing in a line, waiting your turn, moving up and going when appropriate quite well.  For art we played with do-a-dot markers and wrote words or letters to describe what we drew.  Their journals will reflect their wonderful growth in learning throughout the year!

If you turned up your speakers for the previous video be sure to turn them down for this one.  It's a little "Hop Along the Path" fun!

Fall, Autumn and the Dentist

What a wonderful day of school.  We had so much fun talking about the letter T and how the season fall will soon be beginning.  We played with paper leaves by tossing them in the air over and over and saying, "It's Fall!"  The kids had a complete blast!  With the introduction of the letter T they each now have a new Amazing Action Alphabet mini reader book in their binders.  Be sure to have them read it 3 times a day.  We loved reading them to our sock monkeys today in class.  In art we colored a tooth brushing chart, be sure to use it this week and reward your preschooler with the certificate at the bottom of the page.  They also received 4 tooth picks in art today to make them into two Ts, a "Mommy T" and a "Baby T".  Have them recreate them at home!  During math we played with equal quantities up to 5.  Please see the details below on how to play this homework.

In our afternoon class we talked about the letter T with the Dentist theme.  We read in our encyclopedias about the human body with muscles and bones.  We marked words we can read or simply the letter T.  Please read this page with your preschooler tonight or tomorrow as their homework.  Let them point out additional ts or read the words they highlighted (and any additional ones they can read).  This strategy is called companion reading which gives kids a way to access text they can't yet read on their own.  In math today we also played with creating equal quantities.  Each preschooler received their own paper with two circles on it.  We used tokens (poker chips) to put an equal number in each circle.  If they had 2 tokens on the left side they needed to have 2 tokens on the right side. These papers went home as homework tonight.  Using pennies or other small tokens recreate the game.  Let them put some on the left hand side and then an equal number on the right hand side.  PLEASE encourage children to MOVE the token as they are counting it.  Perhaps they have 3 tokens in one circle, as they count them they move the token from the top of the circle to the bottom of the circle.  This reinforces one-to-one counting which nearly all of my preschoolers are missing.  If your child is 3 years old only allow quantities up to 5 in each side.  If they are 4 years old you may allow quantities up to 10 per side.

 We had a fantastic time talking about letter t saying /t/ and not /tu/ if you open your mouth after /t/ to make an /u/ sound the tiger might accidentally bite off his finger!  We loved our reading groups and enjoyed helping T the Tiger brush his teeth in art.  After our 'teeth' are dry I'll send them home!

Families - A Preschool Review of MTA

We had oodles of fun in school today.  It's a letter review week and our theme was Families.  Each child started the day with puzzles of their own families that they had to put together.  They loved it and many of them kept hold up puzzles pieces and saying "This is my Mommy."  It was so cute! 

We talked about all the shapes that make up bodies and had a little art lesson about using the shapes to draw something.  We drew ovals for heads, rounded rectangles for bodies and arms/legs.  It was fun to go around the room and write down some details about what they were drawing. 

We worked on sounding out letters in words today since we're reviewing all the letters we've learned.  One strategy is to drive a car under the letters and while the car is under a letter we say the sound of the letter.  The car can drive on the street over and over while the word gets faster and faster. 

 We also had an introduction to numerical order today.  We started talking about first, second and third.  This isn't something that many preschoolers will master, but introducing the vocabulary is great at this stage. 

Dentist Office Field Trip

Don't forget to swing by and enter to win the Lakeshore Learning Craft Supply Box!  http://littleadventurespreschool.blogspot.com/2013/09/lakeshore-giveaway.html

We had oodles of fun at the Dentist Office today.  If you happen to live in the Aurora/Centennial area I'd highly suggest Saddle Rock Pediatric Dentistry.  We enjoyed going for rides in their chairs, touring the whole facility, meeting the dentist and even having a lesson about how to brush our teeth. 

 This is where they take pictures of your teeth.  It was such a fun and easygoing exploration of the Dentist Office and I'm certain it will make our next appointment (particularly the x-ray part) much easier!

 The children all gathered around for a lesson on how to brush teeth.  Of course, using a fish with teeth and a giant toothbrush made it super engaging as well!

 The kids loved the toddler room since it was full of great toys to explore!

I believe that going on field trips helps to broaden our children's horizons and I find it sad that there is not time in the school system to make field trips happen often enough.

Dentist - Preschool

We had a great day of learning about the Dentist, letter T and our teeth!  The kids really loved brushing the teeth of the puppets as we got started this morning. 

 As we learn the letters of the alphabet children start to find them in their environment.  It is a great activity to give them a highlighter or colored pencil and an old magazine or junk mail and let them find where the letter of the week is throughout the whole thing.  It's harder than you think!

 We watched a video of Elmo pretending that he had teeth and how he would take care of his special teeth.

 One of our favorite activities is painting the bottom of an egg carton white with a tooth brush.  We talk all about how the grey is a dirty color and when we brush our teeth we make make them white and clean.  If we had them dry before the end of the day we would have also practiced flossing our "teeth" with a piece of string.

Dentist - Tot School

We had so much fun learning the letter T today and talking about teeth and the dentist!  

 I love that the dollar store has packs of 4 toothbrushes.  It makes getting new ones for every class so much nicer on the budget. We enjoyed trying to drop a toothbrush into a wide mouth jar and brushing the "teeth" of our puppets.

Though it has nothing to do with letter T or the Dentist, we worked on throwing soft balls today as well. 

 The kids enjoyed the Dentist Tot Pack and playing the different games like sorting by color, talking about quantities up to 5 and a little Dentist hide and seek.

 One of the activities in the Dentist Tot Pack is lacing teeth.  It was really fun to watch kids pick this up this year when they struggled with it last year.

 For art today we painted the bottom of egg cartons like they were teeth. We used the tooth brush to paint and talked about how when we scrub our teeth with each day it makes them sparkly white.

 The rain finally stopped and we were able to spend the last 20 minutes of our time together outside.  I went to take the cover off the sandbox but the kids had pushed it aside and were playing with the muddy puddle so I let them continue with their game.  We had so much fun!

It's Fall!

Don't forget to swing by and enter to win the Lakeshore Learning Craft Supply Box!  http://littleadventurespreschool.blogspot.com/2013/09/lakeshore-giveaway.html

We had a fantastic time in preschool today.  We learned all about fall/autumn and it was the perfect day for it.  We finally have slightly cooler weather in Colorado.  It's felt like August still for the past week!  We don't have leaves on the ground yet, though they are starting to change colors on the trees.  Today we used paper leaves and threw them up in the air while singing our leaves in the fall song from the Preschool Lesson Plans about Fall. 

 We've learned the letter T and are working on reading our "T Book" from the Amazing Action Alphabet.  I love how her books build so slowly for the very first reading steps.

 We counted out 5 foam T's for each person.  I use the foam stickers so that kids can have the built in fine motor practice of taking the sticky part off the back of it. We were also working on quantity of 5 today, so 5 T stickers fit the bill!

 For art we made T watches from the Moffatt Girls and the letter T activity page from the Amazing Action Alphabet.  During math we played with counters creating different sets.

We had a great day of learning!