Quilts, /TH/, and Greater Than/Less Than Alligators

Today was a super awesome day.  It was chalk full of learning and was very energizing.  We learned all about quilts and the letter Q in our morning class.  We read our Q/counting book from the Amazing Action Alphabet and read a book called "A Boy and His Quilt".  I love reading that story because it walks through quilt making from a child's perspective.  I grew up around quilts though my boys have never had that experience I feel like sharing this book helps them a little.  We then made a class quilt with quilt squares that we each colored.

 We worked on what the number zero is and means during math.  We practiced counting numerals on our TouchMath number strips as well.  We also did a shared reading of one of my favorite books, "Rhyming Dust Bunnies".  It is such a fun book and most of the words that I wanted the kids to try and read for me are bold and in red print so it was easy to point them out. Be sure to read it at home and have them read all the parts that they can!

This afternoon we reviewed what /ch/ says and talked about /th/.  Did you know /th/ has a spoken sound (like in "the") and a quiet sound (like in "think")?  Learning to try the two different sounds to determine what the word is can be a bit tricky, but since we already know the word "the" we're already half way there!

 Our guided reading groups explored long vowels and what to do when /ck/ appears in words.  We had a super awesome math lesson where the "alligator wants to eat the biggest number" was explained to start using the signs for greater than and less than.

We had an awesome day of learning!  Keep up the hard work!

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!

Q is for Quilts

We had so much fun today with our Q is for Quilts theme!  We've now officially learned all 26 letters of the alphabet!  We had tons of fun reading a story about a boy who makes his own quilt.  Then we followed the directions and made our very own quilts.  They aren't quite big enough to cover preschooler's bodies but they are big enough to snuggle with and both my boys went to bed with theirs tonight :).  We used a square template, drew the squares onto the fabric and then cut them out.  Cutting out fabric is quite difficult so they each cut between 1-4 of their 9 squares by themselves.  I then sewed them together on the sewing maching. 

 After the quilts were done they got to color on them with fabric markers (if you iron the drawings before washing them it will help them stay more permanently).  We also worked on our Q the Queen Bee art from the Amazing Action Alphabet Activity books, super fun!  We did our reading lessons all snuggled up in our quilts today and ended the day "resting" while we waited for moms to come.  We had a blast!

Quilts and Patterns - Monday Preschool

We had some major fun today!

 We started coloring our Q headbands from the Moffatt Girls.

 We also did puzzles and some kids even helped others to get their headbands cut out, a fairly tricky job for our 3 year olds.

 Then we got to learn all about the letter Q, quilts and patterns.  We looked at a quilt my grandmother made for me and talked about all the different pieces of the quilt and how they had to be cut and then sewn together.

 Reading our Q Book from the Amazing Action Alphabet.

 We also read a book called "A Boy and a Quilt" that talked about how a little boy made a quilt.  Next we pulled out oodles of fabric, markers, cardboard (to trace the squares we'd be cutting), scissors, and the sewing machine.  Each child was given the opportunity to cut out their own squares for a small teddy bear blanket they would take home.

 Miss Amanda did end up cutting a couple dozen squares because fabric is so tricky to cut that it was becoming frustrating even for our super cutters.

 They were amazed at the sewing machine and watched in awe as I ran the pieces through it.  They each had to bring me 6 or 9 squares for their quilt.

 Our completed quilts.  Aren't they awesome?

 Today we did the last activity in our Amazing Action Alphabet Activity book.  The book came home today and contains work from all year long.  There is a little note to the parents inside letting you know that we're done with it and any undone pages can be done at home.  There are also Alphabet cards in the back and a number of pages with activity ideas to do at home.

 Afternoon preschool talked about the letters /oo/ as in Snoop.  We had fun reading about a dog detective that solves a mystery in the woods.

 We also reviewed what we had talked about with "greater than" and "less than" numbers.  We drew the angle of the alligators mouth and talked about how we could just draw that sign to show that the alligator would eat the biggest picnic.

 After doing a few with the images of base ten blocks we moved to comparing 2 digit numerals. This can be a bit tricky but they seemed to catch on quite well.

 Be sure to have your child identify the numbers by name as they're working on their homework.  They seem to be doing super great but having a struggle with numbers in the teens.

 While we were working on math EMan headed off to hammer a flat head screwdriver into my grass.  Awesome.

 Here is the obstacle course they decided to build while I got snack ready.

 Yummy snack of blueberries and cucumbers.

 During snack time we practiced singing our songs for our end of year celebration.  It's going to be so awesome!

 Art today was chalk on the big outside chalkboards.  They decided to draw X's on everything around the whole yard.  By the end of the day there were literally X's on everything :)