Winter

Today in Little Adventures Preschool we learned about Winter!  I had some puzzles out for them to start with, and after chatting with a mom and returning to the preschool I found all the pieces on the floor!  It was amazing how quickly the kids raced to put all the pieces back in where they belong.

 After reading a book about seasons that focused on winter we took our month cards and put them in order talking about the seasons in the pictures for that month.  Once we got to the end we took the cards from the top one at a time to add them to the bottom.

We've been working on a few sight words and some basic words, so I created this graph for the kids who were recognizing the words. Download the graph {here}.  We read a book whole group and stopped when we found a word we knew.

 We used this cute mobile pattern from Itsy Bitsy Printables for our art project.

 All the kids are adorable, but isn't J just the most adorable in this picture?

 I loved that I decided to "trace" the letters.

 I pointed the tracing out and it caught on with a few more kids.

 After they were done coloring they got to paint the glue on their pages and add glitter!

 Playing Hop Along the Path from my Winter Math Pack.

I've put the snowflakes on my floor with clear contact paper, and the kids picture on the fridge the same way.  The snowballs all have magnets on the back and kids hop around on the path to deliver the snowballs to make a snowman on the fridge.  We are in the very beginning stages of this game.  We're working on counting out loud one number per jump all the way to the fridge.  As we improve our math skills we'll roll a dice to figure out how many jumps to move forward.  You could even roll two dice and add them together to find out how far to move!  If you wanted to also have some subtraction, roll two different colored dice and subtract one number from the other to find out how far you should move - watch out for those negative numbers though!

 We also played the winter grid game from my Winter Math Pack.

Be sure to enter our book giveaway!  Entries close tonight, with a winner being announced tomorrow!

Thanksgiving Vacation

We spent a week (and a day) in Utah visiting my parents for the holiday.  This post is mostly me sharing how much fun we had - not too educational based :)

The two boys at the airport.

 On Thanksgiving morning we walked (Steve ran) the Utah Human Race.  It's a 5K that benefits the Utah Food Bank.

 Opa ended up "borrowing" a stroller from a friend we caught up with on the path for C to ride in.

 With the friends we ran into on our walk/run. EMan fell asleep in the Ergo Baby Carrier and I had him zipped up in my jacket, that's why you see his orange/brown hood sticking out of my chest :) I love baby carriers - even for a one year old.

 EMan and C both got to enjoy licking off the whipped cream batters.

 EMan was ready for nap time daily by the time lunch rolled around.  On this particular day he fell asleep at his seat so soundly that he didn't even wake up when I washed his face and hands off - and they were very messy!

 Oma and Opa bought pajamas for all the grand kids so they could do a little matching picture photo shoot.  Wouldn't you guess that EMan was the least cooperative of the bunch and the 5 and 4 month olds were the happiest.  Oh well.

 Steve and C waiting for C's turn to get in the pictures again.

 Oma and Opa with my two boys C and EMan.

 Oma taught C how to build a tower with measuring worm toys.  He got a hit out of that and requested to make them over and over.

 Opa took on little person duty for a short time.  I love how EMan's little cousin is telling them both how it is!

 One morning I put together a sensory tray for C.  We just used popcorn and some PlayMobil people.

 Little EMan was excited to help clean the floors!

 On our ride back home C decided to play "matching" with his Thanksgiving cards (I don't remember where I got these from, most likely 2 Teaching Mommies - if you know please remind me so I can give credit).

 EMan was entertained by smashing his cup on his head.

 And of course, the thumb sucking.  I'm not really sure how to put a stop to that, but it makes for a cute picture!

Preschool - A Week and A Day ago

I apologize that this post is picture heavy and doesn't have credit to all the creators of these great ideas, but I'm over a week late posting this anyway.  Last Monday we had preschool and then I fed my family lunch and 30 minutes after sending everyone out the door we jumped in the car and headed to the airport for our Thanksgiving vacation.  Preschool was a blast and here are some memories from it:

J loved coloring his T is for Turkey page from First School

 M worked on a puzzle that I created by finding a black line turkey picture, printing it twice, coloring them identically, laminating, and then cutting one out and adding magnets to the back of it.

 I'm not sure where this Thanksgiving turkey/number match came from.  If you recognize it please let me know so I can give credit where credit is due! A and I enjoyed putting all the turkey feathers on.

 R and M matched the puzzles from my Thanksgiving Math Pack.

 These pattern cards are from 1+1+1=1

 After coloring our Turkeys we glued feathers onto them!

 I put Velcro on the "glue" section of my geometric solids and everyone felt so successful when they put the shapes together!

 Here the boys are practicing the grid math game from my Winter Math Pack

 We also had quite a high success rate for the first time with a color by number turkey from 1+1+1=1

During our music time each of the kids (decided by themselves) that they should get out our Amazing Action Alphabet flip charts and find the song we were singing about.  It was so much fun to watch them sort through the cards looking for the right letter!

We also did this T is for Turkey dot art from 2 Teaching Mommies.

It was a great preschool day, as all days are, and I look forward to my young friends returning tomorrow after a week break!

Preschool 11/16 Insects

On Wednesday we talked about insects (letter i) in Little Adventures Preschool.  I had been working on the Road to Reading game and decided to make something similar, but along the insects theme.  I printed off the pages 4 to a page and then assembled a "book" in these inexpensive phto albums.  I laminated the bug jar and the bugs and then cut them out.  I taught the kids to sound out the letters and say them faster and faster until they know what the word says.  Once they knew the word they could "catch" a bug with tweezers and put it on their bug jar.  I also included all the letters that they know individually and instructed them to sing the letter song and then catch a bug. The letter song we use is:

A says /a/

A says /a/

Every letter makes a sound

A says /a/

 To download Catch Those Bugs!  Just click on the picture above.

Here the boys are independently "reading" books about insects while I work at the reading table with the girls.

 Tracing the letter I again (from RRSP ar 1+1+1=1).

 Here we are coloring and painting handprints for I the insect from the Amazing Action Alphabet.

We also played a sorting bugs game from Carisa's Bug Unit.

 The completed I the insect craft.

We also did some math graphing about if we thought bugs were cool or creepy and looked through "bug eyes" to see what the world looks like through a bugs eyes.  We were so super busy that I didn't get to take any pictures of those!