Animals in Spring

This morning we had a great reading lesson about stretching out sounds to write words.  We're working on the -in family today.  We did some work on rhyming words and made a list of as many -in words as we could.  Each time we'd "grab" the word from the air and stretch it out (sound it out slowly) to figure out what letter to write down and then repeat to find the next letter sound.  We read tons of books about spring and animals in spring.  We also sang the song "Popcorn Popping" and did fun popcorn art. 

 After art we learned all about the nickel and continued with our "Which coin is in my pocket?" song that we learned on Monday.  We just switched it up now to talk about the nickel and how it's worth 5 cents.  After math was the best part of the day.  We took turns holding the chicks and feeding them their snack.  Most kids were okay with holding them in some manner and all kids were really excited to feed them when they were back in their brooder (sounds better than cage, yes?).

This afternoon we worked in our guided reading groups and then read a book called "Very Special Friends".  We got to draw a favorite part from the story or about our own very special friends in our journals and then share them with Miss Amanda.  We sang about spring (see popcorn song above) and made popcorn tree art as well.

 We also got to play with the chicks this afternoon.  It's always interesting to see the different reactions to being able to hold the chicks.  It is the most wonderful thing for some and the most horrifying thought for others.  After we played with the chicks we worked on piecing together the number 1-20 on the 100 board.  We're still getting 16 and 19 upside down so we have 61 and 91.  We'll continue talking about the place value importance and hopefully it'll stick soon!

Animals in Spring - A Preschool Chick Experience

Wow! Talk about a great day in school!  How fun is playing with baby chicks for the "Animals in Spring" theme?  With the bigger preschoolers we were able to sit in the kiddy pool and let the baby chicks explore.  

 This is a great photo grouping of how nearly everyone reacted.  1. "I'm not certain about this..." 2. "They're climbing on me!" 3. "This is so exciting!" 4. "I love chicks!"  It took a little bit to get accustomed to each other but in the end everyone was happy to have one climb on their lap and be able to pet it.  We even held out little grains of their food for them and loved watching them jump from one person's lap to the next.

 The rest of our day included our lesson in spelling, which is a great activity if you haven't looked into it yet.  Up to this point in the year we've been working on reading words written down.  Now we're talking about how the words that come out of our mouths are just combinations of letters that we can then write down.  Check out the "Animals in Spring" pack for more information. We also did a group reading of "Mouse's First Spring" a book with many little words that the preschoolers can already read.  The bonus is that they each got to keep a copy of the book.  In math we learned about the nickel.  In preschool it's purely introduction and they love it.  We sang our pocket song to "Shortning Bread".  It goes like this: "Which coin is in my pocket, pocket? What's in my pocket worth __ cents? (then they guess what it is and we continue) It's a shiny ____, _____.  It's a ____ worth ___ cent."  The kids love it!