Tot School Feelings

Yesterday I gained possession of a toddler lawn mower that blows bubbles.  After tot school today I joked with a mom that maybe next week I'll have 7 of them - one per kiddo.  They loved that thing, and would you believe that I REALLY want to take it apart and see how its designed?  For real.  All bubble blowers die really fast at my house, they get left out in the rain and are used so excessively that they are sticky and ruin the motor because they are unclean-able.  This lawn mower comes with instructions to clean it out with the hose, so I have high hopes that it will live forever.  I'd bet the kids have the same high hopes. I was a broken record today in regards to sharing the the bubble blowing lawn mower.  "It's so-and-so's turn right now.  I see that you'd like another turn.  Wait just a minute and you can play again.  That's how we share." ...and repeat. 

 We also painted, practiced knocking down the monster cans, and practiced pouring our own water at snack time after all washing up in the sink first.  Everyone washing their hands is a parade of sorts.  They get so excited about it.  If you have a young child I highly suggest the hands-free foam soap dispensers.  They are a life saver and the kids love to use them.  After snack we played in the basement for about 30 minutes before heading outside again.  Since it was so wet from the rain outside there were certain toys and books I wanted to share with the group but not leave on the wet grass all morning.  We played puppets, read stories, explored the numbers 1-5, reviewed the letter M, and found extra toys to play with.

The mini Hungry Hungry Hippos game (bottom left picture) is my favorite picture from today.  Those two were having a blast playing the game together.  We're all in the stage of learning to share and take turns.  That picture is proof that we're headed in a good direction! Have a great week!  I look forward to talking about the Dentist next week!

How We Express Ourselves: Color and Music

Today was a phenomenal day in preschool.  The kids worked very diligently on on their reading lessons.  We added new sight words and started talking about vowels and consonants. After working very hard we moved into our inquiry block about how we express ourselves.  We reviewed emotions (which we spent last week talking about) and talked about how our emotions can also be demonstrated through music.  We spent the next 30 minutes listening to "Peter and the Wolf" and acting/dancing out the parts of the story.  If you've never listened to Peter and the Wolf with kids I'd HIGHLY suggest you look it up.  It is a fantastic example of how music can change to demonstrate different emotions and events in a story.  The kids were in love with the activity as they were able to act like all the characters including a cat, bird, wolf, hunter, grumpy grandfather, and happy carefree child.

We then talked about how important music is and what it can tell us about emotion.  We spread this into a couple of books about colors of emotions and listened to Kira Willey's song "Colors".  We also had to read "Blue Hat, Green Hat" by Sandra Boynton because it's hilarious.  At the end of the day we drew and wrote about our experience with "Peter and the Wolf".  I was super impressed with these kids today.  Keep up the good work!

Feelings

I LOVE the feelings theme in preschool.  It's such an important topic and there are so many fantastic resources!

Preschool A homework today includes 3 mini pre-reader books.  Simply cut them into fourths and staple them together.  Read them to your child while you demonstrate the skills that good readers do (look, point, say sounds, listen).  Read it over and over and your child will soon "read" it back to you.  Acting like a reader is the first step to reading success.  So, yes, even though they are memorizing the pages it is important to encourage it and go through the process with them!

 Today we looked at the different emotions and faces we make with mirrors.  We used our mirrors to help us find the letter M around the room and we watched a fun little video of The Count counting different emotions.  We talked about how colors can represent emotions and then finger painted with the two colors that seemed to fit our moods.

 We had fun playing with the emotion bean bags and bowls, matching colors and emotions.  We practiced our beginning handwriting with our Amazing Action Alphabet handwriting notebook.  Continue to practice the correct holding of a writing tool at home!  We also had tons of fun talking about how many fingers we have on each hand.  Believe it or not, many in this class didn't know how many and needed to count.  Sometimes our count got off before we got to 5.  Help them count their fingers over the next few days to make sure we point at one finger and say "one" the next finger while we say "two" and so forth.  We're trying to get the one-to-one correspondence counting more consistent.

This afternoon we had quite a delightful preschool B.  We had fun reading and hunting for letters in our encyclopedias.  We talked about how people have feelings, but houses and chairs don't.  That's why we started with reading about people. We also had the opportunity to read books to our sock monkeys and work in small reading groups together.

 In math we talked about ordinal numbers.  It's a tricky concept, but I think they've almost got it.  "First" is an easy idea because we use it all the time in our every day vocabulary.  Getting to second and third is fairly okay.  "Fourth" and "fifth" are harder to understand.

We also watched a movie today.  It is Kira Willey's "Colors" video.  It was fun to watch the lyrics on the screen and see the kids point out the word "the".  We also painted with two colors indicating our emotions and then wrote and drew about it.  I was impressed that nearly everyone was holding their pencil correctly.  We had such a fun day! I apologize about the slightly stained hands.  I promise I bought the washable paint,  It certainly doesn't seem that washable though!

Feelings 9-5-13

We had a great day talking all about feelings and emotions.  We watched a few short clips from Sesame Street about the different feelings and emotions we can have. 

 We played with mirrors and tried to make our faces match the faces of the main character in "Funny Face" a great book all about emotions.

 We are working on our understanding of sound and listening to sound.  Today we played a game where the iPod was playing a quiet song and while the kids closed their eyes I hid it somewhere in the room.  They each got a turn to try and find the iPod simply by listening to the sound.  It is a surprisingly difficult game for 3 year olds to play, yet it's super fun for them and they feel so proud of themselves when they accomplish the goal.  Try playing it at home with your little one!

 Our art activity today was the same activity as yesterday with the toddlers.  Due to a request for what songs we listened too, I took video segments today of their art so you can see how it progressed.

 In math we're working on the quantity of 4.  We played with monster finger puppets (up to 4 each) and practiced counting them as they received them one at a time.  We also made our puppets talk about what feelings and emotions they have.

 At the end of the day kids were also able to play with the emotion bean bags and the hand puppets to talk all about emotions.  It was fun to focus on colors all day and how different colors can represent different emotions.

Feelings - Tot School 9-4-13

We had oodles of fun exploring feelings today in school.  We talked about all of the different emotions we could feel.  We had little stress balls (balloons filled with corn starch) that the kids love squishing and exploring. 

 I also love my Discovery Toys Emotions Bean bag set with bowls.  We played with them on a Lazy Susan and it had the kids playing and exploring all day long!

 With toddlers I try to provide a number of different activities and as they are interested in something they can play with that and move at their own pace.  We love our peg boards!

 Outside we scooped, measured, poured and squished dry rice.  We had emotion puppets that we put into the rice (with Popsicle sticks) to continue with the theme.  Find all the tools for the Tot School Feelings day here.

We also explored the play dough again, though it didn't hold their attention as long today since I didn't pull out the scissors. 

 One of the last things we did was paint to music.  I'm having some iTunes issues so we didn't have all the feelings songs that I wanted to play, but we free explored the finger paint anyway.

 What's a day about feelings without playing with mirrors?  The toddlers love looking at themselves in the mirrors and seeing the reflection of different items around them.  It was so much fun!  Have a great week and remember to practice letter M at home.

Emotion Songs Playlist:

You can use any music you have on hand, but these are the songs I tend to use:

Aretha Franklin - This Bitter Earth - Sad/Blues

Count Basie - One O'Clock Jump - Happy/Joyful

Nora Jones - The Long Day is Over - Tired/Quiet

Stevie Wonder - Superstition - Playful

Abba - Mama Mia - Upbeat

Beatles - Yellow Submarine - Upbeat

Bach - Ave Maria

Beethoven's Symphony No. 9

Mozart - Pachabel Cannon in D

Mozart - The Magic Flute - Powerful

I don't listen to all of the songs, but do a little bit of a preview of them while the kids play.  I hope that helps!

September Tot Packs

Find the year long theme calendar {here} and follow along with us!

This post gives details and pictures of all September Toddler Packs. Be sure to scroll down to see all of them.

Tot Packs 3-6

Tot packs are about 20 pages in length. They each have 2 pages of activity ideas, book suggestions, and links to the materials I use. You can certainly use all or part of the lesson plans.

The printable pages include songs, matching games, drawing games and other activities.

Tot packs are designed to be a first introduction to math concepts, letters, shapes and colors. They are not meant to obtain mastery in any subject. Let them be a guide for educational play between you and your child.

3. Feelings Tot Pack {Download}

Feelings are rather hard to teach to little ones, but with our exclusive art from Jon Boone it's so much fun! After I get this printed and bound together I'll add more pictures. This pack is intended to be taught third in the curriculum. Find the year long theme calendar {here} and follow along with us!

Printables in this pack:

• Gluten Free Play-dough Recipe
• Feeling Balls
• How do you feel today?
• Today I Feel Silly - a pouring activity
• Feelings Book
• 2 Piece Emotion Puzzles
• Size Sequencing
• If You’re Happy and You Know It

  

This tot pack has 2 pages of activity ideas, book suggestions, and links to the materials I use. You can certainly use all or part of the lesson plans.

4. Dentist Tot Pack {Download}

This pack is just full of great ideas for learning about the dentist! Each pack includes links to all the books and supplies you'll need to have a fantastic time with your toddler learning about the dentist!

The Dentist Tot Pack is 15 pages of great activities for toddlers.  There are 2 pages of ideas that are hands on experiences for kids, like flossing an egg carton!  There are also 2 piece puzzles, a "Where is the Dentist?" game, color matching, a game for practicing sets up to 5, and a "flossing" lacing card!

5. Animal Friends {Download}

Printables in this pack:

Shadow matching animals

Matching animals to their homes

Farm Animals and Pets Sorting

Color Matching Fish

Monkey Hide and Seek

Practicing Letter A

Tracing Letter A

Pet and Animal Friends Songs

My Animal Friends Book

This tot pack has 2 pages of activity ideas, book suggestions, and links to the materials I use. You can certainly use all or part of the lesson plans.

 The printable pages include songs, matching games, drawing games and other activities.

6. Nursery Rhymes {Download}

This pack is just full of great ideas for learning about Nursery Rhymes! Each pack includes links to all the books and supplies you'll need to have a fantastic time with your toddler learning about Nursery Rhymes!

 You'll be introducing ordinal numbers and working on identifying beginning sounds from the letters we've already learned.

 You'll also practice sequencing and be playing with nursery rhymes. There is overwhelming evidence that early learning of nursery rhymes and rhythmic poems, songs, and chants significantly enhances early reading skills and phonemic awareness. In fact research highlights phonemic awareness as a strong predictor of a child's reading success.

 There are fun shadow matching games as well as a simple homemade tutorial.

September Preschool Packs

Find the Year Long Theme Calendar here and follow along with us!

The preschool curriculum that is all inclusive and provides hours of fun and engaging learning!  The "September Preschool Packs" contain 7 theme based lesson plans, a total of 182 pages of lesson plans and activity printables.  My preschooler has begged to do his "homework" because it's a wonderful time that we spend together learning age appropriate concepts!  These plans are intended to be taught in a 10 month sequence from Aug-May, though may be adapted to use individually. 

5. Feelings {Download}
Feelings are an important concept to develop vocabulary around during the preschool stage.  The feelings packs provides 37 pages of lesson plans and printable activity pages to talk about feelings.  We also cover the quantity of 4, size sequencing, colors that relate to feelings, music and mood.

6. Fall {Download}

"Fall" is the most jam packed preschool printable when it comes to printable activities.  There is a location word book with a scarecrow that gets to sit over the hay, in the corn, and behind the pumpkins.  With cute graphics from ScrappinDoodles I absolutely love this pack. This pack introduces the second letter that we learn this year.  Letter T.  I highly recommend that you follow along with us in this non-alphabetical order to learn your abc's.  It makes much more sense to teach a child how to read while learning their alphabet.  Learning them in isolation is confusing!  A great resource for the alphabet is the Amazing Action Alphabet.  I use their flip chart to introduce the letters and then their mini books to demonstrate how to read.  I followed this curriculum last year, and you just can't beat 6 of 7 kids ending our 10 months together knowing how to read.  What power they now have!  There are some fun songs that show up in the packs as well as some sequencing activities (such as the tree activity below).

7. Dentist {Download}

I like to print all the pages of my packs, cut and laminate as needed, and bind them into books with a comb binder. We use wet erase markers or dry erase crayons on the pages to keep notes, color, circle and trace things.  Wet erase markers and dry erase crayons wash easily off of lamination. You can use dry erase, but it doesn't clean off as well.

 The "Dentist Preschool Pack" has a memory game with small cards.  I'd recommend keeping them in a small baggy in a folder with your pack so you always have them handy!
The dentist pack includes 29 pages of lesson plans and activities.  We start talking about quantities up to 5, play with puzzles, explore visual discrimination and color capital and lowercase T's.

8. Opposites {Download}

The "Opposites Preschool Pack" has 3 pre-reading books with pages that illustrate different opposites.  I like to cut them out, laminate them, and bind them together with a simple binding ring.  We continue working on tracing, equal quantities up to 5 and the letter a.  This pack is 32 pages of awesome!  The opposites Tic-Tac-Toe game is one of EMan's favorite activities to play.  Though he doesn't have strategy to win yet he does have strategy to stop me from winning. It's so fun to have some intentional play time with my little man. 

 9. Animal Friends {Download}
The Animal Friends pack is 24 pages of letter review and activities about animals.  It is a review pack for the previous 3 letters we've learned (M, T, A).  There are phonemic awareness games in almost every pack and the one in this pack I completely love!  The way this game is laid out clearly shows parents and teachers how learning what sounds the animals make transitions into learning what sounds the letters make.  Both versions of the game are in this pack. This pack also finishes up the "More, Less or Equal" unit in math.  I very strongly believe that there are certain mathematical principals that kids need to learn BEFORE they learn to recognize numerals.

 10. Families {Download}

The families pack is 19 pages of lessons and activities about families.  It's a review pack that reviews our first 3 letters (MTA) and kids practice reading with a little Road to Reading game.  We practice reading the sounds of the letters as we drive our car on the road. It's so much fun your preschoolers will play it over and over.  Because of the sequential learning through my curriculum your preschoolers will be successful at reading these words (and nonsense words) even though they only know 3 letters.  This pack also introduces ordinal numbers, a short path game, tracing, visual discrimination, and sets up to 4. 

 11. Nursery Rhymes {Download}

I was told just before leaving the public school system on maternity leave that nursery rhymes are one of the most important things a kid needs to know before entering kindergarten.  The teacher that told me this is one of the most loved and respected kindergarten teachers I've ever met.  I remember then that I didn't know much about what a kid should know by the time they are school age.  Boy have I learned a lot!  There is overwhelming evidence that early learning of nursery rhymes and rhythmic poems, songs, and chants significantly enhances early reading skills and phonemic awareness. In fact research highlights phonemic awareness as a strong predictor of a child's reading success.  This pack includes a half dozen nursery rhymes (in case you've forgotten them from your youth).  There are also numerous activities that go along with nursery rhymes.  It's the last pack of review of the first 3 letters that we've learned and kids get to play this fun initial sound sorting game. There are pages in this pack specifically for art as well.  There are name recognition activities and a star for making into a twinkling star!

This set of September Preschool Packs is certainly moving our preschoolers in the right direction to be successful as adults!