Preschool 10-8-14

Today our morning class enjoyed bubbles!  We had a fantastic time making our letter B crowns from the Moffatt Girls.  We made them because on Monday sweet Little S asked if we could.  I didn't have them in the plans but made room for them today.  We worked on identifying the lowercase b by folding our fingers on our left hand in with the thumb sticking out.  When looking at your hand it resembles the letter b.  This will come in very "handy" (hehe) when we talk about letter d.  We talked about how we read a book appropriately.  Slowly sound out the word, then go back and read the word fast.  Move to the next word followed by the next, etc.  When you get to the period you stop and go back to read the whole sentence fluently.  

 After snack time we went outside for art.  We had a blast with the Amazing Action Alphabet activity page.  We do it slightly differently from the instructions as I've never had success with them.  Rather, we pour a small amount of food coloring and bubbles into a small container, pass out bubble wands and try to blow bubbles to land on the paper.  They turn out really cute.  During math today we talked about the descriptors "heavy" and "light".  We played with a light balloon and a heavy weight.  The kids were so funny.  When handed the weight they responded, "This is light!" and proceeded to lift it up over their heads.  I guess on Monday we'll have to up the weight to the 5 pound set :).

 This afternoon we continued our lessons on letter H.  H is tricky because there is no sound in the throat, only air.  We discovered as we were reading together that many kids have memorized the text.  That is a fantastic first reading skill.  HOWEVER, it is very important that for each of the three reads you are doing at home for homework you spend time sounding out the words on page 2 of each book.  Many of the kids could read me the book but couldn't sound out the words.  Check the blog posts about blending, watch the video, and recreate that at home with each word on page 2 of every book you practice.

 Our math time was filled with the game "Guess My Secret Rule" and the kids did a fantastic job making sets and then asking their friends which one doesn't match.  After snack time we worked in our Amazing Action Alphabet Level 2 Handwriting Book.  I was super impressed that so many of the kids were holding their pencils correctly.  They were also getting better at writing their names.  Keep up the great work!

Bears and Bats and Helpful Kids

Preschool had a fantastic time learning the letter B this morning.  We talked about bears and bats and read oodles of books about them.  We were able to split into reading groups to work in smaller groups on our reading for the first time today.  The kids not working with me got to "read" the books about bears and bats to a sock monkey. 

We practiced with our letter cards during reading today.  You'll find them in their binder in a Ziploc baggy.  You can play with them like we did (identify name and sound) or you can play Making Words with them.  Find the Making Words instructions on the bubble making words homework.

 During art we painted toilet paper rolls and made bears and bats.  They turned out super cute!

 This afternoon we were very busy with reading and I had left my camera upstairs.  I'm short on pictures of the day but we were not short on learning!  We learned about letter H as we talked about doctors, loosing teeth and not sharing germs.  We also talked about being helpful kids.  We read all about being a "Bucket Filler" in a few different books and then put a classroom bucket into action.  Our classroom bucket hangs on a wall and when kids do things that fill a bucket they are given a pompom.  When they distract from class or make a sad choice they go get a pompom out of the bucket and return it to me.  It was a great activity!   All the kids have a bucket they've taken home with them.  I encourage you to try it for a while!

We spent time working in our reading groups as well, each practicing at their own level.  Look in their binder for the new book today and work on reading that 3x a day (minimum).  Especially work on sounding out the words on the second page.  It's harder when it's not in an order they have memorized and really challenges them to do all the things that good readers do.

In math today we started "Guess My Secret Rule".  With 3 blocks having a matching attribute and 1 block not matching we ask our friend, "What block doesn't match?"  When they answer we ask, "Why?"  Some of the responses to "why?" may include: color, shape, size, or thickness.  You can play this game with a bucket of play kitchen items (3 spoons and a fork for example).  It gets more difficult with the attribute blocks that we use in class but the most important part of the game is being able to verbalize "Why?"

Safety, Salt, Smoke Detectors and Lots of Reading!

What a fantastic day of learning!  We had so much fun this morning with "Fireman Sam" (the hand puppet) as the teacher of the class.  He helped us review our letters, read us stories about firemen, helped us read and even showed us the smoke detector.  It was loud when it beeped, but now we know what it is for and what it sounds like!  We had tons of fun playing in trays of salt during art time.  We discussed "tall" and "short" during math and drew in our journals about what we learned today.  It was so much fun!

 Preschool B took reading to heart today as we practiced our new game "Making Words" as a class.  It's a great activity in the Bubbles extension pack if you need a printable.  We are practicing blending from one sound to the next in our reading.  We also found an interesting page in our encyclopedia and pointed out the names and sounds of the letters to our sock monkeys.  We read one-on-one with Miss Amanda today and each child is doing fantastic.  Not to be outdone by the morning class, we also played with salt today and it always amazes me how much they LOVE this activity and how long they are fully engaged in it.

Happy learning!  We'll see you all on Monday!

Spiders, Bubbles and a Hail Storm

This morning's class was all about the letter S as we talked about Spiders, Miss Muffet and the word "the"!  It was jam packed with activities right from the start.  They all have a new reading book, the letter S book.  I couldn't find my stapler so they are just a sheet of paper.  You can assemble them yourself or send them back Wednesday and I'll cut and staple them for you (found it at the end of the afternoon class!).  The S book is a BIG jump into reading skills.  We are blending words like "Sam" and "at" in the book and can now make "sat".  With the introduction of the sight word "the" we now have to memorize what "the" looks like and remember it!  It's not a word that can be sounded out like the other words.  We made bracelets and a clip card game with the word "the".  PLEASE point it out everywhere until your child has it memorized!  It will give them access to much more text this year once they've mastered it.  We also had a ton of fun making spiders in art and singing spider songs!

Our afternoon class focused on the letter B with bubbles today.  We had a great time blowing bubbles in the back yard.  We even tried to blow some for the chickens who seemed more scared than thrilled with the idea :).  We headed inside when the clouds began to rumble and spent the rest of the class time in the basement with hardly any mention of the larger than grape sized hail pelting down on the world around us.  Please work on the letter B book called "Bam" as homework.

 We drew and wrote in our journals all about blowing bubbles and we played with and started discussing the attribute blocks.  We will begin classifying the blocks with our game "Guess My Secret Rule" on Wednesday.  Have a great Monday night!  I look forward to seeing you all on Wednesday!

Preschool Bubbles

We loved continuing to learn about letter B on Thursday in preschool.  It was very exciting to explore bubbles of all sorts as well.  We played the letter B Starfall.com game and with the Bubbles App when the kids first came in. 

Everyone got their own letter B stickers to put on their shirt as we sat at circle time reading stories about bubbles.  We've also started working in reading groups.  We have half of the kids work on a project on their own (reading from available books, playing making words, etc.) and the other half of the kids work with me at the reading table.  This helps me do more one-on-one with each child.  We play different games at the reading table that target the specific needs of the kids that are playing.  One of my groups is working on the letter names/sounds and quickly recalling them for reading.  We're playing matching games with mini Amazing Action Alphabet cards and tracing sandpaper letters as we say the sounds.  The other group is working on reading and writing words.  We're reading and writing words like "the" "at" and "mat".  We only work on reading words that we've studied the letters in our class.  Even though they may know all of the letters and letter sounds it is difficult to learn to read so isolating a few letters and slowly adding on more is the best approach to take. I always have readers point at the letters with their fingers so I know (and they know) where they're looking and what words they're working on. We always sound it out slow and then move to reading the word quickly.  Even though they're able to memorize the mini books that we're reading we need to practice the actual reading of the words.

 After snack time we got to wash the dishes in the sink and run through the bubbles on the rug.

 We spent a portion of our day outside.  Each child got their own container of bubbles and got to practice blowing them.  We had oodles of fun and are learning so much!

Bubbles

We love letter B and Bubbles day!  We had such a fantastic day learning to make the /b/ sound and playing with bubbles of all sorts.  We played with bubble wands (no solution) during our story time.  We practiced making the /b/ sound every time I pointed out a /b/ sound in one of the books I was reading.  

 We started the day with bubble wrap on the floor for popping with feet as well as bubble wrap on the table for popping with fingers.  We played the letter B game on Starfall.com and with a Bubbles app on the iPad.  We colored letter B watches from the Moffatt Girls and chased bubbles from the bubble blower. We read oodles of stories about bubbles and washed our dishes after snack in a little bit of water and a LOT BIT of bubbles!

 After snack time we got to head outside and everyone got their own bottle of bubbles.  It was amazing to watch as the majority of the kids then spent the next 45 minutes walking around and mingling in different groups as they practiced blowing bubbles.  Just a note to those playing with bubbles: ours weren't producing bubbles at all so I added 2 squirts of dish soap to each bottle, shook it up and then they worked great!  I was totally impressed that only one child spilled their bottle of bubbles.  It's a tot class so I figured there would be lots of spilling.  They are growing up to be so responsible!

Bears and Bats

We had a great day in preschool today.  We introduced the letter B, the 5th letter in our non-alphabetical order.  We started the day off with drawing and writing about what we play to be for Halloween. 

 Then we read through many books about bears and bats and looked for all the letters that we know.  I did this one letter at a time.  I held up the Amazing Action Alphabet flip book on a letter, we talked about it and then we individually searched for that letter.  Then we'd move onto the next letter.  B was the last letter we did in this game since it was our new letter of the week. I don't have any great pictures, but we spent a LOT of time working on reading the letter B book today.  We talked about the 4 things that really good readers do and we practiced them while reading new words with the letters we've learned.

 As we continued our study about the letter b and bats we learned that bats hang upside down to sleep.  We first talked about what upside down means.  Where is your head when your standing?  What would you look like upside down?  Then we practiced being bats.  We slid the table away from the wall and did headstands one of two ways.  The first way is to look at the wall and walk your feet up the wall (easier).  The second way is to do a headstand like a handstand, looking away from the wall and pushing your feet off the ground and balancing them on the wall behind you.  We LOVE pretending we're bats and this took quite a bit of our time today.  When you're at home make sure you identify what wall this is acceptable to do on, you don't want feet on every wall of your home I'm sure!

 Next we played Making Words. There is a formal Making Words book with printables and activities, but they're geared towards older kids.  We're making words with the letters we've already learned.  There are letter cards in the Bears and Bats Preschool pack.  Cut and laminate the cards and then see what words you can make out of them.  How many two letter words can you make?  How many 3 letter words, and so on.  Make it a big funny deal to make a nonsense word and giggle about it.

 There were so many other things we did today including do-a-dot art, gluing with liquid glue (always a mess the first year around), we learned about "large" and "small" and continued working on our music lessons, calendar lessons and just all around having fun.  Thanks for a great day!  Keep reading at home!