Healthy Bodies and Preschool B

We had a very active morning this morning in preschool A.  We were moving and shaking, jumping and balancing.  We were working on the letter K and learning all about healthy bodies.  We played with 3D shapes that had silly pictures of germs on them.  We read all about the different parts of our bodies (brain, heart, skin, bones, muscles) and how they are important for us to keep healthy.  We read all about germs and about how they live on the ground, in the air and everywhere!  We learned the importance of cleaning and washing our hands with warm water and soap.

 We read stories and drew pictures of how to keep ourselves healthy.  The art below says "This is how I wash my hands".  We also played with blocks and would randomly have everyone hold up a cube.  By the time they were done building their city they all knew what a cube was!

 This afternoon we worked oh so hard on our Ready2Read lessons. I was super impressed with one kiddo who was struggling a bit a few weeks back and has reached amazing new heights of understanding in the past couple weeks.  It's so fun to see it click and become fun to read.  We read a fun story called "Tom" by Tommie dePaula.  It's such a cute story about Tommie and his grandpa Tom.  They have some fun with chicken feet so it seemed appropriate for today since we just got new baby chickens.  They all drew pictures and wrote about their favorite parts in their journals and were (once again) so disappointed that we didn't have enough time to share our work with the class.

 We moved into exploring the 100 chart for the first time today.  We did some coloring of it looking for patterns, such as columns that has the numbers 1-9 in order or the same number (like 1) in the units place in the whole column.  We pointed to the numbers and counted out loud to 100 as a group.  Practice counting your 100 chart out loud at home.

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!

Manners and what was supposed to be Karate...

Yesterday in preschool we had a fantastic time talking about manners, though manners may not be the appropriate word to describe it.  We talked about what good behavior should look like and practiced making the "/n/ /n/ /n/" sound at "David" the book character from "No, David!".  The kids loved it!  Our sight word for the week is "no".  Please read them the book "No, David!", you'll find it in their binders.  While you are reading PLEASE let them read the word "NO" every time you come to it.  You'll also find the word "I" and the word "the" (I think) that they can read as well.  We'll work on the letter N Amazing Action Alphabet book tomorrow in class.

We also spent a great deal of time talking about how to write our names.  It's our goal to have the 3 year old class writing their names by Valentine's.  That's just a month away!  Be sure to practice EVERY day!  Sometimes it works better to use a wet erase marker on the lamination because they have such a fine tip, if you need one please let me know - I have a stash and would happily share.  One of the things we spent a lot of time on was the shape and size of each letter in our name.  Trying to see the shapes of the letters in order to draw them.  There is a great app called iWriteWords (no I'm not paid by them or anything, but if they want to contact me I'd happily give away a copy of their awesome app to a reader on my blog).  Anyway, if you have a device that you let your kids play on, consider installing the app and improving their handwriting skills at the same time.

Wow.  Certainly a lot happened in school yesterday.  We also had the great opportunity to paint with nail polish yesterday.  It's a super fun activity for the kids to practice painting and putting lids on and taking them off.  We only had one bottle drop and explode, phew!  I've already cleaned up with nail polish remover and I'm happy to have all the nail polish given away to preschool families so I can move past this activity in my house. Once again ... phew!

 This afternoon was a whirlwind of reading.  It was the type of day where we never got to our theme (Karate) and only got the bare bones done.  We are doing a little rearranging and with everyone's help (ahem...homework) we'll get into a better spot where I don't have to do 6 different lessons for 8 kids.  We practiced the letter K and worked on reading our Amazing Action Alphabet K book, we began Ready2Read Level 1, we continued work in Ready2Read, we ran around the house like crazies for a few minutes after snack and we drew pictures in our journals while I chatted with adults after class.  There is so much learning going on at this stage of these awesomely absorbent brains that I simply can't fit it all into our short time together each week.  Thanks for enabling your kids to reach great potential by supporting their learning explorations at home!

Healthy Bodies

We had so much fun in school today!  We talked about how to have a healthy body by exercising, eating healthy, drinking water, and washing our hands.  We practiced reading our letter K Amazing Action Alphabet book, naming our colors and our letter sounds. 

 We practiced our handwriting, drew in our journals all the ways that we can be healthy.  Talked about spheres and cubes with our fun germs printables and danced for exercise.  It was so much fun!

Healthy Bodies

We had a great day talking all about how germs make us sick and how we can get rid of them to stay healthy.  We talked about washing hands, flushing the potty, coughing in our elbows, mopping the floor and putting leftover food in the fridge.  We read lots of books today and had so much fun looking at the pictures of the silly looking germs.  We learned the letter K today with karate kicks.  We each got a sticker for our shirts and talked about healthy body exercise.  The kids really loved making healthy "food" in our play kitchen.  They cooked and sorted all the food and dishes.  We also made 3D shapes out of paper (they have cute germ pictures on them, find them in the tot pack) and built with blocks (as 3D shape introduction).   It was a fantastic day. 

K is for Karate and Healthy Bodies

We had a great day in preschool today learning all about letter K.  We were able to do some one-on-one reading time working on the skills each child specifically needed.  We also played on Starfall.com, on the iPad with the teach me app and did the art project from the Amazing Action Alphabet for the letter K.  Today was an introduction day to 3D shapes.  We used the language: "flat shapes" and "block shapes".