Moms and Interest Led Learning

We talked all about Moms this morning in preschool.  Since we're practicing the letter O spelling "Mom" is a perfect and engaging activity for preschoolers.  We discussed how we are all fantastic readers and we do all the things that good readers do.  We use our eyes to look at the letters, our fingers go point to the letter we are reading, our lips to say the letter sounds and our ears to hear the letters in words.  Some kids also started utilizing "Baggy Books".  Baggy Books are simply books that belong to me and I loan to kids to read and return.  I use a freezer ziplock bag so the books don't get ruined from snow or a leaking waterbottle.  It helps them come back in one piece.

 We enjoyed drawing pictures of our moms for art today and then we wrote the word "mom".  The pictures turned out so cute!  We continued our lessons on patterns and worked on playing an ABAB pattern on a set of 2 black keys on the piano keyboard.  If you have a piano at home please let your child explore patterns on the keys.  If you don't have a piano at home you can use a computer at http://virtualpiano.net/ or a touchscreen device (such as a smart phone or tablet) and the app "Tiny Piano".

 We transferred our new knowledge about patterns to unifix cubes (or at least attempted it).

This afternoon was chalk full of interest led learning.  Upon arrival we pulled out our encyclopedias and found topics that were interesting to us.  Then I pulled up readinga-z.com and found matching books for each topic.  Each child then took their yellow marker and marked the words they know how to read.  Apparently I need to do a little more instruction on this step, since many kids marked many words that they can't actually read :).

 Then we pulled up clips of information on the SmartBoard about each topic.  Afterwards we drew pictures and wrote about what we were learning in our journals.  Then each child took a turn presenting their reading, drawings and writing to the class.

The reading took the majority of the day, but we did get to discuss 3D shapes again today.  We reviewed the sphere (which we learned on Monday as being a ball shape rather than a flat circle) and we talked about cubes compared to squares.  We counted faces of the cubes, we compared what would roll better and what shape would be better for stacking.  Then we built towers out of the cubes.

It was a fantastic day of learning!

Opera and Vehicles

What a fantastic morning of school! We started the day off working on writing our names.  It is a goal for all of my 3 year olds to be able to write their name by mid February with the final push being writing their names for their Valentine cards.  If your child can write their first name already go ahead and start working on the last name.  If they can't write their name yet, start with the first letter and practice it over and over.  Then add the second letter and practice those two in a row over and over.  Repeat the process until they can write their name.  Then we worked on the letter O and sang along to "Carmen" (an opera) with the /o/ sound.

 We had a fun snack of sweet peppers and popcorn and then moved onto art.  It was great fun to paint with corn syrup!  I love how shiny the pictures look.  We also got to play the piano a little bit, looking at groups of 2 black keys and 3 black keys.  We finished up our graphing unit today with a little cut and paste activity.  The kids did great!  Now we are ready to move onto patterning! 

 This afternoon was a ton of fun as well.  I think my favorite part was when they were telling their own jokes at snack time.  They were jokes like, "Why did the chicken cross the cow?  Because a bird held popcorn in its face!"  They were completely hilarious!

We got right into reading today, practicing the letter R with the Amazing Action Alphabet mini book.  The kids are doing fantastic at sounding out the words.  We also played with cars, trucks and blocks to go along with the vehicles theme.

 We found a page all about vehicles in our encyclopedia and marked all the words that each child should be able to read completely on their own.  Hopefully at home you are companion reading these pages and reading all of the hard words for them and letting them read the marked words.

For math we learned all about spheres.  We talked about how circles are flat and spheres are shaped like balls.  We had a few ramps set up in the room and experimented with rolling spheres and circles down the ramps.  It was super awesome!  During art time we drew pictures and added words.  This seems like a simple activity, but it should be done LOTS at this stage.  The spelling doesn't have to be correct, the grammar doesn't need to be correct, they just need to see themselves as writers writing letters to match their pictures.  If you child has the opportunity to draw at home please encourage them to add words to match.  When they ask you to spell a word ask them what sound it starts with and encourage them to write the sounds they hear.

What a fantastic day!  I look forward to seeing everyone again on Wednesday!

Moms

We had such a fun day in school today!  We learned more about the letter O and Moms.  We talked about all the jobs that moms do and played with the card table play house.  We practiced spelling "MOM" like "YMCA" and we found all the letters around the room that we knew with our "Word Detective" cards. 

 We did a lot of reading and some practice on the piano.  Then we headed to art and learned about drawing our moms.  We talked about the shapes of the different body parts (circle for the head, curved rectangle for the torso, etc.) and then we drew pictures of our moms and wrote the word "mom".

 We also started our first lesson in patterning today.  We had to have some fun free time with the blocks that we haven't been able to play with yet and then they each picked 2 colors (10 blocks of each color) and worked on making an ABAB pattern.  Please make the pattern at home every day.  Then "read" the pattern by saying the names of the colors (green, blue, green, blue, etc.) as well as the corresponding ABAB pattern (A, B, A, B, etc.). Keep up the great work!  We're going to learn so much great stuff this semester!

Moms

We loved talking about Moms and the letter O today.  We even worked on spelling "Mom"!  We played all sorts of mom activities.  The felt play house was a big hit (hangs over a card table).  There are so many pieces like flowers and plants and even a little felt squirrel that ended up climbing on everyone's heads and arms.  It was so fun to play with them. Every time I'd poke my head in the dog door and say "woof, woof" they would squeal with delight :).  I rearranged the room a bit and put the princess mirror where everyone could reach it.  The girls loved checking it out today. 

 We also practiced other jobs that moms do.  We were doctors and nurses and we took care of babies and read books galore!  We had so much fun!

Opera and Talents

Today we learned all about the letter O, Opera and Talents.  We listened to a variety of songs from the album "The World's Very Best Opera for Kids".  We're continuing to practice writing our names and our classroom goal is to have each child be able to write their own first name by mid February.  We loved art time today with corn syrup painting from the Amazing Action Alphabet.  We also had our very first piano lesson!  Jan-May we apply what we've been learning in music to the piano.  We talk about patterns and how music is repeated patterns.  We learned today that the keyboard has white and black keys and that the black keys are in sets of 2's and 3's.  When we play the piano we brace our pointer finger with our thumb and only use the pointer finger to play all the notes.  We will not use printed music at all but rather learn through memorizing patterns.  Today was our last day of graphing and the kids did pretty well.  They were each able to cut out the pieces to a graph and put them in the correct location.  some kids struggled with the harder graph when they were to cross of an image and color in a square to represent it.  That's okay though because we're in preschool and all of these items are introductory! 

We loved learning the story of Little Red Riding Hood.  We sang it and acted it out many times with the printable puppets from the Opera and Talents preschool pack. We had a fantastic day and I look forward to being back in a routine without any interruptions now through May!