Opposites and Animal Friends

We had a fantastic day in preschool today learning all about the letter A.  In our morning class we talked all about opposites.  We talked about black/white, wet/dry, hard/soft and many other opposites.  Start pointing out opposites to your preschooler throughout your daily life. As we started learning about the letter A today we played on Starfall.com and played with the Amazing Action Alphabet.  The army ants take away the alligators apple, making him very angry!  Learning the letter A is the beginning of reading in preschool.  It's the first time that kids put their reading skills to a real challenge.  Write the word "at" or "am" on a piece of paper or a white board.  Ask your child if they know how to read the word.  Guide them to do the 4 things good readers do: Look, Point, Say, Listen.  Some kids at this stage show that they need more work and play with the letters before they are ready to read and that is perfectly ok!  Other kids are ready to start reading with a bang.  You can quickly identify where your child is at in order to set reasonable goals.  All children should be reading the A book 3x per night, regardless of if they have it memorized or if they are actually reading the text.  Acting like a reader is being a reader!

We continued our theme of opposites with art where we colored with wet and dry chalk.  Our math lesson is continuing on the counting and number sense topic.  Each child came home with a ring of 4 cards and 4 clothes pins.  They are to hold up one card and find the clothes pin with the same number of stickers.  They attach the clothes pin to the card and then move on to the next card.

I encouraged the language, "One is the same as one.  Two is the same as two." and so on.

In our afternoon class we explored the theme of Animal Friends with our new book, "Big Red Barn" (I think that's the title....).  Regardless, it gave us a fantastic opportunity to read through the book looking for adult (capital) A's and princess a's.  We also read about animals in our encyclopedias.  

For math today we made our cards for "Compare" (alternately known as "War", but "Compare" sounds so much more appropriate for preschool....doesn't it?).  Though we made the cards we didn't get past sorting them into sets, so PLEASE make sure the cards in the pocket in the binder come back to school on Wednesday.  For math homework tonight your preschooler can find matching sets.  Spread the cards all out and find both cards that have an equal number of stickers (8 is the same as 8) and stack pairs.  If you're feeling adventurous you could teach how to play Compare.  We will spend plenty of time playing it on Wednesday!

Preschool Reading - Opposites Day

This week in preschool we're introducing the letter "a", which gives us the first unique opportunity to teach blending letter sounds to read words.  This is a HUGE concept for any reader and is so important for kids to master with just the 3 letters we've now learned (M, T, A).  I utilize the Amazing Action Alphabet materials, and specifically their Beginning Reader set.  These materials are fantastic in helping kids understand what reading is, a very difficult concept of making the sounds of the letters blend together into words, but very simply developed through these beginning readers.  

 We've already learned letters M and T.  Today we spend some time working on letter A.  It's important for children to be responsible for their own learning and utilize what they've learned.  We spend time being detectives with mini magnifying glasses finding the letter of the week around the room.  We look all around on the walls and the floor for the letter.  Then we mark the letter with highlighter tape.  All of the letter A's that we found are now marked with blue tape throughout the room and will stay that way for the duration of the school year.  At home, encourage your little one to find the letter of the week everywhere you go: on signs, in books, even on cereal boxes!

 I love Starfall.com for all of their variety of activities.  The alphabet activities include fun digital books with interactive pages such as this page where we sorted capital and lowercase letter A apples into their correct basket.

 Here is where we get into the most important concept of the day: blending letters.  This is HUGE and shouldn't be skipped over.  In fact, it should be practiced every day until they understand the concept.  We write the letters "a" and "m" on separate dot stickers.  Then we put the stickers on the left hand.  The "a" goes on the left pointer finger, the "m" goes on the left middle finger.  We call this strategy "tapping".  Tap the left thumb to the left pointer finger (where the letter a is) and make the sound /a/.  Then tap the left thumb to the left middle finger (where the m is) and make the sound /m/.  We are reading the word "am".  We do it slowly at first "/a/ /m/, /a/ /m/" over and over.  Then we speed it up and repeat.  Eventually you make the sounds so quickly together that you blend the sounds into the word.  Your thumb moves from pointer finger to middle finger in more of a slide fashion than a tap.

This is where the "What Good Readers Do" page (in the School Tools preschool pack) comes in.  Good readers do 4 things.  They LOOK at the letters, POINT at the letters, MAKE THE SOUND with their mouths, and LISTEN to the sounds to determine the word.  We're looking, pointing and making the sounds.  Now we have to listen to the word we're saying.  What word are you reading?  What sounds are coming out of your mouth?  When you put those sounds together they make the word "am".  We use the word "am" in sentences like "I am happy."

 Practice tapping the sounds of the word 'am' until your preschooler(s) understands the concept.  Then move onto the word 'at' as the second word to practice tapping.

Today also happens to be themed "Opposites".  We do a number of fun opposites activities such as identifying what opposites are and playing with opposites like wet and dry chalk during art time!

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!