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!

Spiders and Miss Muffet

We had oodles of fun with our Spiders and Miss Muffet theme in preschool today. We played a "Smack the Spider" game to practice the words and letters that we have already learned as well as our new letter S and word "the".

 We practiced the Little Miss Muffet nursery rhyme in a number of different ways throughout the day.

 This is the first introduction to the sight word "the" for the kids.  They have to learn to memorize what it looks like because it doesn't "sound out" like the other words do.  It's the first official sight word that we learn.  I love these clip cards from the Spiders and Miss Muffet preschool pack where the kids can clip the letters on top of the guide to practice reading and making the word "the".

 We also made the sight word watch from the Moffatt Girls.

 For art today we made spiders.  We talked about how spiders have two body parts, eight legs, and many of them have eight eyes.  They practiced using the hole punch to make the eyes and got to use the glue sticks to put the spiders together.

 We then got to play with our spiders for the rest of the day.  They helped us in math to talk about long and short and they helped us in music as we sang "There's a Spider on the Floor" and many other songs about spiders!

October 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 "October Preschool Packs" contain 9 theme based lesson plans, a total of 263 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. 

October {Download all 9 October Preschool Packs}

12. Spiders and Miss Muffet {Download}
The Spiders and Miss Muffet lesson plans and activities are such a blast!  We're introduced to the sight word "the" and get to play some matching games with it.  We also talk about long and short and continue our study of numerical order.  There is a "Spider Facts" mini book and a clip card spider with dice.  You can also play "Smack that Spider!" and play with the Little Miss Muffet printables.  There is a long path and a short path spider game (who will win first?) and a hidden letter activity.  We focus on the letter S and making all sorts of new words. 

13. Safety {Download}
I really look forward to the Safety preschool pack.  I'm always amazed that as preschoolers are taught very specifically certain ideas the ideas stick!  My kids are still asking to be excused from the table when we're done eating and we worked on that in August!  The safety pack addresses safety in crossing the street, using scissors, being in the kitchen, playing with toys and many other activities that we do every day.  They can practice the sight word "the" with a sight word money and pockets game.  We also work on colors, the vocabulary "tall" and "short", non-standard measuring and play a long path game where you have to decide what the best choice is to stay safe. 

14. Bears and Bats {Download}
Bears and Bats pulls from a couple favorite story books: "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?" and "Goldilocks".  There are manipulatives to act out both of those stories as well as sort items according to size, determine quantity equality, use Do-A-Dot markers and sing songs.  We'll also be tracing and working on CVC words.  We're learning the letter B and there is the cutest toilet paper roll craft to make a bat or a bear. 

15. Bubbles {Download}
It is a lot of fun to play with bubbles and explore the different things we can do with them.  In this pack there are so many ideas for making bubbles, using different colored bubbles to make art and even a part about washing the dishes.  The printables are adorable and so fun to play.  There is a long path game where you have to help the kids get to the bubble bath!  There are also counting and matching games, a hidden letter B art, Do-A-Dot "the", a long path phonics game, dot-to-dot and tracing activities. 

16. Helpful Kids {Download}

I'm particularly excited about the Helpful Kids pack because it is based on Bucket Fillers.  It's the idea of teaching children that we all have a bucket inside of us and if we do something nice, kind or helpful for someone else we are filling their bucket.  It's a perfect set of lesson plans for improving the peace and kindness in your school or home.  We introduce the letter H and talk about all the different things we can do that would be helpful, including how to tie our own shoes.  We continue working on the sight word "the" and size sequencing items.  The Little Red Hen makes an appearance with a recipe for bread and the "Rhyming Dust Bunnies" also stop by to make rhymes with word families that we've already learned (and some we haven't for a little added challenge!)

17. Doctors {Download}
The doctors pack is intended to help children feel comfortable going to the doctor, even if it's just for a regular check up.  We talk about all the body parts and how we can tell if they are working and growing correctly.  H the Horse from the Amazing Action Alphabet goes to the doctor when he is stung by a hornet.  There is a letter H hidden picture and "the" puzzles. 

18. Caterpillars {Download}

The letter C makes it's appearance now in our curriculum.  We learn all about caterpillars and their life cycle.  There are puzzles, size matching games, tracing and word families.  We also continue non-standard measurement and introduce the vocabulary "near" and "far". 

19. Pumpkins {Download}

Pumpkins is another fantastic day in school.  We spend the day exploring pumpkins in many different ways.  We measure their weight, height and width.  We dissect them and talk about all the parts of the pumpkin plant.  We find out if they sink or float.  The printables are great with puzzles and songs, recording sheets for the science experiments, hidden letter coloring pages, size sequencing, shadow matching and tracing. 

20. Halloween {Download}

Halloween is a very exciting time of year.  With this complete lesson plan you're ready to make the most learning happen around an exciting holiday.  There are two mini books that now feature tracing pages and coloring pages.  Make the jack-o-lantern's face match the text and trace the words in the Halloween beginning reader.  We're still comparing objects by single characteristics and developing vocabulary around different traits. We get to review the letters we've learned thus far and can trace them on fun Halloween monkey pages.  There are pages to make your own haunted house writing and add Halloween characters, we're determining which is different and practicing the sight word "the"!

**Preschool packs are lesson plans intended for a small preschool classroom or homeschool.  They are not to be used individually as they follow a year long curriculum that builds upon itself.  The themes specify what the underlying topic is that we'll be talking about with literature, in our art, and any science or social studies activities.  Reading and Math activities most often do not relate to the theme and these lesson plans are heavy in the reading and math department.  Printables expand on what we're able to cover in our 2.5 hours allotted to learn the materials and are often used as homework practice. The reading lesson plans are designed to be used with all the materials from the Amazing Action Alphabet and have been proven to teach children to be successful readers.

**Each preschool pack has 3 pages of lesson plan ideas.  Each child should be introduced to activities that don't involve something you can print from a computer, such as building blocks or painting.  These first 3 pages of lesson plans have all of the ideas that match the theme in one easy spot.  The lesson plans pages are organized by subject for easy referencing.  I've linked many of the materials listed to Amazon.com to provide you with more information about products you might want to consider using.  These packs have a lot of research behind them as I am a licensed teacher with experience teaching PreK-2nd Grade for 10 years.