Today at Preschool 9/30

Today we did the calendar, went over the letter Ff and reviewed Aa-Ff. We then talked about warm (red, yellow, orange) and cool (blue, purple, green) colors. We looked at Pre-Raphaelite art and decided if it was more warm colors or cool colors (the colors are better in the book we used) they did a great job.

April Love by Arthur Hughs (cool)

Dante and Beatrice by Henry Holiday (warm)

La Belle Dame Sans Merci by Frank Cadogan Cowper (warm)

I am Half Sick of Shadows by Sidney H. Meteyard (cool)

Then they each drew a picture where they were supposed to use only warm or only cool colors.
We read 3 chapters of the book, ate a snack and played. They all behaved very well.

Dinosaurs Before Dark!

Hello everyone---sorry we missed last week! It looks like the kids are having a lot of fun!!

WHAT CHAPTER ARE WE ON FOR DINOSAURS BEFORE DARK???--If you don't mind, when you post about your preschool day could you post what chapter(s) you read, that way we will have a little heads up before our day! THANKS!

Today at Preschool (9/26)

Well today was music day and the kids were great! We started off with circle time and discussed the days of the week and months of the year. They each had a calendar and all knew it was September and needed a little help with what day it was. Israel knew it was the day to go visit Grandma and Grandpa in Utah! We sang some color songs like..."Pink Pink who is wearing pink if your wearing pink then please stand up. Put your finger on it to show me that you found it"... etc. and of course the days of the week song. We then played Brown bear Brown bear. I had laminated some pictures of animals and we started with Brown bear brown bear what do you see? I see a white polar bear looking at me. The kids were really good with their animals and would correct me on what they were! We had grapes and granola bars for lunch and talked about how they both started with the letter G. We made shakers and danced around to the ABC songs. Then we had primary songs and each practiced leading the music. Definately not the boy's favorite! We read some of my favorite book... If you give a Mouse a Cookie and a few Dr. Suess books. Finally we traced letters and of course played. We had a lot of fun!

Lesson plan- Some things go together & number 3

This is what we did today-

• All of us sat on the special blanket and took turns telling everyone our favorite color to practice being in front of peers again
  

• We sang songs like head, shoulders, knees and toes and then I would mess up a song and have them correct me. Each of us took turns using our imagination making a song silly and we had to correct them. It was a lot of fun, but it got really silly!!!

• When we read the book today they all remembered what had happened in the last chapter and as we read, they all got so close to me and were gripped! We read 2 chapters today because they were so interested. After we were done they asked if I could read more. They really are loving it. Thanks again Maren!

• We talked about how some things go together. I held up a book and had them choose what things went together like a bee and a flower or a bee and an ice cream cone. They already understood every example that I gave them so I had them each take turns thinking of something that they like or use and then we would think of something that goes with the item. This is something that you can practice at home. They all loved it and were very creative in their answers.
  

• The #3 worksheet

• Lots of fun!!!
  

Request

Please label your posts. there is a list already going on the side, if your post fits into one great! try to keep it a general label so that more then just one post fits under the category. I went in and added labels to all the posts so far and changed the label on Briana's post to science instead of magnetism numbers instead of number 1.
Thanks,
Maren

Katie's week 1 and 2 Phonograms-as taught in Spalding

I am only teaching the sound, not all the rules, no need to confuse them. When I hold up the phonogram card I don't ask what letter it is, I just hold up the letter and say, this is "A, A, Ah" while holding up fingers 1, 2, 3.

Last week:
A-
1. At
2. nAvy --- Usually at the end of a syllable
3. fAther---May say AH @ the end of a syllable
B-
1. riB--- close lips to form a line, then voice sound

This week
C-
1. Can
2. Cent---C before E, I, or Y says S, but followed by any other letter says K
D-
1. liD---Press tip of tongue against upper ridge behind teeth, then voice sound. Keep jaw still.
E-
1. End
2. mE---E usually says this at the end of a syllable.

We played sound hide and seek last week, read a LOT of books(including Rabbit's Color Book), sang Alphabet and other songs, colored with primary colors, and pretty much the coolest stuff ever.

Arizona and the number 2 -9/18

We had a great day at preschool! We started by letting the kids all tell something fun they did this week so they can get used to talking in front of groups of peers. They all really like talking about themselves!!! Then we sang songs while everyone took turns going to the bathroom. One had to go so they all had to go. Aren't kids so funny that way. After that, I thought I'd read the chapter book while I had there attention and they loved it. I almost read more. As I was reading I would stop and ask questions and they would all raise there hands and shout out the answers. It was a great idea. Thanks Maren.
We learned about where we live, that within our country there are states and we live in Arizona. I told them facts about Arizona and things unique to the state as we glued the pieces to the map. To tie in the #2 I made a Arizona match game and we counted all the pieces first. Then we played the match game which was a great bit hit. They wanted to keep playing. We also did the #2 worksheet.
I almost forgot. We made our September calender. They loved putting the stickers in the boxes and we went over the months of the year raising our hand when we got to September. I had them draw an X in the boxes for the days that had already passed. Some of them totally got that, others weren't sure what that was about, so I'm not sure if I should do that again or not. Thanks for another great preschool day!

Schedule CHANGE

I (Briana) am going to be out of town next week. Shelly will be taking my Thursday, so the schedule for the next couple of weeks is:

Tuesday Sept.23-- KT's (no change)
Thursday Sept. 25-- Shelly's
Friday Sept. 26-- Nicolle's (no change)
Tuesday Sept. 30-- Maren's (no change)
Thursday Oct. 2-- Briana's

I changed the schedule on the side bar to reflect the change!

Lesson Plan For Music Day! (Friday the 26th)

Well it is Music Day this next Friday. I thought I would clue everyone in on what I had been brainstorming. I thought the kids could all safely make shakers (empty water bottles or vitamin/medicine containers filled with rice). I would prepare the other instruments before hand. Such as sandpaper hot glued on wood blocks etc. I have a few educational children's CDs that we will learn and shake our shakers to. They have songs like the ABCs, Days of the week, Colors etc. I thought we could also pull out London's Primary CD and briefly teach them how to lead music and let each child take a turn standing in front of the other children. Let me know what you think or if you have other ideas to add! Thanks for all you do! London is thoroughly enjoying preschool!

Great Link for our Books

I found this great link for the book we are reading "Dinosaurs before Dark". It has vocabulary, questions, and activities for each chapter. It also has this for many other Magic Tree House books which we will use later. We certainly won't use these as actual worksheets since our kids can't read but they have some good questions we could ask the kids about the last chapter as a review and about the new chapter that we read to them!! Just an idea--and I am sure there are many other great ideas out there! (I tried to put this link on the right side of the page under the book image but I think that Maren is the only one that can do that--so go ahead and add it if you want otherwise just click on the link below!)

http://www.mce.k12tn.net/units/units_with_books.htm

Lesson Plan~Sept. 11, Number 1 and Magnetism

I am back tracking a little but I thought that I would write down what we did last Thursday for preschool while it is fresh on my mind!! (On Thursdays we will be covering math and a general studies of sorts!) I like to plan and write out the details so I might as well share them with you all in case you want to reinforce or even steal this lesson the next time around!

Math
1) read through number flash cards together (number recognition 1-20)
2) talk about what a number 1 looks like (the number of the day)
3) write the number one in the air with fingers-- use this little poem "start at the top and down you run, I just wrote a number one!)
4) stand up , then lay down and be a number one
5) "The Number Bucket"-- I made a number bucket with a food storage metal can and magnetic plastic numbers 0-9 (2 of each, 88 cents at Walmart by the way). The outside of the bucket has the outlines of each number. Kids reach in to find a number, tell the other kids what number it is and then find where it goes on the outside of the can! The kids loved this one!
6) number 1 worksheet (with the number 1, the word "one", and a box to place "one" sticker in)

Magnetism
1) talk about a magnet and show the magnet wand (magnet strips hot glued onto a wooden food skewer)
2) explain that some things are magnetic and some are not magnetic
3) make small posters for each child with 2 sandwich bags stapled onto it and labeled "magnetic" and "NOT magnetic"-- the kids actually caught onto this really quick
4) lay out things on the table one at a time for each child and test to see if it is magnetic or not
** things used---crayon, straw, popsicle stick, magnet, 3-4 metal objects found in the garage, paper clips, safety pin, piece of paper

The kids were great and did a fabulous job raising hands etc. I will try and get some pictures of these things up soon as well!

Meeting Notes 9/16

Ideas for upcoming "Fun Days":

Halloween Party
Zoo
Pumpkin Patch
Christmas Party (before the 16th when KT leaves)
Dino Museum
State Fair

Nicolle these Ideas are for you to plan with, but, we all will help in executing the plans, i.e. make assignments for us to take care of / bring. We do not want one person to carry the cost and issues of planing bigger activity's. Feel free to make adjustments as you need. Also you choose which Friday you want to do Music and which you want to be the activity. Your Fridays fall on the same week as KT and Briana.

Everyone please send your child to school with a bag for their papers and a sippy cup.

Briana will prepare a Calendar to use in preschool with the kids each month and will be giving it to whoever has the first preschool of the month. Use this to talk to the kids about the Date at the beginning of preschool.

We will be sending around a chapter book to read during story time. We are starting with "The Magic Tree House Dinosaurs Before Dark" by Mary Pope Osborn read a chapter and send it home with the next child hosting preschool. Feel free to read a picture book too.
(ps this book belongs to Maren)

I think that is all. Thanks!

Today at Preschool.... 9/16

We reviewed the months of the year, days of the week and talked about today's date. We traced upper and lower case C, D, & E (Jade and Finn need to finish E at home). We the talked about the Secondary colors (green, purple, & orange) we mixed the colors with water and food coloring starting with the Primary colors and mixing to get the Secondary colors. We then used finger paint and mixed the colors to make our color wheels. We ate Popcorn for snack time and read "King Bidgood's in the Bathtub" for story time. Then we played!