WOW---what a busy day today was! I had a lot planned and we really got through most of it but it was really busy. Luckily it was a good kind of busy because the kids didn't really even want to play much---play time only lasted 10 minutes! Here is the general run down:
Monkey Game
We played the monkey game right at the beginning until everyone arrived. Grab rubber bananas with large tweezers and place into monkeys mouth. This is suppose to help with fine motor skils (ie writing later). The kids LOVED this and asked to play several other times during the day.
Question of the Day
"What is your favorite book?" The kids loved standing up and sharing their favorite book with everyone.
Sight Words
I decided to start exposing the kids to a few simple sight words that aren't necessarily "sounded out". Today we did the words "I see a....."
Game-- there were shapes hung up all around the room. Each child took a turn, stood up, and said "I see a (circle..etc)" and then went and pulled down the shape. They brought it back to the group and everyone repeated "I see a circle".
When each child had a shape I put the words "I see a" up on the wall. Each child took a turn and brought up their shape and put it at the end of the sentence. Then they got to use the magic pointer (ie a wooden food skewer) to point at each words while everyone read them together. The kids had a great time and really picked it up fast.
Then I read the little book to them. We looked at the cover of the book (which is actually a prerequesite for Kindergarten to know where the front cover of the book is) and talked about it. Then we opened it up and used our fingers as the magic pointers to point to each word and read them. Obviously they can't read the shapes but I told them that they can always look at the picture to help them figure it out!
Then the kids colored their books. I tried to emphasize staying in the lines! They did pretty well but I think that something that could be emphasized even more!
Play Time, Snack Time, Story Time (we only read the books that the kids brought, no Ninas today)
White Boards
We got out the white boards. Each child should have a white board and little cloth eraser in their bags now. I wrote their name at the top and had them practice trying to use correct proportion and staying in the lines. London did very well with the lines and using capital and lower case where needed. The rest really needed help but started to get the hang of it.
What a fun day! After preschool my mind was racing with ideas and suggestions so here they are:
BAGS
PLEASE have the following in your child's bag:
sippy cup
pencil box with scissors, crayons, pencil, white board, white erase marker (I highly suggest black since there was much commotion about the other colors) and glue stick
white board
cloth eraser (I provided one for each child today)
Suggestions:
* have your child read their book to you
* write your child's name on their whiteboard with permanent ink
* show child how to write their name with the correct proportions and practice writing this on their whiteboard (they are really getting good at tracing but the free hand tends to be everywhere---which is totally to be expected at their age but now we can start showing them the correct way!)
* for future preschool lessons--make a connection between tracing and free hand, maybe have them trace on paper and then try it on the white board (for example only one child could write the letter A on their whiteboard without having to trace it and of course it was Alyssa because she has the A in her name but that was when I realized that we need to make more of a connection between recognizing, tracing, and writing!)
** If you really want to be over zealous try this (I did it with Alyssa just because I was curious and I am new at teaching the "letters" part of preschool--
1) Get out some paper and pencils.
2)You (adult) writes all of the capital letters in random order on one page, lower case on another page.
3) Point to each letter at random and have child say the letter (SKILL--recognizing letters) Do this for capital and lower case (I even made a note of which ones Alyssa got confused on!)
4) Give child a blank sheet and have them write letters. I just went in order and told her she could write either capital or lower case. (I made a note of which ones she needed help on!) (SKILL-- writing without tracing). I didn't worry about proportions just general shape.
5) Point to each letter and have child say the sound of the letter. (SKILL-- phonics) (again I made notes)
I wasn't sure where Alyssa stood on all of these skills but now I have a better idea and I know which letters she could use some extra practice on! If any of you want to do this I highly recommend it! I don't mean to use this as a comparison of the kids because they are all doing so well---but if any of you do this, let me know how it goes that way I will have a better idea what to spend more time on in future lessons! For example---Alyssa recognizes all of her capital letters but got confused on a few of the lower case letters. Also, there were 9 letters that she couldn't write on her own. Now I know which letters to have her practice! HOWEVER---if you feel like completely ignoring this idea that is fine too! The kids are doing so well and I would love any ideas suggestions on what to work on for the writing/reading part of preschool! KATIE---let's have a little pow wow about how we want to split up letters and writing etc.
(I did not show them a picture of him smoking)
