Letter Gg

We had a great week learning the letter Gg!! On Monday we talked about GROWING. We did a puzzle and talked about ways to keep our body healthy so it can grow. The kids were weighed and measured and timed and never got competitive with each other until I measured how tall they were. They all stood very straight to give me an accurate measurement;) We had GRAPES and played Duck Duck GOOSE and Stop and GO outside while we had a few minutes before it was time to go home. Here are the kids from shortest to tallest. They all looked up to Emily to see how tall they would be some day:)
On Wednesday we had a great day celebrating Riley's birthday! We read a lot of Gg stories all week which ended up being my favorite time to talk to them and have fun. We focused on writing the letter Gg and also our first and last names. I was so impressed that they all did very well and all tried to do their best work. We had a Gg scavenger hunt and found a bag of GOODIES for our snack. Then the balloons came out and they had a fun time tossing them around. This is when I lost all control so I let them have a 15 minute recess:) After recess I got them hyper with their candy and we got to work playing hide and seek. Then we tried the sock hop. All of the kids had to get on their hands and knees and try and pull each other's socks off. The last one to have theirs pulled off wins. They LOVED this except Caleb was very sad when his got pulled off. He just wanted to do all of the dirty work! What a great group of kids! I am having so much fun getting to know Caleb and Emily and Linzie.

The balloon chaos!!

This is where Claire and Ava were found. In the top of Riley's closet. I promise I am supervising your kids!! Just didn't think to look on the top shelves!!

For Wednesday

In case some of you didn't get my handout today. I am doing something different for Riley's pres-school birthday. We are talking about the letter Gg this week and I thought it would be fun to send with your child a white elephant GIFT. Just send something from your home or a dollar store item. Please make sure it is a unisex gift and it is wrapped. We had a fun time today and are excited to celebrate a birthday on Wednesday!
Thanks!!
Shalean

The letter D

Monday: D is for Daisy. The kids had fun making daisy's and coloring D books. There were lots of pages to color, but they managed to get it done. We had a little B-day party for Claire and played pin the tail on the donkey. It was a tight contest, but Riley came in closest. We had donuts for snacks.

Wednesday: Of course I forgot to get my camera out, so no pictures. We had fun making play dough and shaping the letter D with it. Then we rolled it out and cut out D word shapes and baked them. Hopefully no one ate them as "cookies". We sang the song "Do as I'm Doing" and got to watch all of the kids be silly. They are good at that. We finished our D books and got to put them together. I'm impressed how well the kids stayed in their seats and worked hard on their projects. What a good group of kids!

Bees and Bears

What an exciting bunch! We had two fun days talking about the letter B. On Monday our theme was Bumblebees. The kids all made a bee and I traced their feet (and tickled them) to make wings for their bees. We practiced writing our b's and read "The Berenstain Bear's B Book" We sang "I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee" and they all got a kick out of that. Especially the Oooh, yucky part! They had fun at recess and then we came in and they were so creative with their snacks. We had bananas and pretzels and they made banana art! We had fun with a bean bag toss. They wanted to go out and play at the end but the clouds came out and the thunder and lightning made us decide to go downstairs and build with blocks instead! We missed Claire on Monday, but were glad she had fun at her Grandma's! I thought I did an awesome job, because there were no tears! Then...came Wednesday. We had a little more drama on Wednesday, but it's a good thing it was a Beautiful day outside, because we spent a lot of time out there! Our theme was Bears. After practicing our B's and a listening activity we sang "The Bear Went Over the Mountain". We had recess and also ate snack outside. We had some Bear cookies, raisins and Otter Pops. Then we played basketball, bounced balls, blew bubbles and read an ABC farm book. A lot more tears and a few more issues, but we made it through.

Mm is for Moon

Wednesday, September 9th we learned about the letter "Mm." As the children came in we had a large assortment of books about the Moon, Space, Meteors, and all things space related. If I remember correctly, Claire informed me that she doesn't like to learn about space! I told her I thought she would have fun anyway.

After looking over our books we gathered around for Circle Time. Here we read one of the moon books and learned about austronauts and the differences between the moon and the earth. We also practiced drawing both a Big or Capital "M" as well as the little or lower case "m." I was super excited to show them a fun demonstration. Carter and I used a light and two balls to represent the sun, earth, and moon. We showed the kids how the sun makes it daytime on one side of the earth while it is night time on the other side. The moon, meanwhile, reflects the sun's light just above the earth. They all really GOT it. We then prepared to make our craft and write our m's. Everyone had a lot of fun making their sun and putting them together so the earth could travel around the sun and the moon around the earth. You should know that I was impressed that they all understood very well how to use brads. I had to help a couple of them adjust their brad because the moon wouldn't go all the way around the earth!

We had a recess break and played in the sand box. I learned that I need more shovels and buckets. We improvised with plastic cups even though they quickly broke. Then it was time for Moon Pies and Milk for snack. I know the moon pies look like oatmeal cookies...I couldn't find the moon pies and wondered if all the kids would like them, so we settled on these yummy treats instead. I promise to serve something more nutritional next time.

After cleaning up from snack, we came inside for a few fun books about the moon. We read "Goodnight Moon 1,2,3" and counted lots of things. We read" Happy Birthday Moon" and learned about echos. We were also going to read "Moon Game" where little bear plays hide and seek with the moon, but we didn't. Lastly we read "Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom" where the alphabet letters all climb up the coconut tree and then fall down.

We tried several times to take a group picture of all of us. We were almost successful. One picture was missing Emily and then, Caleb had Emily's head!

Lastly, we learned a fun nursery rhyme...Hey Diddle, Diddle. Afterwards, we played hide and seek just like they did in the book we didn't read. LOL! I learned that I should have carried my camera around my neck...I kept forgetting to take pictures until after things had taken place. Lots of fun...a few random tears...Plenty of learning for all.

Cupcake Artists!

Today was Emily's 5th birthday! We decided to celebrate!!!

We did 2 A worksheets: an apple coloring sheet,and one with an acorn and tracing the letter A.

Each child helped make cupcakes. They each had an ingredient to add, and got to fill the muffin tin.

We then read a couple funny books.

Afterward, each child got to teach. We wore our aprons, and had surprises in our pockets. As we pulled our surprises out, we told our friends what we had like an angel, apple, alligator, etc.
We had singing and fingerplays that all included the letter A.

Have them show you the following because they loved it!

Alligator Noise
(softly, making alligator mouth with fingers): Say: Alligator, looking for food in the morning.
(louder, making mouth with hands):
Alligator looking for food in the morning.
Very loud, making dig mouth with arms!):
Alligator looking for food in the morning!

So simple, yet they loved it a lot!

Then we were Artists! We went into the kitchen and decorated our cups and plates with stickers. We chose what color of frosting we wanted, and we learned that yellow and blue make green. The other color was yellow--not everything must be a lesson, right? haha

The best part of being an artist today was decorating the cupcakes. They had several toppings to choose from, and I was amazed at how many goodies those cupcakes could hold!

We played some birthday games, and let Emily open her gifts. I would recommend in the future perhaps a drawing of whose gift to open first, because everyone her to open theirs first an the game I chose to play was only fun the first three times, and the last two kids felt sad.

Surprisingly, time was up! Since the first day, I used 2nd day materials, I over planned today, so we didn't get a chance to play all the games. I plan on tucking them away for later, I am sure I will need them.

I hope the kids had a great week! I enjoyed having them at my house. I think with only teaching a couple times, you can gear yourself up and have a lot of fun with it! I do now have a greater appreciation for teachers : )

First Day of Preschool!!!!

Monday was our first day of Preschool. Everyone was so excited. Here is our class photo. After about 5 minutes, when we were comfortable, we got a little silly...


We learned about the letter A. We talked about Adventures. We looked at a globe and saw places that start with the letter A. We learned that we live in America, we said the Pledge of Allegience.
We read a couple great A books, the kids favorite was a Dora one where the kids went on an adventure to find the Animal parade. They marched like Dora, Swung like boots, slithered like a snake, hopped like a frog, flew like a bird, etc. (With 7 kids jumping around, I realized that I have a pretty small front room!)

We made Aa (Adventure Airline) caps which allowed them to board the Airplane. While in flight we watched a portion of Leap frog letter factory. This video showed us how important it is to know the letters and their sounds. They were served Animal Crackers and Apple juice (except Caleb, who had milk! haha)

Next we decorated and made paper airplanes! We tried to decide which one would fly highest, furtherst, fastest, etc. Since I was the person helping the kids, none flew too exceptional.
We then did some A artwork, and concluded with RECESS! I didn't know it then, but from the tears the second day, I realized that recess is truly the best part of Preschool, even better than a party!