J is for Jungle, Jam, and Jump

I hope the kids enjoyed learning about the letter "J" as much as I did. Here's the recap of what we did during the week of November 9th and 11th 2009.

Monday we learned about Jungles. I learned that a jungle is often called a tropical rain forest and that panthers are actually black jaguars. We started the day reading all kinds of books about the jungle and jungle animals. There were some pretty amazing photos of snakes, iguanas, monkeys, and big cats. Hopefully no one has had nightmares! We read a few books and shared our favorite pictures.
The kids were super anxious to get to the table. (I had everything set up...anticipation.) We made our black jaguars. They had a great time cutting circles. I was pleasantly surprised to not have to cut a single circle, although I did trace a few extras for those who got a bit scissor happy. :) I hope everyone saw these; they turned out quite cute and I didn't get any pictures.

After our jaguar craft and writing our letter "J" page we played in the sand a bit for recess. We came in for snacks. We made funny Jungle creatures with bananas, chocolate covered sunflower seeds, pretzels,marshmallows, and chineese noodles. I had each child pose with their snack.

Emily's creature looked very personable; with marshmallow ears and hair.

Ava definitely spent the most time creating. Cute poky-pretzel creature.

Riley didn't want to make a creature.
Not sure if she doesn't like bananas or if she ate it separately.
Perhaps mixing foods isn't in her book of things to do.

Caleb showed a ton of personality during this food craft.
The white eyes didn't show up well.

Not sure what Carter's creation was here.
Does it ever feel like you are giving less attention your kid @ preschool?
I did ask Carter to do better at staying with me and he DID!

Linzie also had a poky-pretzel character.
It was fun to watch her create and enjoy it!

Claire also enjoys crafting with food.
Creating and eating is tops on everyone's list.

While everyone ate, I read the kids an African Jungle Folktale, "Why Mosquitoes Buzz in Peoples Ears." This sequence story tells how one animals behavior is misinterpreted which causes a chain of events and kills a baby owl. Then we colored and cut out animals of our own to make our own sequence stories. I was impressed with the story telling ability of our kids.

Wednesday we spent nearly one hour reading books and learning how to sound out and recognize about 8 sight words. We made the same sentence every time and just changed the final word. They read "I can...see, look, run, play, jump, go, help. Again, everyone was super excited to get to the table. For our snack we had home made bread with Jam and Jelly. First we tasted all 5 kinds on a small sample piece to find our favorites. I was impressed that everyone tried every kind (except Linzie...she knew blackberry raspberry was her fav. :)) The results:

Blackberry Raspberry Jam - Claire, Linzie, Caleb, and Riley
Strawberry Jam - Carter and Emily
Grape Jelly - Ava

Then we ate to our hearts content and made the following graph:

# of slices eaten 1 2 3 4 5
Riley
Claire
Ava
Carter
Caleb
Emily
Linzie

They were BIG talkers. Almost everyone said they could eat 10 slices.
I think Linzie, Ava, and Caleb ate the best lunch prior to coming to preschool. :)

Then we went outside to jump rope. They were very skeptical until I showed them we would jump on the ground and not turn it in the air. We each took a turn on the rope.

Then a few of us played a bit of Limbo. Emily knows the limbo song well!

And we practiced the high jump. There were some good jumpers.

Lots of fun had with a rope!

And we found a dead mouse in the grass. I picked it up with a leaf and everyone gathered around. Great lesson on not touching. Caleb wanted to just pet his fur.

The worksheets were a bit ambicious I realize. I learned that the kids did not know the difference between words and letters! So we had a short lesson that groups of letters make words. And then...after helping them write numbers on jelly bean math, it dawned on me that I could have had them just draw the number of jelly beans for the answer. Duh!

I sure enjoyed everyone this week. It's super fun to be so hands-on involved with Carter and his friends. Remember, Preschool at Jen's (or as Carter would say, Claire's!) next week.