A Sweet & Sour Letter Zz Week

Sweet because it was my last week to teach preschool and Sour because it was my last week to teach preschool! These kids have been so much fun and I am so happy that we did this. We will always look back on the preschool years and the fun memories with the neighborhood kids!

On Monday our agenda was very busy and didn't get to everything planned, but got the important things done at least. We started out reading stories about Zoo animals and the role of the zookeeper. After our dicussions we got right to work with our Zz books. We cut out pictures that started with the letter Zz and then wrote the words on the bottom.

Then it was time to get the wiggles out so we went to the basement and had relay races with lots of Zig Zags! Our snack of Zucchini bread was a hit and they kept asking for seconds!! We made Zebra's and finished with a quick play of Zookeeper.

On Wednesday I decided to make it a little more fun since I crammed all of the "work" into them on Monday. They came with their favorite blankets and we actually had an extra friend to add to the group...Landen Harper joined in on the fun and he meshed right in. They snuggled in to their blankets and I read them more zoo animal books. We took turns rhyming and then put together words from the syllabals that I said...like "wa ter mel on" is watermelon.

We had a great time watching Madagascar to go along with our Zoo theme. Popcorn kept them quiet for awhile and then the wild animals became alive! We made letter Zz's with our bodies and then finished our day off playing with playdough making zoo animals. They are all very creative! When it was time for the mom's to come pick them up they decided to pretend like they were sleeping to fool you all:) It was so funny to watch them practice and get so excited for the next car to drive up!

Thanks for a great pre-school year everyone!

X -- better late than never!

On Monday we had fun with the letter x. Not many words that start with x, so I bet you can imagine what we talked about! I showed the kids some pictures of some real x-rays and had them guess which bones they were. Carter came prepared with a skeleton shirt on! Then we sang some songs, read some books and then we went upstairs to make our own x-rays out of chalk. We practiced writing our letter x and some numbers as well. We made the letter x out of popsicle sticks and then we went on a treasure hunt for our snack, because X marks the spot. They found their snack (pudding) in the fridge. Of course my camera batteries (every set I own) were dead. So I have no pictures for Monday, so you'll have to use your imaginations.

On Wednesday the kids were so excited that it was a party and there would be no learning involved! First we made heart shaped valentine bags to put the valentines we exchanged in. Then we sang some Valentine songs, read some books about giving and love and played some fun games. Then we frosted cupcakes and decorated them with candy. Then the part they had been waiting for the entire time....exchanging valentines. We let each child pass out their valentines to each other one at a time. They were all so patient in waiting for their turn. They were excited to see their bags full of valentines!

Letter V

We learned about letter V this week, and I found it was a fun letter to have! We started off by reading some books about volcanoes. The kids all really loved the pictures and talking about hot lava.

Then we practiced writing our Vs, and quickly went on to the fun stuff! I had to laugh because the first time I told them we were going to do a science experiment, they all groaned. But when they saw how fun science experiments are, they changed their minds. So on Wed., when I said we were going to do a science experiment, they all got really excited! Since we read books on volcanoes, we had to make our own.


They each made a "volcano" and we took turns having them erupt. I was impressed with how un-messy this was, due in large part to how well behaved and cooperative the kids were.

Then we painted with vegetables, which was a lot of fun. Again, I expected a mess ( the paint was washable!) but they did really good.

I think the onion was a favorite. It made a neat design.

Then we practiced a bit of counting and addition, and played with shapes.

For snack, we had vegetables. A couple of the kids tried some new things. Riley tried bell pepper and didn't like it, but did like the radish. Claire LOVED the radish and ate a whole one. Ava tried one of everything, and Caleb didn't even want vegis! Emily, Linzie, and Carter stayed with the tried and true celery and carrot sticks, and everyone had ranch to dip in. I expected that vegis wouldn't be enough , so we also had vanilla wafers.
A fun V day!

Ww is for...

I had so much fun preparing and teaching about Ww.

While waiting for the kids to gather, I brought out some
cards the kids wrote on with dry erase markers.
They were a big hit!
Monday was all about question words and READING!
Who What When Where Why

For Who: we read two books..."Who Builds" and "Who Digs."

For What: we read "What Spot?"

For When: we read "When I Get Bigger"
We talked about all the things we can do now
and what we will learn to do as we get bigger.

For Where: we read "Where the Wild Things Are"
Wondering if anyone has seen the new movie out? Is it good?
Maybe we should do a field trip and take the preschoolers to it?

For Why: we read "Why do You Always Have to Say Please?"

In between all of that reading we took a small break.
For recess we danced to "Wobbly Woopsy."
For snack we ate Wiggily Jell-o, bananas, and crackers.

We also listened and followed directions on our Ww page.
On the back of the sheet we wrote our names with stencils.

Wednesday had a fun theme I've been planning on since Fall!
Carter and I collected some Wheat from along a farmer's field.
We read "The Little Red Hen" and learned about wheat.
There were lots of Words like Water, Wheelbarrow, Wheat...

Together we ground some wheat with my grinder.
Then we added ingredients to make Waffles!
While the Waffle iron was heating we read two more versions
of the little red hen and compared them.

Finally we ate our waffles! Some of our littlest kids ate the most!
(Either that of they didn't eat much lunch that day...L0L!)



We cleaned up from waffles and did a "HEN" writing page.
The kids also were GREAT at the sequencing page.
They colored, cut, and put in order the Little Red Hen story.

We finished off the day waiting for parents and playing "Hullabaloo!"

It's NEVER to late...

It's NEVER to late to update your blog! Right? Well sorry it has taken me soooo long. I really had a great time with the kids last month! We focused our week on the letter S with Stories and Songs~ On Monday everyone came in their cute pj's for a Super Story Sing-a-long! Carter especially enjoyed sharing his book and came upfront with me while we read his.

We learned a new song about stories that we enjoyed singing and signing to on both days called Books Give Me Wings.. I recorded the kids singing it the last day. We had fun playing with a lot of Songs! And danced to some too... What a great group of dancers we have!
One of our favorite books was Camel Caravan that had a song to go with it. We made our own caravans giving each child a chance to be the leader. Sorry, no picture!

Another book we sang and danced to was The African Rain Song. The kids enjoyed acting out some of the African animals. There is a little clip of the kids doing this at the end of the video below.
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We made posters of our favorite stories.

We ended our S week celebrating our Super star week of dancing and stories by decorating stars for all of our preschool STARS!

I had a wonderful time with our AMAZING kids! They were all great!!

Valentines Party

After talking to Gina, we decided we would have the preschool Valentine's party next week when I am teaching, rather than after Valentine's Day. So, I am planning to have it on Wednesday, Feb. 10th. If the kids are interested in bringing Valentines to trade with each other, have them bring them on Wednesday. Thanks, Talea