Thanksgiving

We had a fun time focusing on Thanksgiving with the letter T last week. We talked about the first Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims and Indians. Then we made a thankful turkey. It was so much fun to see what the kids were thankful for. We read some books and sang some Thanksgiving and turkey songs. The kids practiced writing their letter T's and they wrote something they were going to be eating at Thanksgiving dinner. We had a snack and played pin the feathers on the turkey. Then we weaved a pumpkin. We were too busy for recess, but had fun with all of the games and activities. We missed Caleb and Ava and hope they got feeling better before Thanksgiving day.

Heads Up for Monday Pre-school!!

Hey everyone! I thought it would be fun to have our first field trip of the year. On Monday everyone is to meet at my house at 12:30 and we will caravan to the mall to see St. NICHOLAS (Letter N)! We will get pictures of the kiddos (bring your camera) with St. Nick and then let them play at the playground right next to him. We will leave about 1:30 and come back to my house and we will have a snack, stories, and a craft. Kids can be picked up at the normal time of 2:30. If you are unable to take your child to the mall, please let me know and I will be happy to pick them up! We did this last year and the kids LOVED it! Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Thanks!
Shalean

Preschool H and K

.


Yes, I am updating my last 2 preschools (I've been having computer issues). For letter H, we had lots of fun with our Halloween party. It was fun to see what everyone dressed as! We had a hard time breaking the pinata, but the kids liked it. We made spiders with our hands and played bingo. I know this is sad, but I don't remember what else we did. I must be getting old or something.


For the letter K we learned about what Kindergarten will be like. Monday we practiced our rhyming. We played a game where they rolled a ball back and forth. Whoever got the ball had to rhythm with the word the first person gave them. We also worked on following exact instructions. They struggled with this more than I thought they would. They really tried to use whatever color they wanted. We had Kool-Aid and Kisses for snacks. On Wednesday we celebrated Ava's birthday. I hope she had a good time. We worked on our syllables. It took them a minute to figure it out. They were doing well once we got going. We made kittens and read "The three little kittens who lost their mittens". We had show and tell with K objects. I was suprised that some of the girls did not want to go up front and talk. They took some coaxing and I had to whisper in a few ears what to say, but they all survived. We had cupcakes for Ava's birthday. We really missed the boys this week! I hope they get feeling better. I learned it's good to have a few boys around!

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.

Letter Ii

This week was a great week to talk about the letter Ii!! Monday I didn't get any pictures to catch the fun that we had, but trust me, it is never a dull moment with these kids:) We learned about our great state IDAHO!! We learned that the state bird is the mountain blue bird, the state horse is an apaloosa etc.... I also got out the map and I showed them where Chubbuck was located in Idaho and also where Idaho was located in the United States. I probably really got them confused with where the heck they are!! We did potato art with a real Idaho grown potato as the stamp. French fries were a hit as our snack!

Wednesday we learned about INDIANS! We talked about Squanto and his relationship with the pilgrims and all that he taught them. We made a Squanto story bag. Then we got wild and crazy with our indian headbands and did some indian dancing! We ended our day with drawing letters and pictures in shaving cream!

One littlle two, little three little Indians!
We had a picnic snack time!

They couldn't get enough of the shaving cream!!

The letter P

We had a great time at preschool today. We did miss Linzie and Caleb---Get well! We had a Pajama Party! We gathered by reading a few books. We clapped at all the P words, and read a couple silly Halloween books.

We learned about Popcorn! We saw that it really is dried corn. We made 2 kinds of popcorn: 1- microwave, and 2- on the stove. They thought it was awesome to hear it pop on the stove, but in the end they preferred the buttery microwave popcorn! hehe

We traced out Ps. The kids have great penmanship!

We next learned about pumpkins. We saw how they start with a small seed, dirt, water, and sunlight. Most kids have not grown pumpkins, but have grown zucchini, or have family who have grown them. We carved a pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern, and saved the seeds to bake for next time.

Next we got to go down to the movie theater. We watched the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. The kids loved it! Thier favorite character was...........LUCY! What? I guess because she makes them laugh.

We also had Punch and Peanut butter treats! Then to recess. It was a short recess, but they loved getting outside.

They love silly stories, and they love telling their own stories. They are such sweet kids, and I hope they are just having a blast.

Letter L

We had lots of fun with the letter L. The first day we talked about ladybugs and made a paper ladybug. Our snack was an apple made into a ladybug. We practiced writing our letter L's and the kids all did great. We sang some fun ladybug songs and read 10 little ladybugs. The kids all had fun helping me count. On Wednesday we talked about leaves. We sang lots of fun leaf songs and read "I Love You Stinky Face" and "Five Little Monkey's Jumping on the Bed". We made a leaf picture by melting crayon shavings. The best part of preschool is the funny things these sweet little kids do and say. I just love what comes out of their mouths! (Parents, don't be embarrassed, just laugh along with me--they made my day!) So I sent the kids all in to wash their hands before snack. All of a sudden I hear Riley yell "Oh, that's disgusting", then Claire yelled "Caleb is going pee in front of us all while we are in here!" Then Ave yells "he didn't even wipe his butt!" Linzie then proceeds to tell Ava that boys don't need to wipe when they go pee. It was hilarious and I was busting by the end. We missed Riley on Monday and Emily and Wednesday and hope everybody is feeling better! Until next time!

Next week for preschool....

Hey Ladies--
I just wanted to give you the heads up of my plans for this week:

Monday we are going to have a pajama party! Please send your child to preschool in thier PJs. Also, Please send 2 empty cans of the same size (We are making puddle jumpers on Wednesday, and I want to predrill the holes.)

Wednesday we are going to have a birthday party for Caleb! We are going to learn about Pirates and make our own pizzas!

Hopefully everyone will be healthy this week, and be able to come Party At Preschool this week!

BTW is any child allergic to peanut butter?

Letter F

We had a fun time talking about the letter F this week! On Monday, we learned about Frogs, made Frog crafts, and made Froggy snacks. The little "chefs" had fun making them, but many wouldn't eat the english muffins with cream cheese. Good thing we had Fish crackers!

We also made Frog gloves, and sang the "speckled frog" song.

On Wednesday, we discussed all things F. We went through things I had gathered to determine if they started with F or not, then clapped out the syllables for that word. We made motion oceans and talked about how water and oil aren't "Friends". We then put Floating animals inside!

We also copied our Footprints and made them into a big F.

We had Fruit salad that they got to make on their own, again with many of them not eating it. I am learning many of you ladies are dealing with picky eaters! Again, Fish crackers saved the day.

We ended the day dancing and Freezing when the music stopped. This was a good (but noisy!) experience; all your kids are such fun and so smart!