Tuesday March 15- Libraries & banks

Our week started with printing practice- each child had to write their names and then trace some curved lines. Upstairs I had a new set of wooden blocks and animals out for play. Shiann was our star and we reviewed our colors with the actual color words- the word red was in red, blue printed in blue. I wanted to allow the students to be familiar with the color words as well. We had calendar time where we review the date of the day- repeating Miss Alisha on the date. Counting to 15 (our date) and practicing our Spanish to 9. Afterwards, we sang our Days of the week and reviewed our months of the year to October. I am teaching them a new month each week until we have learned them all. Shiann and the class helped with singing our weather song and dressing our weather friend. We practiced our Nursery Rhyme-Hickory, Dickory Dock and then we boogied to the alphabet. We met our letter friend- Unger Unicorn who likes to hangout upside down and has an umbrella. I taught the kids that U is a vowel and is needed in making words. Because it is a vowel, it has two sounds- U as in its name and u as in “up”. The sign is made by taking the pointer and middle fingers and putting them right next to each other- both pointing up. I also read some words that begin with the letter U but that list was very short. Shiann picked our wiggle song and we got our wiggles out. We had our snacks and book time and then Shiann shared her show and tell- a Dr. Seuss book that I read to the class.
For our lesson, we learned about libraries and banks. For our library portion, we talked about what is at the library and who is there to help us. At the table, we did another printing practice where they had to trace on the sidewalk to get each child to the library. I had created library cards for each child and they traced their names on them. Then I had a big variety of books for them to “check out” just like a library. I was the librarian and they had to check out the book – one at a time- with me and then they would return it and check out another one. I would make the “beep” sound with their cards and book and they thought it was too fun. Who know how exciting a library can be? We did this for 10 minutes and then we closed our Kinder-Tots Library.
For banks, we talked about what banks are used for and why we need them. We learned that you can save money at a bank and a bank teller is there to help with either depositing or taking out our money. I tried to emphasize that you have to have money in the bank before you can take it out- but I think that went over their heads  They all colored their own money to play with at home.
To review the letter U, we read a story about Umbrellabird’s umbrella. Some of the other birds made fun of him but in the end he helped them and they were all friends. We practiced the sounds and sign again as I gave them their letter stamp on their hands.