Fri Mar 23rd- #18

This Friday we worked on completing patterns at the table and then the students played with tinker toys, food and magnetic shapes. I pulled the students aside to work on the number 18- teaching them that 18 in Spanish is diez y ocho. They had a harder time with the number 8- it is a tough one! We also completed another worksheet with a zebra on it and they had to give it 18 stripes counting the whole time with me. Brooklyn was the star and she reviewed the colors and shapes with the class. We counted up to 31 pretending to be a tadpole at first and then turning into a frog. Then we counted in Spanish to 18 and reviewed our date on the calendar. We sang days of the week in Spanish and learned the next three months of the year in Spanish. For weather time, we sang our spring song and the class helped with the weather. Letter time was ABC boogie and practicing our sign language with our ABC signing time song. The class worked on the sight words of the week and then we wiggled for snack time. The class ate their snacks and explored the March books for the last time. Our star shared her show and tell and then I read the class a book- Spring is Here to discuss our new season. The story also touches on all the seasons of the year. For our theme of the day- #18- we first started by counting in English and Spanish to 18. I showed them how to make the number 18- reviewing the steps of how we need to remember the 1 before the 8. I also reviewed how we make the number 8- make an S and close the gate. Each child needed some help with this number but it is always great to review! For individual practice, I gave each student a white board and they had to make three good “18”s. Once they completed that, we came to the table and completed the 18 printing worksheet from earlier. They had to find 18 mice in the meadow and color them. Then for review, I practiced counting all the mice with them individually. For letter time, we did individual sight word practice among the students and practiced the ABCs sign language slowly. For the last activity, we played Letter of the week bingo with just using the letters and not pictures anymore. We are coming down to the last two months of preschool and I want to make sure your child is prepared as possible for Kindergarten. Please use flashcards with your child to help them with remembering their letters- thanks!

Thurs Mar 22nd- purple day

Our day started with scissor practice and then playing with beads, star wars and transformers and Mr. Potato Head. I pulled the students aside to work on Easter egg painting which is their name plate for the door this month. I practiced the colors and shapes with the students and then we counted to 25 pretending to play a violin. Our class reviewed the calendar and sang our songs. For weather time, I read Spring is Here and we talked about the changes that are happening with our new season. We sang our spring song and then worked on the weather. We boogied to the ABCs and then reviewed our letter V again. I talked about some of the things we had talked about in the letter story on Tuesday and we practiced the sound again. The class wiggled, ate snacks and explored the March books for the last time. For nursery rhyme time, we practiced singing Hickory Dickory Dock with the actions and then I talked about clocks and how they work. At the table, the students traced their numbers 1-12 on the clock and we practiced their names. For purple time, I taught about how purple is made with red and blue. With the light table, I had the students take red and blue color paddles and put them together to make purple. After that, we read Harold and the Purple Crayon and all the amazing things he created with this great color. The students then asked for Purplelious and I read that to them. We then prepared for finger painting and then they painted purple grapes on a vine and colored the word purple and traced their name with a purple crayon. Once I cleaned up the area, we practiced the letter V sound and then came back to the table to color our V printing page from Tuesday. I played violin music in the background but it wasn’t loved by everyone. After we finished, I stamped their hands with the lowercase v stamp and we went outside a bit early to color with chalk.

Wed Mar 21st- Frogs & their life cycle

Our day started with scissor practice- curvy lines and then the students played with beads, star wars and transformers and Mr. Potato Head. Brooklyn was back so she helped with color word practice and spelling. I had the star pick out the action for counting up to 31, practiced our Spanish to 17 and tens to 100. For calendar time, we reviewed the date and sang the days of the week in Spanish and continued to practice our first four months in Spanish. Weather time was our spring song and the class helping with figuring out what weather we were having. Letter time starts with booging to the ABCs and then we started working on our ABCs in sign language. After that, we reviewed our sight words of the week. Brooklyn picked our song to wiggle to and then we ate snacks and looked at books. Brooklyn shared her show and tell and then we went right into our theme of the day. I read the book- A tadpole grows up and we discussed the life cycle of the frog throughout. We did a puzzle together showing the cycles- each child picked out a puzzle piece and they had to put it where it belonged. Once we finished it, we read The Big Wide-Mouthed Frog and how he escaped the alligator. At the table, the students colored a pond diagram where it showed the life cycle of the frog in the pond. After they finished coloring that, they colored 5 different sized frogs. They cut them out and then had to put them in the right order according to their size- smallest to largest. For letter time, we word whammed the sight words again with some –at words that we learned two weeks ago. Once we completed those, we cleaned up and were finished for the day.

Tues Mar 20th- Caterpillars & butterflies

Our week started off with practicing our names and then playing with big blocks, puppets, linking blocks and animal magnets. I pulled the students aside to work on printing the letter V and saying its sound. Logan was sick all week so Miss Alisha was the star. The class worked on the names of the colors. We counted to 20 vooming in our “cars”, practiced our Spanish up to 9 and blastoff counting. The class reviewed the calendar with songs and practicing saying the date. We boogied to the ABCs and worked on the letter V’s sound. I introduced the students to Vera Viper who like to play her violin and we read a story about her later in class. After we reviewed some words that began with V, we practiced the sound again and then we did our wiggle song. We ate our snack, read some books and got right into our class theme for the day. I read a book- Caterpillar to Butterfly and we discussed the life cycle of the butterfly throughout. We did a puzzle together showing the cycles- each child picked out a puzzle piece and they had to put it where it belonged. I had prepared the life cycle coloring page for the children and the students colored each cycle- some faster than others.  Once everyone finished, we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and counted and reviewed the days of the week as we read it. Our caterpillars have turned into cocoons so we had some time to observe how they have changed and await their change! For fun, we finished our time with a song about what caterpillars eat and the students got to each fill in the blank. For letter time, we practiced our sound for the letter V and we read our story Vera Viper’s Valentine and reviewed the different pictures that started with the letter V. Afterwards, I stamped each child’s hand with the capital letter V and we were done!

Mon Mar 19th- Caterpillars & butterflies

Our week started off with practicing our names- first and last three times and then playing with big blocks, puppets, linking blocks and animal magnets. I pulled the students aside to work on the sight words of the week- a, and & the-printing, sounding them out and stamping them on their hands. Brooklyn was gone today so I was the star. We worked on all the letters we have learned so far and practiced their sounds. For counting, we moved like caterpillars to 31, counted in Spanish to 17 and worked on our tens to 100. For calendar time, we reviewed the date, sang the days of the week in Spanish and then started to work on the months of the year in Spanish. For weather time, we sang the spring song and reviewed the weather. We boogied to the ABCs and practiced our sounds of the letters in our ABC song. After that, we practiced our sight words and then wiggled, ate snacks and looked at books. For our theme of the day, I read a book- A caterpillar grows up and we discussed the life cycle of the butterfly throughout. We did a puzzle together showing the cycles- each child picked out a puzzle piece and they had to put it where it belonged. Once we finished it, we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and counted and reviewed the days of the week as we read it. At the table, we colored, cut and pasted the life cycle of the butterfly in order. We reviewed each cycle by pointing to the correct picture. As I cleaned up, I got our caterpillars and cocoons out for the class to observe. For letter time, we went right into sight word practice with our word whammer. I took the two words- and & the and the student each got to pick a letter. I had them come up for each word and they had to put the letter in the right spot- looking at our word if they needed help to know. Once we spelled out the word, the word whammer spells it and sings a song for the word we created. Then I had the students put the right hand up with the correct word on it for review as we lined up for the day.

Fri Mar 16th- #17

For our practice, we printed the letter I in capital and lowercase. Once that was completed they could stamp the letter I on the back of the sheet. I had nuts and bolts, trains and foam blocks ready for them to play with. I pulled the students aside to work on printing the number 17. Once the completed the printing part, they had to do a dot to dot from 1 to 17 counting the whole time. Once they finished that, they colored the truck however they wanted. Our star helped with color and shape practice. For fun, we did a little leprechaun jig as we counted to 17. Then we practiced counting to 17 in Spanish and did our 10s counting to 100. We looked at our calendar and remembered that the day was Friday and we were in March. We sang our days of the week in Spanish and our months of the year in English. I will start to teach the months of the year in Spanish next week. We reviewed our spring song and sang both winter and spring song. We are excited to say goodbye to winter!! Our star helped with weather time and the class helped with singing the song. For letter time, we boogied and practiced our letter I- its two sounds, sign and that it is also a word!! I gave many examples of how we see the letter I actually as a word. The other letter word is the letter A which we will be learning next week. The star chose the wiggle song, we ate our snacks, looked at books and had show and tell time. For our theme of the day- the number 17- we reviewed by counting in English and Spanish then I reviewed how to write the number 17. I told them that the 7 needs to look like a slide not a fireman’s pole- it has to have an angle to it. Also asked them how to make a 17- with a one and a seven and then I showed them the number 17 and 71. They had to tell me which one is correct and I talked about how important it is that numbers are in the right order to make the right number. I brought the class to the table and for the second #17 practice, they colored the grass and the sun and then had to glue on 17 kites flying in the sky. We did the gluing as a class. This is to help them improve their listening skills and to make sure that they had 17 kites in the sky on the worksheet. I ask them along the way- how many more do we need? Some of the students didn’t understand what I was talking about. I will start working more on math and numbers with the students. I then had the class count them all touching them with their pencil leaving a little mark so they can keep track of what they have counted. For letter time, I talked about our letter and we made our letter friend- insect on the I. They turned out so cute!! After that, each student colored the Iguana in the Ivy page that we had practiced printing on Monday. Students came back to their rectangles and we sang our song for the letter I working on their sign as well. I discussed again that it is also a word. For the last part of class, I sang the Itsy Bitsy Spider book because Itsy starts with I. Once we finished that, the students were complete for the week!

Thurs Mar 15th- I can help

To start off the week we did a scissor practice to warm up our fine motor skills. I had green play dough, wooden blocks and littlest pep shop ready for play. I pulled the students aside to work on the letter U- they did a great job tracing this one on their own. Molly was our star and she helped with our shape and color match up. We counted to 20 acting like little leprechauns and we also practiced our Spanish up to 9. Our calendar time consisted of repeating the date, Days of the week and months of the year songs and weather time. We did our alphabet boogie and worked on the letter U and its two sounds. Then the students wanted to listen to the vowel song again. After that we did our wiggle song, ate our snack, read some books and Molly shared her show and tell- a little book about cute piggies. For nursery rhyme time, we sang Hickory, Dickory Dock. Then each child came to the table to make their puppets for the nursery rhyme. We sang the song again with our puppets to help with remembering the characters of the rhyme. For lesson time, I started with discussing our theme of the day- I can help. I asked the students what they each do to help at home and then I asked them how they help at school. I read them a story about how we can help others around us. After the story we did some comprehension questions and then we listened to a song called a Happy Helper. We listened the first time and then we danced along the second time. I urged all the kids to work on being a happy helper at home for their families. For letter time, we practiced the song for the letter U. We went back to the table to complete our U coloring sheet. We We reviewed the sound again as I stamped each child’s hand with the letter U. For the end of class, I read 10 lucky Leprechauns and Ready Freddy: Looking for Leprechauns to end with a nod to St. Patrick ’s Day. Then each student got to pick out a St. Patrick’s Day sticker and we were finished for the week.

Wed Mar 14th- St. Patrick's Day

Our day started with fine motor practice by working our fingers using our scissors. I had green play dough, wooden blocks and littlest pet shop. I was pulling the students aside to start their shamrock art by using cookie cutters to stamp on their papers. After those were finished and drying, I took pictures of all the students as cute little leprechauns. Our star helped us review our color words- we would use these sight words for a rainbow coloring activity later. The class then counted to 31 taking little inch steps, then we did blastoff counting and counted to 16 in Spanish. I reviewed the date then the holidays and special days in March especially St. Patrick’s Day. We sang days of the week in Spanish and then practiced our spring song as well as the winter song. Our star helped dress our weather friend and the class worked together to figure out the weather. For letter time, we boogied to the alphabet and then we discussed our letter I- singing both sounds with making the sign. I reviewed that it is a vowel and how important this letter is. I showed where the letter I is in the alphabet. The class practiced repeating the sight words- that and Nan and I worked with them on the “th” sound and the –at word family. Nan is also one that we need to work on some more. Our star picked the wiggle song and then they ate snacks, looked at books and we had show and tell time. For our theme of the day, I explained why we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and talked about some of the other ideas that have come with the holiday- shamrocks for luck and leprechauns protecting their gold at the end of the rainbow. We read the book- 10 lucky leprechauns and they found their luck- 10 new friends! Then we went to the table and colored the shamrock frame for their leprechaun pictures that were taken earlier. As I prepped for painting, the kids looked at books. I got everyone in aprons and they each painted their own shamrocks that they had stamped earlier. After that, we came back to our rectangles and read another story- It’s St. Patrick’s Day! This book was my gift to them for the holiday. We went back over to the table to work on our rainbow- they had to read the color words and color each rainbow part the right color. Then at the end, they had to draw what treasure was going to be at the end of their rainbow. Once they completed that, we read our last story- ready Freddy: Looking for Leprechauns. For our final letter time, we sang our I song which practicing the two sounds and the sign. I stamped their hands as I reviewed the sounds with each child. We also worked on our two sight words. For the end of the day, I let them pick out their own St. Patrick’s Day sticker to wear that day or to use on Saturday.

Tues Mar 13th-Libraries & banks

Our day started with name practice and then the students played with magnetic dolls, duplos and puzzles. Molly 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 counted to 15 going up and down like we were on a roller coaster. We also practiced our blastoff counting. We had calendar time where we review the date of the day- repeating Miss Alisha on the date. Afterwards, we sang our Days of the week and months of the year song. Molly and the class helped with singing our weather song and dressing our weather friend- I started working on our new song for spring with the class since winter is almost over! We met our letter friend- umbrella bird and 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”. I also let the class listen to the vowel song- a pretty funny song all about our vowels. I also read some words that begin with the letter U but that list was very short. Molly picked our wiggle song and we got our wiggles out. We had our snacks and book time and then Molly shared her show and tell. 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.

Mon Mar 12th- Insects & Gage's birthday

Mondays begin with name practice and then the students move on to play with magnetic dolls, duplos and puzzles. I pulled each child aside to work on the letter I and sight words that and Nan-I stamped “that” on their hands. Very simple for my amazing students!! Our star helped with alphabet practice and then we counted to 20 like an insect wither crawling, hopping or flying. After we did blastoff counting and went right into calendar time. We reviewed the date and sang our days of the week in Spanish. Because spring is on its way, I started to teach the spring song to the class then we sang the winter song. Our star helped with dressing our weather friend and the class helped with determining the weather. We boogied to the ABCs and then I introduced the letter I and Izzy Iguana who thinks insects are interesting. She would like to live in a igloo and eat ice cream. We learned that I is a vowel and it helps us make words like our other vowels- A, E, and O. (we haven’t learned U and Y yet.) I has two sounds – its name and I like in icky or igloo. The sign for the letter I is your pinkie finger in the air which was simple for them to do. I read the students some words that begin with the letter I, but that list isn’t very long  We also worked the sight words- that and Nan. The class practiced the “th” blend and we reviewed the –at word family and we learned that Nan is the bird in our books. Our star chose the wiggle song and then we ate our snacks. We celebrated Gage’s birthday and sang to him. Once the students completed eating, they looked at the books and our star shared their show and tell. I started the lesson by talking about the insects around us and I asked the students what insects that they have seen before. I then went on to teach them the three parts to an insect- the head, thorax and abdomen. We noticed that the thorax is where the legs and wings are and that all insects have 6 legs. We did a role play by using an insect poem that I had and then we discussed the helpful and harmful insects in a garden. Butterflies, praying mantis, bees and ladybugs were our helpful bugs but potato beetles, aphids, mosquitoes and grasshoppers were our harmful ones. Once we talked about those insects, I read the book- I love bugs! We talked about all the bugs mentioned in the story and then I discussed the life cycle of the insect- egg, larva, pupa and adult and I mentioned caterpillars and ladybugs and their life cycles. Each child picked their favorite bug and pretended to be it as we went to the table for our activity. On our worksheet, the student had to find the insects and circle them. Then we colored the front and back which was Izzy Iguana with her igloo and ice cream. I read the “I” story about Iggy Iguana and how he wanted to go to a cold place because he lived on an island so we went and visited his cousin Izzy in Iceland. Each child reviewed the sounds of the letter I with me and got their stamp on their hands.