Review Day 2

 1-Calendar
2-Blending - this was the same as last week, but we really focused on holding the sound to get to the next sound.  We also had to correct some "d" sound because a couple were saying "duh".  This normally wouldn't be a problem except when you sound out the word "mad - mmmmmmaaaaaaduh.  It becomes maduh."  I felt like the kids were more successful this time.  We blended - sad, mad, dad, tad, and am.  Then we read the sentences  Dad is sad.  I am mad.  SIDE NOTE: blending is hard to do as a group.  It's hard to tell if kids were really getting it.  I wanted to work on it individually with each kid during centers, but didn't have the chance today.  So that's my goal for next time!
3-"AD" word family - We read Glad Monster, Sad Monster.   We blended the "ad" words in there and also pointed out the angry could be called "mad".  I love this book.  It has little masks in it.  So as we read, each kid got a turn to come up and put on a mask and say what made them glad/sad/angry/worried etc.  Then we turned on some music by Mozart and danced around trying to show the emotion that the music made us feel.

 4 Writing -   Today I Am page.  Again this is one I created when I taught.  We highlighted the word AM in it.  Then they drew a picture of their face showing how they felt today (glad, mad, or sad).  I wrote the first letters for them, then they had to write the "ad".

5-Transition - We sang  If you're Angry and You Know it.
If you're angry and you know it
Take deep breaths
Repeat
If you're angry and you know it
Don't scream and shout to show it
Repeat first 2 lines.

Repeat again with
Count to 10
Talk it out

There's a Grumpy song (tune of Did You ever see a Lassie) too that we didn't get to
If you're ever feeling grumpy, grumpy, grumpy
If you're ever feeling grumpy
Just flap both your arms
Flap this way and that way and this way and that way
That's the way you chase
Your grumpy's away!

Repeat with
Just jump up real high
Make a silly face

I love both these songs, because they help kids learn how to control their feelings!

5-Centers:

• making patterns with monster pictures and having a friend guess what our pattern was.

•  Build a Monster - this by far was everyone's favorite.  It taught number recognition and one-to-one. They drew the body, but then it was left up to the dice for how many heads, eyes, arms, legs, etc. they were supposed to have.

•  Monster Stick Puppets  - I made this puppets from the making learning fun website.  They had coloring pages that I copied and pasted into word and shrunk. They also had a lot of other fun activities to go along with Glad Monster, Sad Monster.

• Writing "AD" words on a monster page also created from making learning fun.

Sites I like for Preschool Stuff:
Pinterest
Kids Soup (one of my favorites, it does cost to use their site $20 for the year I think, but I have used them constantly that it's been well worth it for me.  They list activities, games, and crafts for each unit! Tons)
Making Learning Fun
Everything Preschool
Activity Village
Preschool Plan It

Fun Day - Johnny Appleseed Day

We started off our day by reading a Johnny Appleseed book.  There are quite a lot out there, most of which are quite good and can vary in ages.  I chose a simple one just for time's sake.  Then we sang two apple songs:
Johnny Appleseed (tune of BINGO)
There was a frontier pioneer
who planted lots of seeds
CHORUS: Johnny, Johnny Appleseed
Planted lots of seeds!
Johnny, Johnny Appleseed
Grew a lot of trees

He roamed across the country side
Planting apple seeds
CHORUS
When travelers passed, Johnny asked
Won't you you plant these seeds?
CHORUS
Across the country, orchards grew,
Thanks to Johnny's deeds.
CHORUS

Farmer Brown Had 5 Red Apples (the link takes you to amazon where you can hear a sample of it.  They did 10 apples but for preschool I started with 5).

6 Apple Stations-
Before the stations I gave each kid an apple lap book idea from here and a marker.  This just helped so they weren't having to carry around a bunch of pieces of paper and losing them. 

• Apple Taste Testing - they tasted applesauce, dried apple slices, apple juice, apple pie, and apple butter.  In their lap book was a page where they marked yes if they liked it, no if they didn't.  Then they had to pick their favorite and write their name under the favorite.

• Apple Math - we measured the circumference of the apple, weighed the apple, then found out weither it would float or not.  I had cute apple shaped book in their lap book that explained everything, but I can't find where I got it from.

• Apple Tree Seasons - we used pictures from the Johnny Appleseed book to see how an apple tree looked during all the seasons.  Then we finger painted it on (ie winter-snow, spring - pink & white blossoms, summer - green leaves, fall- leaves and apples). In their lap book was a page with just 4 tree trunks.  They added the rest.

• Apple Experiment -They had to take 3 apple slices and put them in 3ziploc bags.  Then they had to add something to it to try to keep the apple from going brown.  One had to be lemon juice, but then they could pick the others (you can have whatever you want).  They leave them then come back and see what happens. The lap book had a page where they could draw pictures of their experiment.

• Johnny Appleseed Glyph-  I made the cut outs for this myself without a pattern.  They had to put the parts of johnny appleseed together by answering questions about them selves.

·     Shirt Patches - Draw as many patches as how old you are
·     Neck Tie -     2 triangles = you are a  boy
               1 triangle= you are a girl
·     Nose -        circle nose = you are in preschool
               oval nose = you are not in preschool
·     Hair -        black = you  have a pet
                blonde= you don't have a pet
·     Pot Handle -   to the left= you use your left hand
              to the right = you use your right hand
·     apple -        the color of your favorite kind of apple
·     Leaves -       the number of leaves as are the number of people in your family

• Apple Tree Life Cycle - they watched this you tube video, then they had to put the pictures of the life cycle of an apple tree in order.  I got the pictures from here.

WARNING:  THIS WILL TAKE LONGER THAN AN HOUR! 
I found out the hard way (you might be saying, duh! :)  ).  I'm always scared that everything will go faster than I planned, but it didn't.
I wanted to end with this you tube video, because it reviews everything you learn from each center, but we didn't get to it.  In fact, not everyone finished the centers.  We did get to watch the Disney's Johnny Appleseed.  I had fun!

Review Day 1

 Today was jammed full.  Whew!  Sorry, I forgot to take pictures.  Here is what we did though

• Calendar.  Here is my calendar.  There are 9 stations: welcome song, pledge, month song, day of the week, Today is song, weather, sign language birthday song, clock, and abc song.   

My ABC song was different, because I find that the normal ABC song stops kids from really looking at the alphabet, plus you slur through LMNO.   Here is mine it's a chant:
 ABCDE   Preschool's where I want to be!
FGHIJ     Learning to read and write each day!
KLMNO  Many Boys and Girls we know!
PQRST     Sharing Books with you and me!
UVWXY    Now it's time to say good-bye!
ZZZZZ       Preschool's where I want to be!

We also sang two autumn songs:  Remember September  by Janeen Brady  and Autumn Leaves (this is the same tune as When We're Helping We're Happy page 198 in the  LDS Children's song book).  The lyrics are

Now the summer is over,
There are leaves all around.
Autumn leaves red and yellow,
softly fall to the ground.
Tra la la la la la
Tra la la la la la
Autumn leavs red and yellow, 
softly fall to the ground.

Now the summer is over,
and the leaves start to whirl.
Autumn leaves turn and tumble,
chilly winds make them swirl.
Repeat Tra la la's and last two lines

• Blending-  We reviewed  all the sounds they've learned this week.  Then we put them together to make words. We made real words and nonsense words.  It doesn't matter because you are practicing the skill of blending the sounds.  Some key points that I've found with blending is to make sure they can hold out the first sound until you get to the second sound.  This is tricky though because some sounds are short  like "T" and "D". Also you have to stress saying in slowly and then saying it fast so they can begin to hear the word.  It was so fun to see the kids eyes light up when they realized they could figure out what words were on my board by saying the sounds!  The last word we blending was am.
• Sight Word - Our sight word this week was am.  Each kid got a sign with am on it and we listened to the song What I Am  by Will.i.am.  Every time he sang the word am  we raised our signs and shouted AM.  My kids loved this song. They like to listen to it over and over again.  I love its message
• -AT  Word Family - We read the book Pat the Cat's big book.  We blended all the at words together.  Then we played a game called "What's in my Hat".  I had two things in my hat (a bat and a hat).  They had to ask me questions to try and guess what "at" things I had in my hat.  Then they made a page to take home to their parents to do the same thing.  This is a page I created when I was teaching.  You staple a hat printout on top and they draw and "at" thing underneath (I had pictures there to help them decided what they wanted to draw).  Then they wrote their name on the top line of the page and then what they had drawn on the bottom line.  Then they could take it home and have their parents guess what was under their hat (you do have to cover up what they wrote, but we wrote it so that they didn't forget, and because the picture doesn't always clearly show what they chose).

• Centers - I like doing centers because you can get more done in a short amount of time than waiting for everyone to finish one thing.  We had 4 centers:  

1. making at words on a hat (with stickers and a stamp), 
2. draw the whiskers on a cat
3. Color patterns on a hat
4. Fill in patterns with pattern blocks. 

No snack because we are doing a fun Johnny Appleseed Day with lots of apple treats  though here are a few ideas for "at" snacks
 
There was still a lot of finish work that we didn't get to that made me wish we had a little more time.  But over all we had fun.  

D

D is for 'd d d d' like beating a drum.
Letter trace - http://www.first-school.ws/t/alpha_tracers_zb1/d.htm

Teaching preschool when your baby is screaming is kind of hard. So I was a bit scatterbrained, didn't take pictures I wanted to, and forgot one of the activities that my kid loved best. Let alone all my lesson plans were deleted one hour before it started, but everything worked out!

We made our own drums. I kept my spaghetti sauce and soup cans then cut paper to size and they decorated the paper for their drum then taped it on. Some remembered patterns from our last class to make some very cool drums.

We talked about different kinds of drums and what drums are used for.

• In parades they help keep the beat. They practiced keeping a beat and copying my beat. I let each of them make a beat and we had to copy them. We played to the beat in the song "Hear the Beat" from Janeen Brady's Watch Me Sing CD.
• Drum signals are used in things like war and by indians to tell people things when they can't hear. You can show them a few commands on this youtube video. Talk how they can be used to call people, warn people, announce something, etc

- I made some signals for them (stand up-one tap, sit down-2 taps, spin around-fast taps) and they got to make their own signals then give them as we listened and did what they meant. You could also have them make up signals for happy, sad, scared, etc.
-Last we practiced patterns a little more. I would make a pattern in my beat and they would have to tell me what to play next. (In the youtube video you could have them listen for patterns).

I read the book Little Clancy's New Drum by Tony Kerins which is about a turtle who gets a new drum and plays it, but everyone thinks it's too loud. So they take it away, he gets different items to play on when eventually they take away his drumsticks. He begins to cry, which is the loudest of all, so they decide to give him his drum back and they all play together in a little parade
-I asked the kids what other things he used after they took his drum away
-What are some other things we could make a drum out of?
-After they took his drumsticks, what are some other things he could have used?
We gathered items around the house to let them practice hitting drums out of different objects and different drumsticks (boxes, pots, cans, jars, stones - pencils, sticks, spoons,)

We had our own little parade and marched, playing our drums to "Marching Feet" also on the Watch Me Sing CD.

Next we talked about Dancing. We learned some different dance moves to Yo Gabba -
Mini Spinney, Puppet Master, Razzle Dazzle, Peanut Butter Stomp.

We let them each show off their own dance moves as we danced to "I Like to Dance" subbing in the kids' names.

Last I reviewed the letter "S" by holding still. Our last dance activity was "Hold Still" and they got to dance during the Wiggle section.

For snack, aka Dessert we had Donuts! (It was one of the other teacher's birthdays so we got to sing together).

This lesson required very little planning, but they still walked away very confident in the letter sound. It was a lot of fun for the kids and went by very fast! :)

Field Trip - Police Station

We decided to go to the Police Station and hear about Safety.

We had an officer and detective give us a little tour and they were so good to the little kids. We got to see the main desk where people come for questions, their 'office' room with lots of supplies, the captain's and chief's offices, all their badges and the other officers' cubicles.

Probably the coolest room was their interrogation room which had a 2 way mirror that the kids thought was pretty cool as they got a chance to see what it looks like on each side.

Noah liked the big classroom where they receive training, I think because his Dad is a teacher. We saw the evidence lockers and investigation room.

The officers showed us the things they keep on their belt to stay safe, yep, even their gun which has a flashlight and laser on it!

The officers were sure to talk about safety, especially gun safety, buckling up, and wearing a helmet when you ride your bike.

The kids got to handle some of their other equipment like handcuffs, the heavy bulletproof vest and helmet.

Another thing Noah thought was really cool was the night vision goggles. We got to go in a dark room and look through them where you could still see everyone! But they were green! That's pretty silly :)

The last part of the tour took us to their police cars. He showed them what to look for to know if it is an unmarked car, the flashing lights and sirens. He even talked about the different colors for different emergency vehicles.

The kids had a great time, and they even gave the kid those cracker/cheese snack packs which made it awesome if it wasn't before. :)

Thanks Santa Clara/Ivins Police for the fun tour!

S

S is for 'Sssss' as you move your hands together like a snake.
Trace Page - http://www.first-school.ws/t/alpha_tracers_zb1/s2.htm

We started off talking a little about Snakes and qualities/characteristics. We showed the kids pictures of a rattlesnake, cobra, and boa constrictor to see similarities and differences. They were amazed by this youtube video of boa constrictors!

Next we read The Playground Snake by Brian Moses. It is an excellent book and set the blueprint for the rest of our day. Check your local library!

The snake gets tired of being forgotten about on the playground so he decided to go into the school and was hiding in different places-gym, cafeteria, hallway, etc. The kids finally found him hiding in the worm tank and invite him to play. They paint pictures of the snake, let him have a part in the class play, and play Snakes and Ladders before the principal finds out and says the snake needs to stay outside. The kids decide to draw a rainforest scenary for the snake outside and play with him at recess.

After we read the book, we hid a plastic snake while one person left the room. They had to find the snake by listening to us Ssss like snakes. We got louder when they got closer, and quieter when they got far away. They could have played this forever!

Next we painted pictures of snakes. I had an outline for them and they had to color Stripes on the snake with crayons. We then painted them with Sponges (watered down tempera paint).

I forgot to take a pic while they were working, so here is my little boy at work after everyone left 

For the 'class play' I had some hats they got to wear and taught them the Boa Constrictor song. They loved it and it is so simple for kids since they just repeat what you say. Falling to the ground dead at the end also added to the fun. :) Seriously my boy has been singing it all day!

We got to play Snakes and Ladders which teaches them numbers on a dice, taking turns, and got to Slide down the snakes.

Then unfortunately we didn't have time to draw a scenary for a snake I previously drew outside. I had chalk for the kids and they could color whatever they wanted to keep the snake company. After finishing our mural, we could play with the snake in a version of hopscotch. I had plastic snakes they could throw on any number they wanted, then they would have to jump over that number so they don't get bit by the snake.

 (*There are lots of things you can do with this snake as well. As them math questions and have them jump on the number to the answer. Or have them be eaten by the snake. Ask questions about anything you are learning about, if they get it right, they get to take a step forward)

For snack I previously made some pizza dough. They got to form letter "S" snakes with their dough then we baked them, topped with butter, garlic, and parmesan cheese. While they were cooking we did one more activity.

This week I am highlighting Patterns so I cut some pieces of paper and drew the beginning patterns on snakes. They had to pick a pattern and complete it.

I just happened to snap a picture of our Christmas snake :) I laminated these so I can use them for future use writing either designs on these for pattern practicing or Q/A with wet erase markers

It was a fun, busy day!

A

A is for "Aaaaa!" as you throw your hands up in the air.

Field Trip - Dixie Meats

We decided to visit a butcher for Meats. It's a great little local shop and the manager was so friendly and great with the kids. We made Pepperoni Pizza Sausages together!

He started with a big pork shoulder. He showed them the machine and how he cut the bone out, cut it into smaller pieces then threw it in the meat grinder.

We added pepperoni, cheese, and seasonings then watched him mix it together

The kids got to help turn the crank to stuff the sausages.

They each got a couple to take home and my goodness, they were delicious!

We served it with some homemade cheese pizza, garlic parmesan bread twists, and a fresh fruit salad. YUM YUM!

May not look that appetizing, but if I took a picture of the whole meal with scent capture, you'd be drooling :)

T

T is for 't t tap' as you tap something. Another good action is 'tip toe'

The kids made trees by glueing on leaves and turtles with an eggshell carton.

M

M is for 'Mmmmmm' as you rub your belly.

 If you want a terribly catchy but useful for learning the sound of the letter M you should check out this song. I am warning you right now it sounds ridiculous, but the kids LOVED it. The repetition was exactly what they needed.

We learned about various other M things. I can't really take pictures since I am teaching and there are no other moms around. We decided it would be better for the kids to get used to being taught by people who aren't their parents. It's working out pretty good. 

Here are the kids with the mustaches we used for a part of our lesson. They were so cute I had to take pictures of them.

Introduction - How We Teach

This is our second year doing our preschool co-op. Last year we started with colors, then focused on a letter a week, going through the alphabet in ABC order. After that, we did numbers, and ended the year learning about our 5 senses and an All About Me week. It worked great for the 3-4 year olds.

This year our goal is to get them more kindergarten-ready and now that they are familiar with all the letters, we can put more focus on the sounds and blending the sounds together to begin reading. We still love the idea of making learning fun and try to include lots of songs, books, crafts, games, etc.

Another idea we think important is field trips and have decided to go on one every week (we did this last year as well). It gets the kids out in the world, thinking, seeing, and learning things in a way you can not get any other way.

We meet every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Wednesday is field trip day and we do a new letter every Monday and Friday. There are four mothers and we rotate teaching every week. After two weeks (4 letters), we have a review week where they can begin blending. The Wednesday of Review Week is a Fun Day where we do activities that go along with any holidays in that month. Basically, it allows us to teach 2 lessons every month and everyone has an opportunity for Review Week. All parents go on the field trips.

For each letter we have an action that lets them remember the sound. Example- A is "Aaaaa!" and you throw your hands up in the air. When they see that letter, that is what they think of to help them remember sounds. We have decided to teach the letters in an order that will allow them to begin forming words early on. Our order is the following-
M T A S D I F R Th L O N P E H V Sh U B K C G J W Ch X Z Qu Wh Y

We have a morning routine that we each do at the beginning of every day. It includes -
Roll Call- the kids get to take their name or picture and stick it to the board
Pledge of Allegiance- one child invites everyone to stand and place their hand over heart
Calendar - We sing the Months of the year song* and a child gets to pick the month to put on calendar
- We sing the Days of the Week song and a child gets to pick the Day to put on calendar
- We sing a Today/Yesterday/Tomorrow song* to review
- And a child gets to write or choose the number for the date.
Weather Chart - they get to decide and move the arrows to what the weather is like
Sing ABCs

After we sing the ABCs we highlight the letter we will be learning and introduce the sound/action. We also want them to practice writing the letters and give them a 'trace/write the letter' worksheet.

This is what we do at the beginning of every lesson before it is up to whoever's week it is to plan activities that go along with that sound or words that begin with that letter.

We each use our own calendar, and if you check back next week I'll try to get some pictures of our charts/calendars we use to give you ideas on what you can do! Also I'll try to get the kids singing the days of the week song. It is so simple and the kids learned it really quickly!

*Months song (sung to Here We Are Together name song)
These are the months, the months of the year
There's January, February, March, and April
Oh these are the months, the months of the year.
There's May, and June, July, and August
Oh these are the months, the months of the year.
September, October, November, December
Oh these are the months, the months of the year.

*Today/Yesterday song (sung to Frere Jacques)
Today is ______
Today is ______
All day long, All day long
Yesterday was ________
Tomorrow is _________
Oh what fun, Oh what fun