Th

Th is for th-umb (holding thumb) or th-ink (pointing to head)

They made thank you cards.

And also thread pumpkins together with cotton stuffing inside.

R

R is for Rrrrroar!

F

F is for freezing (holding your arms across chest)

Game-Let's go Fishin'

Fingerprint Flowers

Fast/Slow Game

Talk about our feelings then read a story where we tried to figure out what feelings the girl was feeling while holding up the face we thought portrayed that feeling

Video- Frog Life Cycle

Fire Safety- Stop, drop, roll over. Talked about having their families make a plan for when there is a fire

Game-Froggie Boogie

Snack-Dried Fruit (we talked about how the fruit gets dried)

Field Trip-Staheli Farm

Staheli Farm is a local farm that offers tours for schools in the fall and spring. It's also a Pumpkin Patch and place for families/teenagers at night with a corn maze, etc.

We chose to go here for the letter F, which they learned about on Friday- Staheli Farm for our Field Trip and it was lots of Fun!

They started by taking us over to the animals and teaching about each one. What they do, what boys/girls called, what food we get from them, etc. We saw llamas, goats, donkeys, horses, sheep, pigs, turkeys, chickens, bunnies. They got to pet almost each animal.

Next we got to ride a tractor hay ride out to the pumpkin patch.

She 'read' the story of Spookley the Pumpkin and taught about the life cycle of a pumpkin

That basically concluded the tour and so they let the kids just play around and explore for as long as they wanted to afterwards. There were lots of fun toys/attractions

We also brought picnic lunches to eat.

It was a great little field trip and the kids had Tons of Fun!

I

I is for itch (scratching hand) and it says its name

Learned In and Out - went outside to play a game and had to jump in and out of various things out in the yard

Who lives In their house?

Read-There's a Nightmare in my closet

Itsy Bitsy Spider song and craft

My little boy coming home loving this craft and I think it's adorable. He drew the sun, clouds and rain then has the spider ring climb up the straw

Ice Cream Trace


Read-Guess How Much I Love You (Listened for I)

Treat- Made home-made ice cream. They shook those bags like crazy!



And got to pick out sprinkles to put on it-


YUM!


It was a really successful day with lots of great ideas!

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!