bottle cap pumpkins, leopard bingo, leaves and seasons

This morning we started by getting out our collection of bottle caps and tracing around them to make pumpkins.  Then on the pumpkins we numbered them from 1-9 and after we cut them out, we pasted them in order on another piece of paper.  The children do better each day with their cutting, though they say it makes them tired.

So, as you can see, Avery did not get all of her pumpkins pasted on her page.  And Ivy asked me if I would put faces on her pumpkins and they turned out really cute.

 Today was Brighams turn at the calendar.  He is very good at pointing the days of the week and getting the days in line.  We have now put the blank shape states on the board so they not only recognize the states in their places, but the shape of each state.  We have now talked about California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Texas.  they are doing great at being able to tell  them.

then we worked on putting leaves  on the limbs (Brigham informed me that they are branches, not limbs) and the fallen leaves on the ground.  Yes, that is a lizard next to the page.  Avery got the most correct letters today and earned something from the grab bag.

Brook was determined that we make a human L today so Sam, Brigham and Brook had fun on the floor making this letter

I found this cute leopard and put the letters and numbers that we have learned on spots so that we could find them. 

Today was show and tell and these are two of the items that were introduced.

Sammy talked about the motorcycle that he got for his birthday and it is "special" to him and he loves it!

Brigham loves his soft stuffed tiger.  He allowed everyone to feel it and hug it and said it was what he took to bed with him and he loved him and felt safe with it.

Brook showed us her Minnie Mouse slippers

Ivy's ssiter made her this head band with the flowers on it that matched her outfit today.

Avery just loves this book about the seasons and she asked if I would read it to the class and we enjoyed reading things that happened during the seasons.  Starting with spring and the buds on the trees that turned into leaves, dad sharing the plastic pool in the summer, the leaves falling in the autumn time and feeling the chill with chattering teeth, shaking knees and snow on the ground.

Last but not least, we read the story of the grouchy ladybug by Eric Caryle and each was given a little glass ladybug.  One more letter tossed into the letter pool and hopefully in to the little computer in their heads.
It was another great week at GranJan's prek.

Letter L, shoe lacing, lions, learning left

We started the day off with the kiddos stringing ten beads on to a pipe cleaner and they were put on the LEFT arm of each child , saying the colors, counting and making sure that the bracelet got on to the left arm.

When all of the bracelets were made and put on their arms, we were ready for opening exercises.

I asked them if they could see any changes in the room.  First, I removed the letters we have already been learning from the west wall above the tree, to the south wall.  We went over the names of the letters.  Then they noticed that there were fall leaves on the tree.  L l, being the letter, leaves being the new addition.  Were there any other changes? The curtain we had hanging from our Under the sea and letter O days, with the sea and the fish was now missing.  Very observant, right?

Next, I got out my basket with numbers and letters of various sizes and colors and  instructed them that I would  hold up a letter and call on a child to tell me the name of the letter or number.  The challenge was for them to get them correct and  the one with largest amount of letters in front of them was allowed to reach into the prize bag.  Today it was Ivy who got the most right.

At the beginning of school we talked about learning how to tie their shoes.  Today being  L day, I brought out a laminated shoe  and lace and we took the shoelace and put it back into the holes on the shoe.  We started on the bottom and put one side of the lace in the left hole, then one side of the lace in the right hole.

The were then instructed to make an x with the lace-right lace goes to the right and the left lace goes to the right hole.  I let them go on their own, but there were repeats for most of them.  When we finally got the laces to the top, we crossed them again, then made the bunny loops and again crossed them and put the left ear into the loop and voila, the lace was tied.  Practicing at home this week will get that skill better and we will continue working with the shoe tying.

I am impressed at how quickly the kids have learned to watch the clock for snack time and play room time.
Today Brooklyn was the line leader

When we came back from the break, we started to work on our Lion activity

This was also a cutting activity--one narrow strip of paper and they were to cut strips for the mane of the lion.  Then they were cut the circles for the face, ears and eyes.  It was interesting to see how differently they turned out.

Along with the Lion as the story of the Lion and the Mouse

They want to use the flannel board story again on Thursday and we will as their creativity is amazing.
Another day at preschool.  Cannot believe that we have been in preschool this long.  Cc-Oo-Gg-Aa-Dd-Ss-Ll letters have been used and hopefully learned.  We are moving right along and having a good time on the trip.  Gosh, I love preschool!!

Letter "S", spiders, salt, states and scissors

As we gathered this morning we worked a little bit on our cutting designs  It has been a week or so since we have done much cutting of fancy designs and I wanted to see just how they would do.  Then it was time for opening activities, and we saluted the flag, put the numbers on the calendar and counted the days and then sang our song for "Days of the Week"  Then we talked about the states that we have been learning so far.  Because we are in Arizona, that is where we started and so today we looked at post cards from Arizona and I bought one for each of them.  Then we moved on to California where we had been given post cards for China town, San Diego, San Francisco, the beach, Disneyland and the ocean with sail boats.
Next we talked about New Mexico and we also looked at post cards from there, moving on to Nevada.  They wanted to look at all of the post cards for the states, but they have the learn the states first, then they get to see what is so important about them.

Somewhere on the internet I found this cute little spider counting book and I divided the kids into two teams and they had to find the number of spiders and place them on the pictures.  This shows 8 spiders on  the moon and

9 spiders on the bat.

 Since salt begins with "S", today they each got a little tray and we put some salt on it.  They learned that if they gently jiggle the salt around it covers the tray and they can make designs.  First we made the letter "S",
I wrote S O S on mine, next, and we talked about if we are in trouble we can write S O S and try to get help.  They caught on to that concept quickly.

The salt activity was a huge success even to them making their handprints.

B put all of his stings away and was led over to  the puzzle table where he put the hands puzzle together.  Each finger is color codes and had a number on it, so this is a good activity for him.

We talked about Austus and Kupa.  Austus is respectful and our new friend is Kupa.  We talked about what a citizen is and what a good citizen should be and do.  They understand this concept very well.  Parents should go over this with them.

When we did the letter "A" everyone seemed to like putting the ants on the shapes, so I tried it this time with the spiders, and they were still happy, so I was pleased that they also remembered to put little drops of glue on the pages and wiped off the top of their glue bottles so we do not have a mess the next time we do an activity with glue.

I have this balancing game that the kids love.  One of them places their feet on the foot marks on the balance board.  when it is turned on it will tell them to be still and then says a color at which time the push forward on the color.  At first they could not even balance on it, but they are getting better each time and it is one of the favorite things to do and accomplishes their ability to balance.

They love this book, I guess it is because all of these creatures also appear in the "Little Nemo" movie and they are familiar with them.  Besides the fact  that they pull out and that is always intriguing.
A good finish to a really great day at GranJan's prekinders. I enjoy these kids so much and we even had a puppet show to show their creativity.

16 Oct 2012 Sammy celebrates his birthday

We started off this morning with file folder games, mostly matching upper case and lower case letters or matching numbers with pictures.  Everyone was happy to do that and we finished in quick time.

Some are more exciting to use than others..

Then we moved on to the skeletons-appropriate since  Halloween is in the air and the scareyness of graveyards and bones.

They really did very well, considering that there were a lot of pieces to put together.

Then it was down to the playroom where seats were arranged for the "puppet" show.

A lamb, a girl, a black bird, a  tiger and a bunny.  The story was catchy and decided they could perform again for us on Thursday.

This is the  Halloween, ghosts "I spy"  bottles.  I hope they will be shared with parents and siblings.

We used this dice game to practicing letter recognition and the bonus was a handful of skittles.  They are learning their numbers very well.

We ended with Seal's Silly sandwich and his friends, skunk, snake, squirrel, sloth and salamander and the sandwich made of speghetti, spinach, stew and strawberry ice cream.  Sound good??  Not to the kids.  We had a good laugh about Seals Silly Sandwich.
Another prek day  The kids are getting better about putting their shoes in the box, taking turns, and keeping the noise down.  (Do I dare say that out loud?)   Gee, I love Prek and this great bunch of kids!