Practice, practice, practice

From now til the end of the school year, we will be practicing what we have learned Today, we worked on many things:

At centers today, each of the children were able to accomplish a different thing . Patterning,and  matching

with different things but accomplishing the same thing.

Then we worked with numbers and had to fill in the amount that was indicated at the beginning of the line.  They all did very well

We took this time to have our show and tell  Cooper brought his dart

 Brigham brought his fire truck and we talked about all of the things on the truck that help the firemen save lives and houses.

 One of the favorite things to do is the balance game where they have to balance and at the same time hit the colors that the little voice commands them.  They have REALLY made progress in this

When we went to the kitchen for snacks, I showed them something that they really squealed and laughed about.  I took hot water from the kettle  and poured it into the plastic bottles and then quickly removed the water and put on the cap.  First came the crackling then the big pops when the bottles started to curl up

 The pops got a little loud for the girls

 But the lack of oxygen sure collapsed the bottles

When we came back from free time, we worked on sight words, spelled a few, then read the books that we have been reading the past couple of days to learn the sight words.  One thing they really like is when we try to find the hidden pictures.

Another good day at preK.

Readin' writing' rithmatic

Our days are busy from the beginning to the end and Tuesday was no different.  Because we all did not have time to use the various "centers" we had fun with them again this day.  Then we started the morning with a cutting exercise.  They are getting very good with this, but practice practice, practice is the thing.

 Then, I put some items into a couple of bags and handed one to Brigham, first.  He poured each of the items onto the table, then thought a few minutes and started to tell us his story.  There were two different dinosaurs in the bag along with a piece of string and four craft sticks, a flag , two jewels, and four green soldiers.  His train of thought was no where near what I would have done with these items, but he sure had a story to tell.

 Then I handed the next bag to Avery.  In her bag was a snowman on a sled, a yarn snowball, a kaliedoscope,  Once again, I would have gone another direction, but each had a cool story to tell us about.

 I have been reading "easy read" books lately to get them to sound out the words.  This ah-choo book was lots of fun  We will read it again Thursday to see if they can remember the words they have already said.

 The kids really had a good time with the Boggle junior.  Each team was given four words to spell, such as dog, cat, car, bird, duck, etc and they needed to find the letters to spell the word, then tell me the word.  It was a great success.

This was the first team to get their words all spelled.

 The boys made a good team, too

We practiced our song today and used musical instruments to get some of their wiggles out.  They sure had a good time and so did I.   Another great day at the Pre K.

puzzles, eggs, fine motor skills and comprehension skills

While rounding up the kids for the beginning of our Pre K day, I put some of the learning activities on the table.  First there was a puzzle with the two hands.  They were to put them in order of how many fingers we have on each hand.  We sang the song Where is thumbkin", looked at the numbers on the fingers and came to the conclusion that on two hands we have ten fingers.

The alphabet puzzle was next  The hardest letters to put in correctly are "d", "p" "q" and "b" but the kids really did a good job

The perfection game was one they all wanted to finish

Then there were the transportation puzzles

Cooper liked attaching shaped wooden blocks together to make his design

We had plastic eggs that on one half is a number like 12 and on the other half are all the numbers, when added together, add up to 12. For instance 9 = 3=12, 8 =  4= 12, etc. So, we took some of our little figures and added numbers that added up to 12

When we came back to the preschool room after our break, we tested out our fine motor skills by having 4 different sizes of nuts and bolts to put together.

Then I read a story to them about Mary and Pat going to a carnival.  I have little tongue depressors with questions on them to ask the children.  It is important that they understand what they have heard and if a situation is given, they need to be able to help solve it.  These kids know how to listen and were able to answer the questions.

And then we flashed the alphabet cards and whoever got the most called out first, was given a prize.  Recognition of the alphabet letters is paramount.  Some are still struggling, but we are moving right along.

Always a lot of action going on at Pre K and a lot of excitement  Today two of the kiddoes got prizes for filling their charts--Sammie and Avery

Aaah  another week gone and not many left in this session.

Outside fun, gardens, bubbles, twister and sight words

This was a really fun filled, eventful day.  When we all got together and walked through our daily exercises, I rounded up the kiddoes and gave each one something to take with us.  I carried out the jeans blanket and Sammy got it all spread out for us to sit on.

  Then we put down the buckets, etc and made our way over to the garden  In this section of the garden are our tomato plants  and cucumbers

 In this section of the garden  are the zuccini plants

 And the kids discovered these little tags that tell us just what is planted where.

Then we came back to the quilt and sat in the shade and talked about building a garden and the things we will need.  First, a shovel,to turn over the ground; then a rake to help pull out the weeds; then we needed to level out the beds so that the water would cover all of the bed and not just certain areas.  Then they told me that they would not only need water, but fertilizer, the sun and certain kinds of bugs that would help keep the bad bugs out.  They also told me that it was important to have earthworms to put air into the ground.  Parents, you are teaching your children well!
I found a little game that I thought that they would have fun with On each side there was a word-hop, fly, run, slither.  They told me the things that do the particular and the hopped allover the yard, ran, and pretended that they could fly.

Then I had them take the two buckets, paced them about five feet apart and gave them each a bean bag.  There were three kiddoes  on each team and they tried to get the bean bags into the buckets.  They had a fun time with that.Our final activity outside was a bubble blowing contest .  Brigham got one to go the highest, Cooper and Avery made big ones then caught it on their blower,

We came inside because someone decided that they needed a snack.  So as they washed their hands, I prepared drinks, carrots and dip and goldfish and , of course, some punch. Today I used clear plastic cups for the punch and they told me that they could see through the cups, but not if there was punch in it.  Then we talked about other things that are clear, that we could see through, such as, windows, glass, etc.

Then we went into the preschool room and Ivy and Brooklyn explained how to play the game of "Twister" and how much fun it is to play

 Then we teamed them up to play "TWISTER and they found that it was not as easy as it looked, but agreed that they would like to play again.  They especially like to spin the color board when it was not their turn on the game board.

 coordination helps in this game

Next was the paper work:  First I gave each child some bottle caps to use to cover the upper or lower case letters Brigham finished first and got them all correct, so he got first prize

Then they colored sight words different colors to practice some of the easier sight words: it, in, if  Brooklyn finished this first and was able to tell me what each word was.  So, she got a prize.

We had a full, busy day with lots of fun, and a little work.  It is great to see how they are progressing.