O is for Ocean and Octopus

The first few minutes was a lot of chattering about the big flooding that the rain on Sunday/Monday caused.  Then we got into our routine.  This morning I introduced them to a scripture that I think is very important and it is John 3:16.  Parents you might help them learn this one.  I learned it as a child and have always remembered it.  The first activity we did this morning was to push pin the picture of a cat on a pillow.  The tail was a big C and the cat was a series of "o"'s  We kept checking the back of the project so that they could see that with pressing the pins inot the paper, on the back was the same picture.  They had a good time with that.  I used a 12" square piece of carpet for each of them to put the paper on so they could use the pins.
This second activity was cutting 8 strips of paper that were to be the eight legs of our octopus.  The circle with the smiley face is the head and they then practiced making the letter o

 I then read them this book for the letter O

And we pointed out all of the things on these two pages that begin with the letter O

 I got this cute little song book that had the music with the songs and we sang a little bit

 Here is my octopus on the ocean curtain. 

And this is the octopus I have hanging from the ceiling.

I am starting to introduce numbers and the kids are doing pretty good with this. 

 And of course, it is prize time and three of the kids got their prizes today for filling their cards of good deeds.  Chase will probably get his on Thursday and they all will have new cards to fill.

I have five very good kids this year and are basically preschoolers--no surprises 
Keep watching--Thursday more letter O activities.

Circus clowns

Today was a special day for preschool!! The first thing the kids noticed as they came into the room was five balloons of various colors.  We each chose a color and I marked it with a pen to identify the ones they had chosen.

Then I had each of them rub the balloon in their hair and then try to put them on the wall.  Some of them could not do it with their hair, so they used mine.  A fun try at static electricity  They also observed that my hair and some of the others had their hair stand up.  Funny!  After this, we punched the balloons into the air to see how many times they could hit it before it fell to the ground.  some are very good at this.
Then, I had a bag of balloons of various colors and I had the kids put them in piles according to color.  I explained that some had a couple of shades of a color, such as purple had a lilac and a dark purple; the blue had a navy blue and sky blue, etc.  After we sorted them, we counted them out and I put them in piles of tens so that they could be introduced to that concept.  Then we put the balloons away

First I handed this picture to them  I explained that it is important to follow instructions.  I then showed them that they were to trace the balloon with the color red, and color that balloon.

 We moved to the next and then the next balloon until all were colored.  We soon found out who was listening to the instructions.  They would have liked another picture, but I just had them color over the color THEY chose to make the balloons.  When the balloons were colored, they were free to color the clown any color they wanted.

 

 

Next we used these clown cards to find matches, to see differences and to see how they were the same.

 Then it was time for snacks and Tripp brought bunny crackers and marshmallow treats.

 Then we headed down to the play room where I had set up a little circus like atmosphere with the various things to do. This first one of course, is  a basketball stand.

 This is a crawl through

 A balancing beam

 A bean bag throw

 another crawl through

 a tumbling mat, here they were doing sommersaults

 a tiger to go through the flaming fire

 the flaming fire that each child had a turn leaping through

 

walking across the balancing beam

 Jane walking across the beam

At the very end, there was a clown picture and they were blindfolded and had to put the nose on the clown.  I think it was a tie between Chase and Sam.

Our last activity was cutting the four pieces of the puzzle out and putting them in the correct order.  It was a little tricky but they all finally got it done.

Well, the children all left with a little bag full of goodies--some cotton candy, bubbles, good and plenty, circus peanuts and a Chinese puzzle.

I hope that they had a good time and had fun as they used their large and small motor skills!!

Another good day at GranJan's PreK

Circus clowns

Thursday and the last preschool day of the week.  We were really busy this morning!!  We had blown up balloons and they were in near the fireplace, but the kids spied them the minute they came into the room.  Each one picked a color and we marked them for easy escape at the end of the day.

  I had them rub the balloons on their hair to show that they can stick to the wall with this static electricity.  We punched the balloons into the air to see how many times we could do it before it hit the ground.  I had  a bag of balloons and we separated them by color and then counted them to see how many of each there were.  Then we put them in piles of tens so that they have the tens concept introduced.

Letter C and helping baskets

Well, August is past and we begin our month of September.  To begin the month, I handed each of the children a basket which will always remain in their cubby. In this basket are various things that will help them through the year.  I t will also have items in it that, when a child finishes his or her work, she can choose something from her basket to do.  For instance, there is a folder:

 In this folder are the numbers from one to ten which they can use tpo know the numbers in order, or to just learn to write the numbers  It also includes the alphabet.

 these letters and numbers are to help them know the order of the alphabet and numbers.  It also helps them to know the primary colors and to recognize the states

 a shoe with the lace is to teach how to tie, the phone their phone number and the apple how to lace

I told them the story of The stone soup.  Each added pieces  as I told the story.  I told them that the story was to give an example of a big word, which is COOPERATION  /When we work together we can do anything.  In this case, a town did not have enough to eat.  When each family contributed something the whole town got to eat. What will we need to cooperate doing to help our preschool class??

 

 

 

 

 Playtime and Tripp is playing with the fisher price toys

 Sam and Chase play with the batman cave

 The girls can almost always be caught in the kitchen

 I told the story of the wolf and the three little pigs.  Each was to color them and add the stick so that we could have a puppet show and each was to have a part.

 

The kids had a very good time today and each one was able to find something  that interested them.

Our body and our feelings

Today we talked more about our bodies, but specifically we talked about our feelings:
The first thing that we did was to put a paper plate on a heavy paper and draw around it to make a head.  We then laced in some yarn to make hair for the head.  There were two plates, so one was to be a happy face and the other a frowny face.  The one I made as an example Tripp told me looked angry, not sad.  They put googly eyes on the faces and smiles, or frowns.  Then they put a tongue depresser as their stick.  We then  asled  "How would you feel if . . .
Or, how eo you feel when. . . .
such questions as:
 Your mom tells you you're going to have a new baby sister or brother?
You break your favorite toy by accident?
Your mother or father spanks you for something you shouldn't have done?
it is your birthday
you have a fever and must stay in bed?
you ruin your new clothes by playing in the mud

 I needed to find out how they are doing at recognizing the upper case letters of the alphabet

We talked about our houses and homes the other day and the kids wanted to have "houses" in the play room, so I set up a few of the tens and they had a good time moving from house to house .

 They also learned about some more feelings--they were hurt when they were not permitted to enter the "house " of one of the other children.

Each day, one of the things that the kids are asked to do is see that their area is cleaned, their chairs pushed up to the table and their work put into their bags.  Here is Chase using the hand sweeper and the floor looks really good!!

 Then we played the body game where they had six body parts and to get the part they rolled a dice, picked that number part and then they had to do the action.  One was to see if they could touch their nose with their tongue!!

We are now ready to start learning our letters.  Tuesday we will begin with the letter "C"