Letter M, magnets, magnifying glasses, m&m's

This week we worked with the letter "M", "m". Each child was given one of these sheets and then I showed them how to tear little pieces of colored paper and attach them to the "M"

 We use the McMillan method of teaching the letters, and this is our 18th letter

 This is an example of the torn paper

 Sam had fun with his

 The pictures turned out very well, with a little help, of course.

 Joey needed a little help at the beginning, but caught on to making the pieces smaller

 His favorite color is green as you can see

Here is our letter M

Then we got out the magnets and the kids really had fun with those.

 We had these discs and the put a magnet under the table to move the discs around the table

 We also had these pieces that were attached together by magnets

 Lily had a lot of fun with those she had

Each of the kids had some sort of mag net, either a wand, a horseshoe shape or just refrigerator magnets.  The ones they really liked were the high powered ones.  Sammy kept saying, "I can feel the power, Gramma!"  That was exciting to me because I sometimes wonder if they have gotten the lesson being taught.  They just have the fun that goes with it.

 Sam also used this horseshoe shape and the discs and metal balls.

We ended Tuesday with Mickey Mouse and Miss Jo read the book Mickey and the Sorcerer.  They loved the moving brooms!!

Thursday we started the day with show and tell so we could get all the excitement calmed down.

Sammy brought his woopie cushion.  Boys always think these things are funny.  

 Joey brought this little wooden car.

 Lily brought this book and she read it to us (in her very own way)  What was funny was when the other kids would start to talk, she would say, "would you please be quiet".

 These are magnetic letters of all sizes and colors.  We used these for letter recognization.  There were lower case letters, as well, and some numbers and shapes.  The ones who recognized the letter got to keep the letter and the one getting the most recieved a prize.  Candy is a great motivator. 

We then had a worksheet.  Inside mushroom shapes were pictures of things beginning with the sound "mmmmm".  They were to color the pictures or draw a circle around them.  There were words such as mom, monkey and moon.

 Joey colors everything his favorite color--green

 We had snack time and while they were eating, I introduced the magnifying glass.  We looked at salt crystals, sand and letters on a newspaper.  They were obsessed woth how much larger everything was.When we came back from play time, we played conversation heart bingo.  We are working on colors, as well as where to put the colored heart  under "B" "I", etc.  A big job for these little three year olds.  But, amazingly, they do quite well.

Then we introduced them to the book "The Mitten"  A Ukrainian folktale adapted and illustrated by Jan Brett

 Here is their mitten

 These are the animals that went into the mitten.  These are the actual drawings from Jan Bretts book.  I hope that you will go over the story again with the children.

One of the best ways to introduce the letter "M"

Another good day at preschool.  I hope you moms are going over the letters we are learning. I would like to see some of them putting their sounds together soon to make words.  Let's set a goal??

Love working with your kids!!