letter A and Ants

Today we are working on the letter A.  Each one was to cut squares that had a picture of an ant on it.  Then they were to use glue sticks to paste the ants on to the upper case A and lower case A.  Then they could decorate them as they pleased.
First I had a muffin tin and in the bottom I placed a green circle with the numbers from 1-12 on them.  The children were to lace that particular number of plastic ants in each well.
When they had done that, we removed the circle and all the ants in that well to make sure that it was done correctly

 Or project this morning was to cut rows of ants into squares and using a glue stick, they were to paste the ants on to the upper case and lower case A

 We used this game to see if we could follow directions

 And we also played number bingo so that we can learn the numbers from 1-20

A good time today!!

letter g gold and green

Another g day in preschool.  After opening excercises, the children were given templates of the upper case and lower case G.  I had cut up "confetti"-like pieces of green and gold paper so that the kids could paste them on to the letters.

 It was interesting watching each child as he or she finished their pasting

 

Then I handed out the play dough and we made the letters C  O  and G.  I showed them how to roll out the dough to become snakes to form the letters

 Next we used this work sheet.  They were each given a die and they would  roll it.  Then count the spots on the die and find the corresponding number on the page.  Each was to find each number before they moved on to another game.  We will be working on recognizing letters so you could point them out to each of them

 We were finished and the boys love the geoboard now so they started to put the bands on until it was clean up time and parents were spotted.

Another good day in PreK

 

 

 

 

Letter G, goats and games

Another new week, another new letter and new fun. Today we started our day with g for games.  I got out the geoboards and all the kids put the rubber bands on the boards to make shapes--squares, rectangles, triangles ovals and whatever they could think of.  When they had emptied their little bags of bands, they had to now take one at a time back off and put it into the bag.  They were not to take one off that it was on the bottom and pull them all off, but one at a time if it was on the very top.  It was a little frustrating at first, but guess what??  They found out they could do it!

Then we tried the game of Perfection.  They had a lot of fun with this game and jumped as the figures popped up.

We used our word book and today we are on the letter G so we traced the upper case and lower case G first, then moved on to spelling out Goofy with the G traced and last was the drawing a circle around an uppercase G and a square around the lower case G

Then it was snack time and playtime.  I had bought some more action figures over the weekend an  put them in a plastic box.  When these two opened the box they were excited!!  they spent the whole time with the figures and the bat cave

When we came back upstairs, I read the book The Three Billy Goats Gruff to the children and they were to circle the parts of the stories as I read them.  They did very well

Then I had the pictures on the sticks and they acted out the story of the Billy Goats Gruff

I also read the G book  Gorilla, Be Good and we found items that begin with the G sound

Our final activity was Number Bingo and though they were a little rusty on this, they are learning and that is the important thing

 

Another good day in PreK and more fun and learning.

 

Letter O, ocean and octopus

It was a good morning at GranJan's preschool!! The kids were anxious to get started and they noticed new things in the classroom, so off to the races!!!
We ha our usual opening excercises  and the kids noticed that we had big arrows on the map!!  We added the three O states--Ohio, Oklahoma and Oregon.  In our travels this summer I was able to pick up some post cards, so the kids each got a post card from Ohio and Oklahoma. 
Chase noticed the camel on the wall--Shinrai--trustworthy.  We talked about what that meant and if our friends and family were trustworthy and how we can be.

I put a puzzle of the ocean creatures on the table and gave each child five pieces to put into the finished project.  We first  looked at the picture, then established where each creature was on it.  Then I turned it upside down and each one started to put the puzzle together.

 Some tried to put the pieces given them, together alone, but I tried to make sure they would have to look at the whole puzzle to find where his pieces would go  They get better each time we do this.

When the puzzle was complete, I handed each their workbook and we found the page with the letter on it and I read each instruction to them so they could complete each step.

When we completed the workbook page, I gave each one their own dry eraseboard and they were to write upper case O and lower case O on this unlined area.

I gave them each a colored piece of construction paper, along with some foam fishes, some seaweed, an octopus, some sea shells, colored shells and sand so they could make an underwater scene

 Each one was different and was unique to each child

 

We topped off the day by playing alphabet bingo. We will do this often so they can associate the letters with the sounds.

 They were each given 16 pieces of candy to put on their letter cards. When they said Bingo, they had to tell me the letter to keep the piece of candy.  It is always amazing that when candy is in the picture they seem to be able to remember better!!

 

So, yet another preschool day and I think they all learned something and had a fun time doing it.
On to letter G

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