Friday, November 18, 2011

Q is for... (and a few turkeys)

This week we worked with the letter Qq.  Sharing just a few highlighted activities.
One of the cutest projects we did this week...
Handprint Queens
For whatever the reason, I went searching for the image I initially saw (the site isn't on the image I saved) and I can't find it.  ???  Not sure why.  So if anyone knows of the site, please inform me so I can give credit.  Thanks.  Gold metallic paint on the four fingers for the crown, and skin colored paint for the palm.  Do not paint thumb.  After dry add details.  We used glitter glue and tiny beads (that I purchased thinking they were much bigger than they are) as "jewels".  FYI: I do not purchase skin tone paints due to expense.  I make mine by mixing white, brown and yellow.  We also looked at the book Children Just Like Me: Celebrations by Barnabas and Anabel Kindersley prior to printing our handprints so that we could note various skin colors.

With K...we took the letter Q a step further and did quite a bit with the concept that Q and u are together in almost every word.  And the sound is /qu/ vs. /k/.  We did a King/Queen word sort and learned the little song
Q-U Are Friends
Tune: Twinkle Twinkle
Q-u, Q-u friends are they; and together they will stay.
U will always follow q, as most good friends often do.
Q-u, as in queen and quit, like a hand in glove they fit.
Q-u, Q-u friends are they; and together they will stay.

Color Crowns
Scissor activity combined with patterning and color review.  Loved that K. began to sing our little color mixing song as she was placing the small squares on the big ones.
Red and blue make purple.
Red and blue make purple.
Heigh-ho the Derry-o.
Red and blue make purple.

Painted Quilt
Just googled quilt block template and found one that would work and printed nine.  Placed a variety of colors on a tray, each with their own paint brush.  K. painted the blocks.  When dry, we trimmed and glued to construction paper.  Hole-punched around the end, tied with yarn and voila!  A quilt!

Sight Word Quilt
She really enjoyed this!  I created a simple quilt in Print Shop with the review sight words and new ones.  To add a little more fine motor, I printed two copies and cut one set of sight words apart and placed them in "purses".  She would open the "purse", take the sight word square out, read it, match it to the word on the quilt and then trace the word herself.  She used a roller stamp around the edge to make a border and stamps in the blank "blocks" to finish off her "quilt".

 
"5" Little Ducks Went Out To Play
After reading the book, I pulled out the laminated mother duck and ducklings.  We sang the song again (and again and again! :-D) as H. chose a different set of ducklings to follow mama duck and matched the tactile number to the set.  Something I was excited to see this time, for the first time, was that H. did not have to put his finger on the ducklings to count them up to a set of 3.  Definitely a milestone!

Q is for QUACK!
A quickie activity that combined scissor skills, reinforced the letter Q, and touched on the concept that some letters together make words.

School-agers were here once this week.  We didn't do Q activities but we did do some turkey stuff.  :-)
Parachute Turkeys
Ha!  Just stuck 4 feathers into orange styrofoam balls.  They did enjoy this.  Prior to playing with the turkeys and parachute, the children each had two turkeys and we went around telling something we were thankful for before tossing the turkeys into middle of the parachute.


Turkey Lunch


Foam Cup Turkeys
Very simple and they enjoyed the process and playing with them later.  In the morning we marble painted the paper to use for feathers.  They also painted the foam cups.  In the afternoon they cut out the feathers and "hot" glued it all together.  :-)

Non-Turkey Activities that were enjoyed...
Goop!
This cornstarch/water mixture is ALWAYS a favorite.  It's something I consider a "clean mess".  It's messy, yes, but does clean up relatively easy as it will "melt" with warm water or can be swept up.

Body Doodlers
Pretty self-explanatory.  :-)  They fade after a few hours and washes off completely, eventually.  :-P

Hope you all had a good week.  Mine went relatively okay until I typed up the blog and went view it after I posted to see that somehow all the activities but one had "disappeared".  ???  My goal to do highlighted activities of the week on Friday was to save time.  Well, I wonder how much time was saved this week!  :-D

2 comments:

  1. Wow, Amber! I am amazed at all the time and effort you put into finding activities for learning and fun. It's obvious you have a love for teaching, and you're very good at it! Cute blog!

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  2. Thanks Karen. The blog gives me a way to share activities-websites and keep track of "highlighted" activities. Can't ever share everything we do in a day but it's an option for families to see a little of what we do. In the past I find that preschool families are unaware of what goes on in preschool and we tend to fall into the category of "babysitters". Small group this year, obviously. Did have a couple others up until recently that I never posted pictures of. But we are doing a natural "wind down". I will not be offering preschool/child care after this school year for various reasons. I do hope to work it out that I can stay home with Trent during his preschool years since because of my expectations...it's hard for me to put him in anywhere. We'll just see what happens. :-)

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