April Calendar

This is what our calendar wall will look like to begin the month of April.  There is room for additional items if I so desire.  We moved the number display to another wall.  This month I'll have the tactile numbers nearby since the older ones are getting really good at telling me what the calendar number looks like.  So we'll use the tactile numbers with the little guy to help reinforce the numeral recognition and formation.  Also, Trent is not taking a morning nap all the time so it will give him something to feel and "play" with while we are doing calendar. 

The bird and birdhouse alphabet display was a free printable from www.childcareland.com.  I often reduce the size of her printables as we don't have much space and we also have a small group...so it works out fine.  The birds are removeable so we can work with upper/lower case letter matching.

The calendar is also from www.childcareland.com.  She has tracing and blank calendars.  We are moving onto an ABC pattern, as you can notice, I have 3 colors of markers in the cup along with the craft sticks.  I really do need to find a "spring" themed cup.  At least not a snowman!!!    The craft sticks and pointer worked out very well, so we will continue that.

Above the calendar is something "new".  Not new to all of them but definitely new to the youngest.  His interest and attention span is growing so wanted to work this back in to our calendar.  Time is a concept that is difficult to understand and they really don't grasp it until Kindergarten/first grade.  At the preschool stage, I'm looking for understanding of time by their vocabulary (yesterday, last year, today, tomorrow, in a few minutes, when I'm done, after nap, after centers, etc...even if used incorrectly.)  We'll sing our days of the week song (working from left to right and other print concepts) and move the birds accordingly.  Not sure if you can see it but yesterday's is pointing to the left, tomorrow's pointing to the right, and today is a penguin that is facing forward (kind of...it was hard to find a bird pointing forward!).  Side note:  I typed the words in primary colors and used secondary colored craft sticks.  Reinforce concepts whereever possible!!!

Left the opposite cards out because they did enjoy the song and cards.  And with Trent probably going to be joining us...best to have something for him!

Adding a beginning sound bag.  Inside of the bag are items that start with the /b/ sound.  (B is for bird).  We'll do other sounds other days (f is for feather, n is for nest, etc).  On the back of the bag I wrote the song, for my own reference.  It was from The Mailbox publication: Almost Ready To Read.   
Tune:  London Bridge
Pass the bag from friend to friend,
Friend to friend, friend to friend.
When the song stops, reach right in.
What do you have? 

We have a blue jay word wheel.  We've been introducing word families without getting into too much detail.  They love things like this and it's a great foundation builder!  It's from another Mailbox publication titled Word Family Helpers.  Cute reproducibles in that book.

I'm missing the kids and it's only Wednesday!  We'll all be ready to "get back to work" by Monday!