Weather

Taking a break from "mathematics and preschoolers" as not much time this afternoon.  So will share a few pics from this morning instead.  We started our weather theme.  We did a very simple introduction to the water cycle this morning.  Used a variation of a lesson plan http://www.mo.nrcs.usda.gov/out/Lesson%20Plans/WaterCycle.pdf.  I had already planned the cotton ball absorption exploration.  We did talk about what we knew about rain and clouds.  I had a big gray cloud on the wall and we wrote what we knew on individual raindrops.  I did like the poster provided at the end of the lesson plan, kid friendly.  We used it today while introducing a new song.

If anyone knows the author to this song, please comment.  I was thinking it might be a Dr. Jean song.
Tune:  Oh, My Darling Clementine
Evaporation, condensation, precipitation on my mind.
These are parts of the water cycle and they happen all the time.

Children raised and wiggled their fingers on evaporation.  They clapped at condensation "up in the sky", and then lowered and wiggled their fingers like rain falling for precipitation.  We did talk briefly about percolation since it was brought up in their conversation and they love big words.  :-P

Math Activity

Children chose whether they wanted rain or snow coming from their clouds (blue/white playdough).  Then they chose two sets of two clouds and created their precipitation.  So she had seven raindrops under the seven cloud and was in the process of creating ten raindrops under the ten cloud.  Then they were able to explore with printing on another tray with different playdough.  We had potato mashers, forks, and etc

Scissors Activity

This was a very simple activity with minimal materials.  They cut out their cloud shape from gray paper.  Then they drew with crayons things that the rain help.  Grass and flowers were what I got the most.  Then they cut strips of blue foam into "raindrops" and glued them onto their paper like rain.  I also wrote down their dictation sentenced.  This one said, "Rain falls down to the ground and helps the flowers grow."  Dictation is something that comes with time.  Young preschoolers or those who haven't done much of this type of activity will often say something seemingly unrelated to their work.  That's fine.  Write it down.  That's what they wanted you to write.  :-)  Sentences that seem meaningful to us adults will come with time and experience.

Fine Motor Activity

With doing the cotton ball absorption experiment, I knew that it would be good for me to get the sponges out again.  They love this type of thing and so do I because it's working those muscles in their hands.  So this time we had a "pond of ducks" with no water in their pond.  They gave them water by squeezing "rain" on them.  Each child did this activity at least 3 times (we dump the water back in the bowl).

Today was full of "goodies" but nothing extremely "new".  Remember that repetition is important with our students.  That is why many center-based programs leave their activities out at their interest centers for multiple days.  Unfortunately, that isn't a possibility for me as a home-based teacher so I just make sure I repeat activities/skills, might vary it a bit but still the focus of the activity is the same.

Have a great day!