Lines That Wiggle

Wow!  What an awesome morning.  Full load (6) here this morning and I was wondering how it was going to go because my own boys were CRAZY this morning.  (4 days before a full moon, by the way-some are effected the day before or on...usually the week of the full moon we can see a bit of "craziness" but I find that our worse day is 4 days before, for my own boys).  Anyway.  It went SO well this morning. I cut some things out this morning so we could take more time in other activities and it just was about perfect for timing!  Love days like this.  :-P

We are at the end of our High Frequency booklets so I decided to move into the We Both Read series to put in action the reading concepts I've been teaching.  That was a nice change of pace . Then we read another book called Silent Letters Loud and Clear.  I would really only read this with older kiddos.  It's very busy and introduces multiple silent letters.  I'd say K-1+ but I do think my PreK summer students had been introduced to enough about words and the english language that they did enjoy it and they "got it" when I read the "letter to the editor" without the silent letters.  They thought it sounded funny. 

The silent letter I focus on at this stage is "silent e" and the typical rule that when an e is at the end of a word, it's silent and makes the vowel long.  A long vowel "says it's name".   If you use the book Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Lesson this is a concept introduced very soon in the lessons as it's commonplace in the English language.    The activity we did in place of our moveable letters activity was from the Teachers Pay Teachers website . It's free to register so the downloadable was free also.  The children seemed to enjoy it and I liked how we could review all five of the short vowel sounds and then make a new word by adding the silent e.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Silent-E-Word-Activity

And then our focus book (wow, we got in 3 books this morning!) was the awesome book I just recently came across called Lines That Wiggle.

What a neat book!  There is a blue "glitter" line that the children can feel and trace on every page.  We spent quite a bit of time just tracing the lines (which is a benefit in itself for young students as it helps reinforce that lines are straight, zigzag, curve, and so on.   Just somethign to remember is that many of the words are in cursive as it's easier to "write" the words with a continuous line when it's cursive.  Still a very good book for preschoolers though!

For our numeral formation activity we used wikki stix to make the numbers.  To help keep the activity from taking too much time we each chose two numbers to create with the wikki stix and then they created sets to go with their number.  This is one of the activities I wanted to be able to spend more time as my question to them was "Now, what can we do with our numbers?"  We came up comparing our sets by using terms more/less.  They came up with adding and subtrating their sets as well as figuring out if their numbers were odd or even.  By then it was time to move on but use your imagination.  Perhaps you can set it up so they are creating patterns with their manipulatives in their set and so on.  We used a foam mat because I thought the stix would stick to it but it doesn't.  I'd suggest a plastic tray or a laminated piece of paper.  Here's what a couple looked like.  We used pom poms, foam shapes, bears, and transportation manipulatives.  You can use anything and make it theme related, if you wish. 

 

We also used jump ropes today...a line that wiggles.  The two main "games" were to "cross the river" where two people holds the rope taunt as another child tries to jump the river.  Then the river gets higher and higher.  The other jumping activity we did today with jump ropes was to have the children jump the rope as I moved the rope in a circular motion.  Needs to be done on a smooth/flat surface and with someone who doesn't get dizzy!  LOL  We ended up doing it on the cement pad of our driveway...with me sitting on the ground and switching hands to circulate the rope all the way around.  :-P  Got all the kids involved by counting loudly.  :-) 

We created yarn art.  The process was amazing. 

I placed many balls of yarn on trays with the thought that this would be perfect for practicing our manners and patience and it worked out just like that.  We talked about how it could be a design or could be an actual picture.  We had other basic coloring supplies available also.  Then the children thought for a few minutes and started to work with the yarn to get an idea of what they wanted.  Then they glued.  Most of the end products were completely different then the first layout but that's fine.  However, with my preschool students I'd let them start gluing and adding to their picture as they go along.  It was definitely the process that was the benefit in this art project.  I took pictures of the work before the glue was dried to remind me to remind you all that using a liquid glue bottle (without the tap and glue caps) works on hand strengthening and control.    I was going to do glitter glue line art but that is very close to the activity that we WERE going to do in accordance to the book The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle...but then went and forgot to pick it up at the library yesterday as planned.  Oh well...we can do that one another day.  :-)  The top two pictures ended up as designs.  One child actually had a unicorn on hers in her initial work and then turned it into a design because she was "done".  The other planned a design from the beginning.  The bottom left is a pond, with fog and stars.  The bottom right in a TV.  This child had another picture also but the glue was frustrating him and he was "giving up".  Because I know this child well I encouraged him to continue and put something on his paper.  You do what you feel is needed with your own children, if in a similar situation.

Another activity we did today was "build a sentence".  As soon as I got the board and the index cards out they were all excited.  We did this before with the Rabbit Stew book. 

The blue words "The line wiggled." was the sentence we started out with and then the children added more words to make a longer sentence.  Please allow time for silliness and switching the words around.  They sure get a kick out of it!  The activity I added to it was putting numbers under the words and providing dice to roll.  The children rolled the diced, used a pointer to point to that word and tell us what it was.  I will definitely do this activity again.  It definitely helps with word awareness and the dice work (counting dots, learning what each number looks like with dots, and learning to start with the biggest amount of dots and then adding the smaller number of dots all will be a benefit).

For our letter formation activity we did a very simple activity that was very helpful.  I reviewed the magic C move.  I'm always reminding them to start at the top right when forming circles because it leads into so many other letters and numbers . The "magic c" comes from Handwriting Without Tears.  I made a simple table for them to practice their magic c capital letters.  Check out this one!

That last G!  WOW!  "Practice makes perfect."  :-D  I doubt that she'll do every magic c letter as beautiful as that one but she was so proud and that definitely boosted her confidence.

A lovely morning indeed...hope you all had one also!

Rabbit Stew and Short Vowel O

Well, that was quite a morning!  Very profitable in the sense of the activities and the work the older children did but the two youngest weren't "cooperating" and so though it was a profitable morning, Ms. Amber is a wee bit exhausted!  :-) 

So we started with our journal (younger student also doing the calendar and High Frequency Word Book): I stated the topic word "pot" and since we were using an actual pot for an activity I used it as a prop since I really didn't want Aaron (8 yrs) to be drawing a toilet.  LOL  So it was more of "what's in your pot?"  I got "cooked onions-see the smoke coming out the top.  You can't see the onions because it's in the pot" (which was on a stove, by the way).  And I also got meatballs.  Our third student came late and so missed journaling, and Aaron chose to make "alfebet" soup.  He printed his sentence as well as wrote it in cursive.  For a child who does not "know" cursive, I say he did a good job!

Our book today was Rabbit Stew by Donna Kosow.  You can branch off of this book in many different directions.  If you haven't read it before, check it out!  One of the children noticed my label in the inside.  "Amber Clarke-w/ Canton, MI address".  :-)  Oh my, guess I've had that book for awhile!  So that observation led into the conversation of how long a book will last when we take good care of them.   

Our moveable letters were the short vowel o.  We started by writing pot and dog on our board (connections to our book) and talking about the English language and how sometimes the vowels change their sound when they have a buddy-in this case "og".  We did some rhyming also at this point. Then we moved to our letter tiles.

For large motor today we played Pass the Pot.  Sorry, I did get a few snapshots but none that I can actually post.  You'll have to picture it in your head!  The children enjoyed this.  Children sat criss cross in a line, like a train.  The first person in the line had a pot with tactile numbers inside.  Children were encouraged to show good posture and then twist their upper bodies and pass the pot to the person behind them until it got to the last person in line.  That person reached in, eyes shut, and chose a number.  I encouraged them to feel the number and tell me what it was before looking.  Then that person chose and then we did that action as many times as the number represented.  Here's one: be like a lightbulb.  Hmmm.  That's imaginative.  So when somebody says something like this then you just ask. "and what would that action look like.  Show us!" This child started low at the ground and jumped op saying "on" and then crouched back down saying "off".  I was a bit out of breath when we got through those! 

Our numeral formation activity came right from the book Rabbit Stew.  This became more time consuming then I thought it was going to be but that's okay.  Go with the flow.  First of, we always create a number line with the tactile numbers, which if you remember were in the pot.  So I handed the pot to Aaron and asked him to create our number line.  Well, that turned into someone saying, "Let's go backwards. " And then that turned to someone saying, "Let me put one on!"  Which then made us decide to go forwards because it would be easier to find where the numbers go.  So the children took turns deciding if the number went in the beginning, middle or end of the number line and between what numbers.  It was quite funny when we came to the last number and Aaron took it upon himself to do a "Ms. Amber"  LOL  He had asked the child what number she needed to complete the line.  She told him 6.  So he reached into the pot and pulled out a 4 and handed it to her.  She squealed.  It was quite hilarious.  So it went on for a bit until he finally pulled out the 6.  My point being was that you can have so much fun with such a simple activity.  Kids love to joke or catch an adult or older child in a mistake.  And the more fun they are having the more they will retain.
Okay...back to the numeral formation activity. 

We had a "pot" (an envelope cut in half) and inside the pot were vegetables and rabbits that I had cut and placed in so that they would have enough to make sets 1-10.The children dumped them out onto their tray and sorted by type.  Then they graphed them onto the pot graph.  After they glued them all they wrote the number at the top.  Then we talked together as a group about their  vegetables and rabbits (more, less, equal).  This really worked their fine motor.  Those itty bitty pieces of papers.  FYI:  I would not do a graph this extensive or use such small pieces for anyone younger then 4.  If you want to simplify it and make larger pictures, then go for it.!  The pot was hand drawn (obviously) and the pictures all came from Print Shop.

Our color mixing activity was red and blue.  We didn't read the whole Mouse Paint book again but did skim through it.  We used circle sponge applicators and a skinny paint brush.

www.theartgarden.info was my inspiration.

Our Letter Formation activity had nothing to do with this theme as I had meant to do it on Monday and didn't get to it.  So we did it today.  B Butterflies.  :-)

We did our Listen and Do activity and scissors.  Again our scissors activity came from the Word Family Helpers, a Mailbox publication.  I had each child do the "dot/arrow" method of sounding out each word.  I had a post that included that concept in  

Our phonological awareness activity went VERY WELL and I will so do this again! I call it "Sentence Building".  Children, during their preschool years-at least here!, learn about letters, and that letters together make a word and that words together make a sentence.  We also talked a bit about punctuation marks.    It was a bit time consuming because I used paper and sticky tack but I think I will go searching for my pocket chart and use either word strips or index cards next time.  So, we started with the sentence "The dog made stew." (Connecting our Rabbit Stew book.)  Then we went around the table (did this at lunch since we ran out of time) with each child telling me a descriptive word to add to our sentence.  Here are the first and last pictures.

The dog made stew.

The brown and white dog made yummy smart rabbit, potato, onion and tomato stew in a pot.

Yes, the commas were the older children's idea.  I should mention that I put the first sentence word strips on the table, mixed up and they all guessed how it went.  Aaron (8) pointed out that he knew "The" was first because of the capital letter...which led to a conversation about capital and lower case letters. 

We ended with the book...

A fun phonics book using -og word family words.