Flutter Flutter Butterfly!

This week we will be doing a lot of butterfly themed activities, along with our other non-themed activities.  Especially exciting since we are starting to see some butterflies around! 

A favorite song/chant...

Lovely pics...can you sense some sarcasm there.  :-P  Sorry. 

These were actually the best ones out of the bunch I snapped quickly to give you an idea of how I did it.

I do not know where I got the clip art from so will pass on sharing this document.  It's relatively easy to make though!  I used stickers on the one side of the cards and the chant on the other side.  We chant the alphabet part and then flip the card over.

Alphabet Butterfly Rap

ABCDE

I found a butterfly on me!

FGHIJ

She started out in a very small way.

KLMNO

An egg smaller than my toe!

PQRST

Next a caterpillar she would be.

UVWXY

In a chrysalis is where she'd lie.

Z

That's how my butterfly came to be!

Author Unknown 

If you know who the author of this chant is please make a comment so I can give credit where it is due.  Thanks!

With the older child we spent a lot of time with this thought of butterflies being symmetrical.  She really caught on this year!  Often I do introduce the idea of symmetry with butterflies but I don't often see children exploring with that concept during their play and activities.  But I did today!

We started off by checking out some butterflies in books,

and on some window clings (great toddler fine motor!).

Then we moved to our butterflies made out of foam shapes (which we had sorted earlier in the morning...love the conversation between the two kiddos about the shapes as they were sorting!)

Foamie Butterflies

Simply tape a basic butterfly pattern to the wall (this one was Mailbox Preschool, April/May 2002), and then tape contact paper over top, sticky side out.  This is a lovely activity for both toddlers and preschoolers and I expect my school-age boys will be at it this afternoon.

After K. was ready to move on we moved to a dry erase board where I demonstrated filling the whole board with a simple butterfly shape.  This "filling the page" is a bit more of a struggle for toddlers/preschoolers, thus I demonstrate on a larger surface when I'd like to see the larger drawings.  She caught on and so we erased mine and she drew her's and we took turn adding shapes and lines on both sides of the butterfly (somewhat symmetrical!).  Then she moved on to a large piece of white construction paper and did the same thing.

Water Color Resist Butterfly

She really took the time to add a lot of color to her work today.  I'm pretty sure this is because of our daily journals that we've been doing since we came back from Spring Break.  (Typical of her would be all one color unless I encouraged otherwise.)  For her journals, she brainstorms, draws, colors (at least 5), labels (at least 3).  This visual can be found on the Journals: Draw and Label post, feel free to use it with your own kiddos. We'll do the same this week and then I think we'll move onto adding a sentence.  She LOVES the labeling!

Oil pastels are awesome to use with toddlers.  So much more rewarding than crayons!  Small enough that they don't break easy, small enough to encourage proper hand grip, easy to mark and bold colors! 

Seriated Heart Butterfly

A lovely paper craft to work on tracing a pattern, scissor skills and reinforce that thought of symmetry.  Today, we also worked with the concept of a hamburger and a hot dog fold.  I'll have to admit that I couldn't figure out what they were talking about in my son's kindergarten class.  They used those terms often...hamburger and hot dog folds.  (Granted, I was only hearing the words not seeing the demonstration.) LOL   One day I was folding a piece of paper and it clicked!  Been using those terms since then.  So a hamburger fold is bottom to top fold of a piece of portrait orientated paper and a hot dog fold is bottom to top of a piece of landscape orientated paper.   Picture a hamburger bun vs. a hot dog bun.

Hearts pattern to fit on a 9x12 piece of construction paper can be download here.  Print and cut out of cardstock or trace and cut from a file folder or cereal box cardboard to make tracers for the children.

Anyway, she chose 4 colors for her wings.  Folded each paper hamburger style, chose a heart to trace (supporting with left hand, tracing with right), and then cut out starting at the fold so that she ended up with two exact heart cut outs.  Then she glue them with points touching, largest to smallest.  Later added a body and attenae and got a relatively symmetrical butterfly.

Coffee Filter Butterflies

An oldie but a good one!

I normally always provide eye droppers with coffee filter work but today I chose to provide paint brushes.  Well, after the first coffee filter K. asked for the eye droppers.  :-)  The children used them both interchangeably.  We are actually going to do this again tomorrow but with washable markers and only water with paintbrush. Color mixing and fine motor.

A few pics from today.  It's going to be a busy week!  Hope it stays as beautiful as it was today!  We went outside and was out there almost an hour.  K. said to me as we came in..."But we only stayed out for 10 minutes."  :-D  Yes, that beautiful.  And part of it could have been that Donnie got the teeter totter and the roller coaster out over the weekend.  They played with those for quite awhile before getting to their normal routine activities.  They are so funny... they do the exact same things in the exact order almost everyday outside.  Always throws them for a loop when I slip something "new" in there.   Have a lovely week! 

T is for Tree (evergreens)

Seriation Trees

Well, this was a bit of an informal assessment for the children.  Typical expectation would be that the children would be able to order three (big, medium, small) shapes.  I find that they can normally order six-eight if they experience it on a regular basis through their preschool years.  I LOVE the bottom picture.  T. actually participated!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Can't tell I'm excited, can you?!)  I've made sets of materials for him to use since he stopped taking morning naps but he always refused...just wanted to watch.  But today?!  He did this one activity.  And asked for specific colored markers to use and so I tried to mix it up a bit and give him a different color and he always corrected me.  Yes, he knows his basic colors...that's for sure!  (So his own little informal assessment-and he thought it was all a game!) 

Compound Words Evergreens

 I find it very beneficial to slip in compound word explorations in preschool.  If a child is having a hard time putting two sounds together (which is necessary for reading) than I go back to compound words because it's easier to slide together two words than it is two sounds which may be still pretty meaningless to them.  So since we were focusing on evergreen trees today...it's a great time to slip in some compound word practice.  :-)  We did the simple tree puzzles first, then pulled each side apart saying one word than the other and sliding them back together to say the compound word.  Ex)  Pan......Cake = pancake.  Having the compound word images available to see help younger students but I've done enough of this type of thing with my students that they are familiar with how this works and did not need the compound word pictures.  Then K. sounded out the word "ever" and the word "green" and we slid them together to make "evergreen". Took less than 5 minutes but great review! 

Pictures I used came from http://thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com/2011/03/potpourri.html.

M is for Magnets!

A fun morning full of magnet-ificent activities!   :-)

Using words from our reading lessons....

I printed sight words plus a few others that we've learned in our lessons from the book Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Englemann onto paper and cut out using the word configuration concept.  K. chose one, read the word (this is a great review because she is seeing the word how it looks in reality vs. having the sound dots and other visuals to give her a clue on how to sound out the word), created it with Magnetix and read it again.  We are going to do a couple each afternoon this week.  Building things out of manipulatives is not something she naturally chooses during free play and etc so this is very good practice for her. 

Magnetic Marble Painting
Well, this was on our plans but we'll do it tomorrow afternoon as we had an hour out of our afternoon due to realtors here and then K.'s ride came about 50 minutes early.  So didn't get to the magnetic marble painting.  But...marble painting is always a hit around here with all ages.  An "oldie" that is always a favorite.  So we'll just vary it a little and use our magentic marbles and a magnetic wand to move it around on the tray.  :-)

Magnetic Number Memory

This was nice for T. (2.5yrs) also.  (Excuse the backwards three...we did notice it and corrected it!)  We talked about the magnetic numerals as we put them on the tray.  Then I removed one and K. guess which one was missing.  We also reviewed our numeral formation verse with each number writing the numeral in our sand tray before moving on and we also manipulated the numerals to make larger numbers 10-20. 

Found a Letter!

This was such a simple activity but she told me it was her favorite of the morning activities.  :-)  Anytime I add a song...it's a point of interest.

I placed magnetic letters inside of our sensory tub and encouraged K. to find them and put them in alphabetical order.  I did have the alphabet tray for her to use as a clue when she needed it.  The little song that we sang reviewed the letters sound also and went like...
Tune:  The Farmer in the Dell

You found the letter (B), you found the letter (B)

/b/ /b/ the letter (B)

You found the letter (B).

Obviously a very simple to remember song that they learn very quickly.  I like to reinforce the letter sound in that second verse.  After we sang the ABC and ABC sound song and reviewed our vowels. 

Magnadoodle:

Another simple way to reinforce number formation and counting.

Magnetic Foam Tower

I've had strips of foam that I purchased quite awhile ago and beyond using them for scissor snipping and collages I really hadn't used them for anything else.  Well, they are a perfect size for my magnetic strips so I simple created a set of strips for the children to explore with.  (Seriation, counting, patterning, etc)

Another way to make a tower.  Those two colors together appealed to her.  :-)

We also created a little book out of Mailbox publication, I Can Make It, I Can Read It: Science titled Margie Magnet.  Booklets make great scissors activities and a booklet like this helps conversation lead to the workings of the material you are working with...so in this case...magnets!

The little black rectangles are magnet strips so the hands can "attract".

We did a series of "tests" about what attracted and what didn't.

All in all...a profitable morning.  :-)

(Sometimes I wonder about this blog...I get it to how I want it and click on post...because I can't preview first for whatever the reason...and pictures and text are moved and spacing and font is different.  Weird.  Anyone else have this issue?)

The Perfect Nest

I've enjoyed planning around a book.  Done it in in the past but find it's easier to plan books around the themes when they are a week or two long.  But since each day of our K Readiness program is "seperate"...not connected to another...planning around a book has been pleasant.  Might be something you are interested in doing. So, today's book was The Perfect Nest by Catherine Friend.  I initially had planned to start into blends with our moveable letters because the main child was flying through the short vowel sounds but when I mixed them up it was more difficult so we'll spend a bit of time mastering the vowel sounds before moving onto the new concept of blends.  Anyway...the nest in the title was going to be our jumping board...short e and a st blend at the end.  But that's fine...we just subtracted a letter and got "net".  :-)  One of our words from our CVC-short 3 set.  So for moveable letters we sorted /a/ and /e/ sound words.  I encouraged them to sort and glue first, then write the vowel in the center then figure out the beginning and ending sounds.  Went well.

To incorporate some movement, after sitting for a bit, we played Duck, Duck, Goose.  Not my favorite game but it did the trick.  The concept we incorporated was odd and even numbers.  I used a hula hoop for the "nest" (instead of having chicken soup) and used masking tape to divide the nest in half.  I also used the  masking tape to make x's for the children to sit on.  This gives them a visual of where to sit.  Before each child started into their "duck, duck, goosing" they chose an numbered egg and counted out that many craft sticks.  Then they put them in sets of two.  If there were no "odd ones out" it was an even number and they put the egg on the even side of the nest .  If it did have an odd one out then the number is "odd" and they put it on the odd side of the nest.  If a child was tagged before they got back to the other child's place then they sat on the eggs.  :-)

I don't have a picture of the "nest" that I can actually post but I'm sure you can imagine it. This picture shows how I encouraged them to organize their sticks so all the children could see what they were doing.

Our numeral formation activity incorporated seriation also.  

Ordering a set of ten will be very difficult for some preschoolers.  It all depends on how much experience they have with this type of activity.  You may wish to use a smaller set.  I glued the birds on already as we have minimal time to do the activities and the focus was numeral formation.  They ordered the nests, glued them on and then wrote the numerals.  I included the numeral words on the wings to slip is a bit more literacy and used a different color for each bird to review color recognition.  They work with color, shape and number words right from the beginning of the year in our Kindergarten.  

Our art today focused on pastel colors. 

Again, www.theartgarden.info is my inspiration for this summer's art.  We are in the process of creating a book.  I plan to do something similar this fall.  It'll go a lot quicker since I run a 4 day program during the school year.  We started with mixing primary colors to make secondary colors.  Today I provided white paint with a dot of all the primary and secondary colors.  They used q-tips to make the lighter color.  I encouraged them not to mix the colors on their paper as they did with the previous color mixing paintings.  Since I had that "suggestion" they were also allowed as many pieces of extra paper to explore with after their first work was done.  They all know that about me now and all of them asked for extra to explore with today.  It ended up as fingerpaint. Good thing the colors were so light!  :-)

Our letter formation activity...N- "long line down, leapfrog up, diagonal and back up".

We reinforced the letter formation by first writing with our finger on the paper (a few times for some children), then writing it with pencil, then tracing it with liquid glue (squeezing a liquid glue bottle is very beneficial for hand strengthening and control) and then they placed the lowercase n noodles on their N using the same formation-line down, leapfrog up, etc.  If you are doing this type of activity with young preschoolers, remember their fine motor control isn't that developed...nor is their attention span so you may only wish to suggest it but don't push the children to make sure the noodles look like n's or that they are placed one right after the other.  Actually, I would say that for any child.  :-)  My students here usually take my suggestions but in the long run "it's their work".  You can tell, in the picture above, which child has strong fine motor skills and a good attention span which one doesn't.  That's a-okay!  Every child develops at their own speed.  I believe in helping children take steps from where they are vs. trying to get them all to one level.  Manipulating these small noodles takes coordination and the use of those muscles in the hand.  If your child needs a hand work out...this type of activity will do it!

Scissors today was a net of -et words.  Most of the scissors activities relate to a word family.  Today's work came from Word Family Helpers by Mailbox. 

Another activity we did today was regarding sight words.  I don't expect the children to have these memorized before the end of summer.  My goal is to introduce them so that when the teacher begins to speak about them at school it'll all click into place relatively easy.  My goal is for them to have a strong foundation to build upon once they start into formal schooling.  I had birds sticky tacked around the livingroom with 12 sight words.  Hmmm, funny thing.  They all corresponded with the sight words on the word search that Caleb was doing.  :-P  Anyway...they took the birds off the wall and flew back to Caleb. I helped them with the words and they stuck it on the wall near Caleb who then found the word in his word search.  A quick, active activity that incorporated various levels of development. 

The bird patterns were from www.childcareland.com.

Hope you all are having a good week so far!

Theme: Birds

Was wondering if I should/would have children here today but all is well...and all went well.  Glad I did.  Getting back in the routine is definitely a type of "therapy"...for me anyway!  But, with all things considering, I changed my plans a bit so that today was mostly activities they could do on their own.  Except The Duck's Tale booklet...that was a "work with Ms. Amber" activity that allowed me to sit for most of the duration of our kitchen time (except for when I had to help them into their seats (one downfall to a home-based---working in main living area---no child sized table/chairs and clean up after finger paint).  Pulled out some simple pages for them to do...I'm not a big "worksheet" lady but they do have their place. 

Ha!  What's this have to do with birds?  Not much.  LOL  The bird theme is really hard to find open ended art projects with after feather painting and so on.  So we had been talking about how light feathers are and what are other things that we could blow with our own breath and that lead to "blow" painting.  I watered down primary colored paints and put them in our "nancy bottles" (www.discountschoolsupply.com).  You may wish to practice blowing through the straw first.  Though, most of the time, if you use a full-size straw, the paint doesn't go up very far if they accidentally suck instead of blow through the straw.

Feather Painting

This time around we used our large feathers for color recognition activities and our small feathers for painting.  I use masking tape to tape a few feathers onto the end of a craft stick.  You can see that H. is just starting out because he is using only one, the other is not defiled yet, sitting on his paper.  But he did use both at the same time (bilateral motion).  I placed a bowlful of feathers next to their workspace when they were about halfway through.  Both children immediately placed a feather on their paper and painted over top it.  Hmmm...not quite what I expected...though I should have.  But that's okay!  It's THEIR work.  Think of it as added texture.  Eventually one of them left the feather unpainted and the other followed suit stating it "looks pretty" that way.  

"Finger Painting"

Again, nothing to do with birds.  I needed an easy-no explanation needed-art project for today so pulled out the "tried and true" finger painting.  They chose their own color of paint and whether they wanted the colored finger paint paper or the white (of course they all chose the colored).  We typically use black paint with this paper and it definitely turns out nice...but I'm all for giving choices.  You probably noticed that I put "finger painting" in quotations.  Technically it's finger paint and I do not have a problem with them using their hands/fingers (Yeah, we've done nose/toes, elbows and so on too.) but most children like the extra "tools".  If you have more than one child you are working with, I suggest that you have two trays ready...with similar tools and to paint shirts.  Easier time transitioning.  Finger paint tools:  check your local dollar store's kitchen section.  :-P

Bird Feeders

If there isn't a peanut allergy, pb makes for perfect bird feeders.  They are learning a practical skill (spreading pb) and it sure gives their little hands a work out!  We've done cardboard shapes, tp tubes, bread and so on.  This time we spread pb on one side of the bread (use crust or allow the bread to sit out a day or so to dry a bit to make for easier spreading of the pb) and then they dipped that side in the birdseed and flipped and did the other side.  Used a yarn needle to thread through the bread.  They took them home this year since Tag (our lovely dog) would enjoy it before the birds.

The Duck's Tale

This was mentioned in the previous post.  Our focus was cutting out the main duck and adding the "text" to the pages.  Adding some vocabulary in there.  Often we say words/sentences but this time I wanted to reiterate that the words we find in books are called "text".   They then put the books in order and stapled.  Pretty neat turnout since the pages do not sit flat due to the brads.  Looked like a "fluffy" duck.  :-P

Chicks in a Nest

This was mentioned in the scissors post so I won't go into detail.



www.kidsoup.com

Whenever you are doing "work sheets", try to add a hands-on component.  For example, the instructions were for them to color/draw birdseed.  Instead we glued birdseed onto the paper.  This allowed for us to count those numbers three times a piece.  Once- when we state what the number is (showing it on our fingers and counting them), 2nd- when we added glue dots.  3rd- as they are placing the seeds on their glue and checking their work.

Another kidsoup.com activity

I hadn't planned on doing this one but decided it would fit well into what I needed for today.  Fine motor--tracing the lines.  Took a moment to reiterate that moving from left to right is often the easiest when tracing lines.

Birds On A Line

Another line tracing activity that I had done earlier in the week...and that was why I was not going to do the bird feeder activity today.  But it all worked out.  Note that the child in the left picture is older. He's the oldest and that is the only reason why I put all the stamp pads out.   I've been working with him since he was a baby and he knows exactly what I mean when I say, "please don't mix the colors".  :-)  For most preschool students, we'll use one stamp pad at a time with the lids on all the rest.  I buy a store brand baby wipe to use as "art wipes" and they are often at the table for whenever we might need them...otherwise they are running to the bathroom to wash their hands all the time.  :-P  Above the Birds On A Line, in the picture on the right is our Rainbow Bird Seriation.  We drew a "telephone line" across the blue paper and that gave them a focus of where to put their birds.  I'm so excited to say that my two oldest were able to do all six BY THEMSELVES!  At the beginning of the year, one of the children had difficulty with a set of 3 and the other had difficulty with a set of 4.  Practice pays off!!!  Oh, the Rainbow Seriation birds is a free printable from www.kidsparkz.com.  I printed only the first two pages and use the option of printing both pages on one page.  Made them too small for the children to cut so did not use it as a scissor activity but as a math.  Fit nicely on the paper this way though and they could take it home.

Kumon

The children enjoy the Kumon pages.  They are colorful.  :-)  I print on cardstock to make it a bit thicker.  I heard "cuckoo, cuckoo" quite a bit that morning.  :-P

Sensory

This week we pulled the birdseed out for sensory.  It's one they enjoy but hadn't worked with yet this year so it was "new".  The first time was with typical "tools" but also included a new measuring set!  "Dollar Store" find...though it wasn't a dollar.  :-P  It was $4.  But considering how much it costs to buy a set through a school supply or science supply catalog...I'll just be happy!

The next time I added 12 plastic eggs in an egg carton.  The top half had a numeral and the bottom half had the numeral word.  Do they really "get it" at this stage.  No...but our job is to introduce the concept that every we say is made up with letters.  Aaron and Caleb got a lot of use out of the eggs the summer before they went to Kindergarten since they were already at that stage...learning the number word spelling. I have to add a picture of Trent.

Trent was none to happy with me.  He woke up before the other kiddos got a chance in the sensory pool and my rule of thumb is Trent is after the others get a chance...because I like to have it somewhat organized for the other children.  :-P  So...he was 'working' as you can see but not happily for a few minutes.  I do have a pic of him smiling but this one just made me chuckle.