Fish Theme

I really did plan to add to our Handwriting Blog but today's work went so smoothly that I wanted to share that.  Information is important but pictures of actual activities are much more fun! 

Yesterday, due to circumstances, I had only one preschool child.  So needless to say there was a lot of 1:1, which is nice for a change and was able to do some review with that child.  Here is one activity she started yesterday and finished today.

Steps one and two.

1) cut strips of tissue paper in squares.

2) place squares on wax paper and cover completely with liquid starch.  I added blue food coloring to the starch.

End product!  Looks nice on a window.

This idea was from http://littlefingersbigdreams.blogspot.com/2010/05/under-sea-collage.html. I have done things like this with watered down glue, but liquid starch is much easier for the children to spread.

Shell Sorting and Counting

I planned it so there were 4 shells in each of the 5 groups.  I did this intentionally as I'm working with number formation with my older students.  It's also a great way to reinforce the term "equal".  As you can see below, I used our tactile numbers to reinforce number recognition/formation.  I also provided chips to place on each of the starfish, adding a little more "hands-on" to a work sheet.

I prefer to have block numbers vs. dotted/dashed numbers for tracing but I really don't have time to make my own sheets.  The students that have been with me for awhile do not have difficulty with tracing dashed lines so I go ahead and use them.  I sang the numeral formation song with her as she traced the numbers and then we flipped it over so she had a big white space to practicing writing the number four.  This helps me see just where they are at for that particular number.  The website for these sheets is http://www.kidzone.ws/math/kindergarten.htm.  We'll do the set of 10, one a day for the next little while.  Each time we do a sheet, we'll have a separate hands-on activity related to that number.

Does that tray look familiar?  Of course it does.  The shells are just piled up in the measuring containers though, this time around.  I hid the shells in the sand and suggested they sort them.  Obviously, this little guy had other plans.  No problem though!  Sensory is pretty much their science exploration and we'll get the shell sorting another time.  :-)

Okay, this has nothing to do with the fish theme.  But it's something we did yesterday and has enough benefits to warrant me mentioning it.  :-)

Yesterday, K and I made Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins.  I had to change some of our plans to fit it in, time wise, so we considered this sensory.  :-P  It's also great fine motor.  She cracked that egg like a pro!  Mashing the bananas took a little more effort.  And then the hardest was putting the paper liners in the muffin tin.  It harder than it looks for little hands!  But great fine motor and we reinforced that 12=dozen.  Also, remember that stirring helps with strengthening the hands/wrist.

Mmmm!  They were good!

Color Word Spelling

(mentioned in a previous blog)

Yes, I was right...it was a hit.  :-)  Especially with the oldest student and my own kids.  Trent (20 months) loves to take the letters down and put them back up and he tells me "E" whenever he sees a letter now.  Note:  check that posture, see how his back is straight.  I put a few just above eye level when sitting down so that the children have to reach up a bit.  Couldn't do it for eye level at standing because then the shorter/younger children wouldn't have been able to interact.

I can NOT believe I have not done this activity before.  Have seen this idea on many a Montessori blog but never could find the bath mat clings already in a shape.  So said, I amdoing a fish so here we have it.  Excellent activity for fine motor control-crossing the midline.  Great for Trent...who if he was at a center, would not be doing an activity like this because of the choking hazard concern.  And I understand that completely, but as I've mentioned before, children NEED to participate in activities that have small items so they can work their hands...and better to be done between 18-24 months when it's really developing.  So supervise I did and he LOVED it.  (Actually, he was suppose to be sleeping and I went into this bedroom and he's standing at the side of his crib saying his version of "marble-ball, marble-ball" :-))The other kiddos loved it too.  It really kept their attention and was a challenge.  Since I've been blogging about handwriting I was really watching the kids today.  Trent is doing exceptional with hand dominance and crossing the midline.  Actually, you'll notice the big spot on the tray in the upper left hand corner?  That's where I had the bowl of marbles.  :-)  Somebody moved the bowl to the right side after trying a few times to use his left hand to scoop from the left side and then switching to the right hand and reaching (which didn't work well either).  So he solved that problem.  Next time I'll use a bigger tray if I can so that the bowl can be put easily on either side (to catch the marbles).   I noticed that the older two did well also.  The younger one did okay when I reminded him to use the one hand and reaching vs. left hand for left side and right hand for right side (this is the child who is still working on hand dominance also).  This child also ended up using his pincher fingers more often than not.  So I know what area to work with him!

Venn Diagram

When it's been awhile since we've done something I like to do a little group lesson.  Then I leave the items out.  This is what I saw after lunch.

Oh, that does make the teacher in me smile!

Scissors skill for today.  Cutting on a thin but short line.  We'll later use these pictures for patterning and such.  I added a fine motor component by putting a slit in the top of a margarine lid and having them place their pictures inside.  This was three fold, I don't have a laser printer so the pictures will smear if we aren't careful so it "protects" the pictures, it helps them feel a sense of order (and appreciate it), and of course the fine motor component of putting a small item through a small slit.

My older student was beyond this activity so I gave him his own activity. A picture to word match that you can find at http://www.kizclub.com/Topics/animals/seaanimals.pdf.

This was definitely him thinking "okay, give Ms. Amber a smile." picture.  Beautiful smile though!  You'll notice that most of the pictures taken are of them working...so tongues sticking out in concentration and etc.  LOL  He would have preferred to do the other activity because he doesn't particularly care for a "challenge" but I know him well and he was proud of his work when he was done. 

This was Trent's "art" today.  He really did NOT like the foam stickers sticking to his fingers and he needed help squeezing and moving the bottle.  But that's fine for a not yet 2 year old.  He definitely enjoyed adding the extra dots of glue and spooning the salt over his picture (and dumping the salt onto his tray!)  He had quite the blue fingers when he was done!

Here are the other children's.

I did put this under "art".  It's not (well, yes it is in a way) messy art but it was wide open for how they wanted to do it.  I'm not all into sticky foamies.  Sometimes these type of foamies are really hard to peel off the backs but they did well today, for the most part.  We set it up with foamies on the left, paper in the center, bowl for backings on the right to help with that left to right concept and sense of order.  When they got as many foamies as they wanted, they set it aside and mixed blue food coloring into a bowl of salt.  Stir, stir, stir!  Then they added "waves".  The top two are older children and I asked them if they wanted me to show them how to make a wave.  "Yes!"  So we did one wave hand over hand.  Then they made their own wave(s).  The child who owns the bottom piece of artwork did not want me to help him. Re: pictures on the top- child on the left is "more into" math and fine motor is lacking a bit, for various reasons.  The child on the right is more into that nitty gritty fine motor stuff and appreciates order and you can see the difference in their waves (especially when they do it with markers.  It's hard to squeeze and move that glue bottle!) and their placement of the foam shapes.   The picture on the top left, that child was telling me he was going to make a pattern and told me what it was going to be (a correct pattern, by the way) then he got busy and there wasn't room to make the pattern he wanted so he changed his mind.  :-P  Oh, I love to listen to them talk, sometimes to themselves and sometimes to me.  After awhile you begin to know when to actually say something and when to let them do their thing without interruption. 

Two more sites for you:

http://www.kaboose.com/ 

We did an Ocean themed "What's the Difference?" page today.  I'm big on children noticing detail and this page fit into our theme.  (Also helped with drawing circles).  You should be able to find it at the above site.

http://www.kidssoup.com/

We also did an I See Fish booklet, color review, counting sets and scissors.  I'm not sure if that was a free booklet or not.  This is the one site that I actually pay a membership for.  This site often has color and black & white options.  The b&w options are often smaller and that makes it nice for your preschoolers!

Oh, we've had fun the last couple days and there are still a couple more days so you can see why it was better for me to post today ;-) instead of waiting to the end of the week.  Fun stuff!

Weather Theme-Misc

Pretty emotional day for me today so we'll keep this short because my brain is a bit "mush".  I see I have a few pics from the day before the snow days I'll share . We didn't get to the rest of our activities- rainbow- due to the snow so perhaps when we get back from Spring Break it'll be a little more appropriate!  Though, we do talk about how Spring brings MANY types of weather.

Here are the children doing the actual sunshine seriation and sort.  

It went over very well.  Even Trent (not quite two) sorted a few rays between the 2 smallest suns and got 90% of them correct!  Goes with his sense of order I'm sure.

Our sunshine salad.

Well, this is lemon jello in whipped topping for the "sunshine" and pineapple tidbits for the rays.  We strive for a corn syrup free menu. Unfortunately, the day we planned to do our sunshine my whipping cream was spoiled.  So we did it the next day with whipped topping.  Tasted good but had cs.  :-9  They all enjoyed this.  In another blog, I'll talk about recipes.  :-)

Windsock

Lot different than the typical way we do windsocks.  Here, it's a storage bag that they cut from the bottom in strips and put stickers on both sides of the top half.  (I had precut a sliver off the bottom already for them.)  Hole punch the top and tie yarn at each hole to make a loop (keeps the bag open to catch the breeze).  They seemed to enjoy these.  I thought the bag would be hard for them to cut but it was really easy-almost too easy!  Stickers add a nice fine motor component.

Well, I thought we'd make a rainbow windchime but it changed a bit.  :-)

We're not done with these yet but this is the process.  The child and I talked about the weather cards and about the weather they like or dislike and why.  Then they chose one to draw and dictate about.  Here K. chose lightening and her sentences were "I was scared of the lightening.  I wanted to be with Mom and Dad."  The other two children wrote about weather they liked.

Then the child went to the next center where I had yarn and beads waiting for them.

This is the part they need to finish.  It's very time consuming for them and better for them to work on it little by little.  They chose what color yarn, how long it was going to be, the color of beads and how many they were going to put on them.  One child even created an ABBABB pattern!

And Mr. Trent didn't want to take a morning nap this particular morning so here was his "task".  :-)

Pipecleaners work best with little ones with minimal lacing experience or control.

That Incredible Foam I was looking for for St. Patty's Day?  Well, I found it!

These turned out nicely. 

We were running out of morning time so I didn't get a dictation sentence on them but they did think they were cool!  Notice the obvious differences in them.  Can you tell that in picture one, the child wasn't here when we focused on clouds?  There is also an interest factor playing in here also.  Picture two, there's a little sun up there in the left hand corner.  He does great for his age with representational drawing.  I don't normally see it at a young 3.  And his clouds are very typical for preschool aged children.  Picture 3...YEAH!  I don't expect them to remember all the cloud names and such but this picture shows me she grasped something.  Typically she'd do clouds like the second picture.  Also a bit more detail in her picture with a couple flowers with her sun.  I heard her tell her daddy one afternoon "I learned about clouds today!"  Not very often can we get preschool OR school-age children to tell us something they learned that day.  :-P 

Mathematics and Preschoolers VIII

Well, introducing the Classic Balance Scale with Bears, from www.discountschoolsupply.com, yesterday made me realize that I haven't talked about measurement yet.  At the preschool level we want to introduce vocabulary that goes along with measurement and then the majority of our hands-on activities are going to be nonstandard measurement. 

So let's start with vocabulary:
It's starts as simple as "big" and "small".  Here are some other vocab that I use regularly, not in any specific order.
long, longer, longest
big, bigger, biggest
small, smaller, smallest
medium
tall, short
narrow, wide
measure
ruler, tape measure, scale
weigh
perimeter (actually this is used daily.  We glue "around the perimeter" of the shape.)
heavy, light
equal, same
more, less, fewer
couple, dozen
yesterday, today, tomorrow, week, month, year
about, approximately
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Some vocab for specific activities:
cup, oz, tbs. etc
time, minute, hours
inch, foot, yard
Fahrenheit

So what is nonstandard measurement?  Simply put...it's measuring without using an actual ruler, tape measure, scale etc.  Our goal is to "introduce" measurement.  Does that mean we never get the rulers and tape measures out.  Absolutely not.  We get them out for free exploration or for practical purpose when it's part of our verbal problem solving (please talk your "problems" out so your children hear how you are solving the problem...this is priceless!).  We just don't expect them to measure something and tell us how many inches, cm, etc an object is (some children will and that is just fine!). 

Children love to measure with their body.  Talk about how when we measure we have to use the same size object and they must be put one after another.  You can show how it works on a ruler. 
   * Sid the Science Kid: Exploring Measurement is an excellent DVD for preschoolers as an intro.  After watching this DVD they'll want to measure a room using their complete body.
   *  You can measure how long objects, let's say a piano bench, is by measuring with a child's hand.
   *  Measure how long the sandbox with their feet, one foot in front of another.

All those manipulatives that you are using for patterning, counting, sorting and etc can be used for measurement also!  (As long as they are the same size.)  Linking cubes, plastic links, inch cubes, blocks, crackers, craft sticks, dominoes,.  And check your toy shelf...what can be used there? Once you show a child how to do this, you'll begin to see it in their own play. Presently we have our Cracker Barrel Checkers set out.  Do they play checkers?  No.  They do use them for 1:1 activities, matching colors, patterning, measuring and so on.

The maraca is 3 dominoes long.

The window is 19 checkers wide.

Another manipulative that works well for measuring is the Gingerbread Sort and Snap.  We purchased ours from www.discountschoolsupply.com.  I take that back...we got our from www.amazon.com with free super saver shipping :-) but you can purchase from Discount.

The rhythm sticks is approximately 5 gingerbread people long.

Another activity we do with multiple themes are use our mini accents that has been purchased from www.trendenterprises.com.  I laminate mine for durability.  Here's a picture from our pumpkin theme, they were measuring themselves.  This particular time they also had a sheet with blackline pumpkins along the one side with the same numbers and they drew themselves starting at how tall they were at the wall and working down to the number 1 pumpkin.  Then they had a fill in the blank sentence that they used our number stamps with "I am _____ pumpkins tall!"

Using inch worms that are actually an inch long works nicely to introduce actual rulers. You can put 12 inch worms along a ruler to show 12 inches.  I just google an image and make it an inch in my Print Shop, copy and paste a bunch, print on cardstock, laminate and cut out. Here is an example of one inch work you can find if you google it. He's a cute little bugger!

Another cute way to lead into actual rulers are to make nonstandard measurement rulers first by using craft sticks.  You can easily make it theme related by using foam shapes or stickers.  

The block is about 4 faces long.

I don't typically use yarn for measurement except for those circumference introductions (measuring around a pumpkin, for example) or if a child is interested in maps and scales and so on.  But here is an activity we did awhile back but plan to do here again soon.  You can get a lot out of this activity if you plan it just right.  :-)

Use a theme related object or have the children choose an object to measure.  Then cut off yarn strips that are longer, shorter, and approximately the same size.  Then together as a group sort them.  You can write the words with the children (teaching them print concepts), you can remind them about longer, shorter, and same by drawing corresponding lines under the words.  You can arrange it so that when you are done you can review, long-longer-longest, short-shorter-shortest, and equal.)  Also, one skill I look for is the ability for the children to look at a set of three and tell me that there are three there without counting them...so that is why I chose 3 yarn lengths for each category.  :-) 

Well, measurement is beyond just length, height and width but that is what we focus on the most.  We do cooking activities on occasion. Wanted to do a weekly one but it just doesn't seem like there is enough time in the days!  Weight and capacity is often through sensory exploration and as time goes on you'll know when to keep quiet and when you can slip in a question or statement to help scaffold their learning.  At the preschool level, time pretty much is about yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  When we do things (day/night), the order of the schedule-"We'll eat after centers." "Mom will be here after nap." and so on.  Money can be introduced but remember that Kindergarten teachers typically begin teaching about money and time the 2nd half of the year.  For example, Caleb is just now learning about money.  They really get into in 1st grade.  You can do simple coin recognition activities and do some counting with pennies (1s) and if you wish you can practice your skip counting (10s, 5s) with dimes and nickles.  in general, just have some plastic coins and money out for their dramatic play.  We also have a game called "ALLOWANCE" that is lovely for Aaron (7-8 years old) but Caleb does just fine with some help (5 years).  I do not recommend it for preschoolers.

As you can tell, I can go on and on but time doesn't allow.  So we'll let this be all for today!