B is for...

B is for bus!

We did several bus related activities today.  One of the first things we did was "switch up" story time.  I have already used the felt board multiple times to tell stories and so today I put up felt board "Wheels on the Bus" kit (www.discountschoolsupply.com) and at story time said, "Today, you tell me a story."  Of course, since preschool children are still relatively concrete thinkers and look around, and then make up their story with whatever they see right in front of them...the story was about the bus.  :-)  'Twas fun and when they get stuck on what to say next there are always lovely open ended questions to help extend it.

B is for Bubble Wrap!

Who doesn't love bubble wrap?  I love it!  Found 2 long pieces in my sensory tub clean out last week and thought...hmmm!  B is for bubbles!  So...one strip we put out in the living room for stomping and running on.  The other we added yellow-lemony smelling dish soap and yellow paint for a sensory/art activity.

Adding soap to the paint (even if it is washable) makes it a little more bubbly and easier to smooth over the bubblewrap...it smelled good too!  We painted the whole strip and then laid a big piece of paper across.  She enjoyed the patting the paper process since it was soft/padded and then you could see the circles that the bubble wrap made on the back of the paper.  We then worked together to put it up on the wall to dry.  Didn't take long...nice thing about bubble wrap printing.  I trimmed around to make a simple bus shape and she added wheels, windows and door!  Ta-Da... B is for bubble bus!  :-)

Highway Shapes

www.makinglearningfun.com

Cute little shapes made like a road.  They also have the alphabet and numbers!  I can see these being used frequently in the near future.  I know I've often used cars with letters and have them make car noises (letter sounds) as they drove on that particular letter.

School Bus and Students Rhyming

www.kidssoup.com

A nice variety of rhyming pairs...some familiar, many not!  Usually K. will just randomly pick a picture and randomly try to pick its match from the selection and often keep trying the same picture repeatedly but missing others (which usually ends up being the rhyming pair!) So today we learned how to go about it in an organzied way.  Laying out the buses, leaving spaces, laying out the students in a row.  She then chose a student and said it's object word, then started from the left top hand bus working her way down the column and then from left to right until she found it's pair.  She completed the task a lot quicker that way!  Just a little bit of individualization as she has a pretty decent grasp on rhyming and is much more successful in tasks when they are organized.  Teaching good organizational habits now will help when a child starts formal education.  That's one thing I really like about Montessori.  Very much into order and organization!

Paper Shape Exploration

I had cut the shapes in accordance the a directional art activity from

www.makinglearningfun.com.

I tend to do these a little differently than most teachers that are doing directional art.   I think activities like this do have their place every once in awhile...but I definitely don't consider it 'art'!  :-)  We always do something in addition to activities like these that are more open-ended.  These are great fine motor activities, especially if you have tracers and scissors involved!  How I do these is I'll make one together with the children...encouraging them to talk me through it...so it looks relatively like the what the "realistic" end product would be.  Then, I put mine away.  I do not hang it up or show it to them again.  I put it away so they can't see it and then I give them the same shapes I had, usually with extras and let them create with them as they would like.  They never end up the same!  Love that!  With this particular bus...I loved that sop (repeatedly) on the stop sign!  Not sure if you can see that in the picture.  And there are people in the windows!

Probability!

Yes, we introduced the word but I don't expect preschool children to tell me what it truly is.  But we do explore with this kind of thing because then the foundation is being set and brain connections are being made and when they touch on it at school, they'll have an easier time grasping the concept.

Don't you love her expression...obviously she was asking a question! 

I had purchased lima beans for an alphabet activity, which unsurprisingly I hadn't gotten to yet.  Then I thought...hmmm, why can't I turn them into little people for our bus!  So, here is what we ended up with.  Six lima beans with a curly haired person on one side and a straight haired person on the other.  She first put the numbers 0-6 in a line, numerical order.  This is so that she had a visual for writing her numerals.  She shook the beans and dumped them out.  Then put the curly haired ones in the first windows and the straight haired ones in the last windows.  Then she counted them, putting the appropriate number above them and then decided whether they were equal of if she needed to use the alligator mouth to eat the ones with the most (more/less).  Then she recorded her information.  She did get duplicates!   This would be great for working with the number 6 and addition fact family!  She wanted to take this activity home so we packed it up.  I can make another one pretty easily.  The pattern was just a bus I had from a Mailbox publication.  Simple enough to create on your own and you can add as many windows as you want!

All for now.  The next few weeks will be relatively busy so...blogging might be sporatic.  Though on the other hand, it's a stress reliever so...maybe not!  LOL

P is for...

P is for Panda!

This was our scissors activity today...a simple circle, craft foam panda. 

Craft foam is an awesome media for preschoolers to explore cutting with!  I like to cut strips of "leftover" craft foam for my toddlers for snip cutting.  They love it...and it's a lot easier than paper.  This activity is not an art project.  Though there is room for some creativity since they really could have glued their pieces anywhere they wanted, and obviously these two have differences...just not enough for me to consider it as an art project.  There really is a "preconceived ending" to this project. I set the whole container of pom poms out...I expected the biggest ones to be put on the pandas face but...both children chose size 'appropiate' pom poms.   The other thing I noticed, and chuckled over, is the mouth on the right panda.  She's a little older and so I showed her on scrap paper how some mouths of bears, dogs, cats and such are portrayed with the Js.  She decided that yes, she wanted that and drew it and then finished gluing on her nose and ears and was looking at her panda and then picked up her marker and closed the mouth to make it look more like a typical drawing of a mouth.  Love it! 

Now...the pictures displayed above the foam pandas.  These pics were just googled and they'll be discarded after a bit.  But I tried something "new"and I just posted those pictures up around a large piece of construction paper.  Then I provided, black, white, brown and green paint and paint brushes.  But...I did not suggest a painting of a panda.  With my older student, who is moving write along into drawing recognizable objects, I often suggest she start with a theme related painting and then get a new sheet for exploration and she always enjoys doing that.  The children know they can ask for any color paper after the first one is done, and make as many paintings as they wish.  Small groups allow for a little more freedom in that regard.  My own wish is that I could have it available all times of the day...but, that wouldn't be wise on my part because of the mixed age group and the home-based environment.  Anyway...I had painting explorations all over my walls, and my 8 year old started painting when he got home also...so here are three of the pieces of art work.

older------4 years old------younger

Always important to remember that between 3 and 5 there is a big difference in development.  Just seeing the difference between an older 4 year old and a younger one is amazing!  One thing that put a big smile on my face was that K. (left pic) picked up the crayons on her own and wrote "I love (a heart) pendiz (pandas)."  She's beginning to really explore with the sounds the letters make and try to write that word/sentence on her paper without me encouraging her to do so.  Yeah!!!

And the 8 year old's after-school work.  He enjoyed the pictures around the paper also.  I heard a lot of talk about what they saw in the pictures.  It's something I did with my school-agers that I might be more consistent of doing with my preschoolers.   I tried to get a variety of them.  This particular painting caused a conversation between him and his 6 year old brother who told him that pandas don't climb up in trees.  Which leads us to some facts I shared throughout our morning...

1) Even though pandas are in the same meat eating family as the polar bears and grizzlies (the big word...and please use them...is carnivore), pandas very seldom eat meat.  Instead, almost all of their diet is vegetation-mostly bamboo.

2)  Pandas actually do most of the wandering/movement at night.  (The big word is...nocturnal).  Their pupils are more like cat's and can see better at night than other bears who have round pupils.

3)  Pandas are really good climbers and in their natural habitat (the big word :-)), there are a lot of mountains and trees.  And because they are such good climbers, they make their homes out of trees or in rocks instead of having a den like other bears.

4)  Pandas make noises (the big word is vocalize) like a dog!  They also, squeal and honk.

5)  Even though Pandas are really big...their babies are the smallest mammals (big word) born and they are helpless... they are almost all pink and with no fur and they are blind.

We had black and white beans in the sensory pool...can you guess why?  :-)  I love this picture!  It takes children awhile but they get accustomed to me snapping pictures and so very seldom "pose" anymore.  Love it!  She did this process over and over.  So, of course, I had to slip in a "Tell me about that." comment.  She would put the cardboard tube over top of the blue plastic tube.  Then she'd use a scoop to fill the cardboard tube to the top and then she'd quickly pull it off and lo and behold, the blue tube would stand up in the beans and be full up to the top!  Excitement!  One of the other activities that she did was to fill the various types of containers (I put contains with lids this time) with beans and shake them to hear the difference.  :-)

P is for Pop Rocks!  :-P

Okay, nothing to do with anything other than I was walking through the aisles of a dollar store (never know what you might be able to use) and lo and behold these packages of pop rocks "popped" out at me.  LOL

Ha!  What fun!  Anyway, one child didn't really care for that sensation so we added water to the rest of the pop rocks in his bowl and they popped for almost a minute! 

We had fun this week.  Next week we move onto B and we'll continue with bears on Monday. 

P is for...

P is for Pumpkin!

A few more pumpkin activities.

Check out http://www.teachpreschool.org/ for great pumpkin ideas!

Cleaning out the pumpkin!  Ew!  Slimy! 

I'm experimenting with coloring the pumpkin seeds.  I'll let you know how it goes!

Penny Pumpkin Rubbings

Pumpkin Hands-On Math Chart

One can usually find erasers in 'large' quantities on clearance after holidays.  They can be used for various activities!  These erasers were from Target, after Halloween, 75 ct for less than a dollar.  Laminating the "bulletin board" decorations allow them to be used over and over in activities as you can use dry erase marker on them.  I like to use those little pumpkins to put up on a wall (in numerical order, 1 at the bottom at floor level-I'm pretty sure there is a picture in one of the past postings) so they can explore with nonstandard measurement of themselves and objects.

Pumpkin Patch Alphabet Match

http://www.childcareland.com/

K.'s quite capable of matching quite a few of the letters, however, this was a very busy "mat", since typically I break the upper-lower case letter matching activities into several sessions so "we" don't get tired of the activity.  But after she got some encouragement...she did well!

Playdough out again.  :-)  Have to take advantage of that lovely textured playdough!

1 C. flour

1/2 C. salt

1 tsp. oil

2 tsp. cream of tartar

1 C. water

Kool-Aid packet in chosen color/scent

Mix together and cook on medium-low heat, stirring constantly until dough begins to form a ball and comes off the sides of the pan.  Knead a bit as it cools.  Store in air tight container or wrap in plastic wrap.

P is for...

P is for Pumpkin!

 

Pumpkin Life Cycle

Since I have had some children for multiple years in a row I try not to repeat "projects".  Each year I do try to do a pumpkin life cycle and this year I was trying to find something a little different.  Then I came across this activity at http://mymontessorijourney.typepad.com/. 

Visual Discrimination File Folder Activity.

I find that these are awesome activities for toddlers and younger preschoolers.  I don't use them quite so much with my older students unless there are a mixed age group. 

Monthly name writing and self-portrait sheet.  These are great to keep together until the end of the year to see the development from Sept. to May!

Ha!  First pic, obviously the child before hid them really good!  I see only the one in her hand! 1:1 and counting to 10 or 20 and, of course, free exploration with sensory material.  Peek preview to a new bean mixture (15 different types).  I wanted to see how they reacted to it and then I'll put it away until our B week.  Those little plastic pumpkins are so versatile!  :-)

Numerical order and counting with meaning.  I did include a number line since numerical order is not mastered by any of the preschool children yet.  We went up to 3 for the toddler,  5 for the younger preschooler and 10 for the older preschooler.  As you can see in the second picture, I simple cut pieces of masking tape and wrote the numeral and the numeral word.

Fresh playdough that actually turned out to be a perfect texture (been awhile!) made for some lovely P's, pumpkin patches, and birthday cakes!

I've done this in the past but hadn't had a whole lot of success after cutting out whatever shape we had planned on...so after TeachPreschool mentioned it a couple times I decided to try it again.  :-)  It's a "fingerpaint" mixture made up of glue and paint.  We made a letter D last week and this week we are making pumpkins.  The more "symmetrical" pumpkin is T.'s-2 years old.  Obviously, I helped him.  But....this was the first time he let me "help" him in anything that caused a "mess" on his hands.  He does NOT like it.  Today, I "helped" with one hand to go around and around after he used the glue spreader a bit and then he looked at his painted hand and then at his other hand and plopped his clean hand into the glue/paint mixture!  Progress! 

And, of course, we must do some writing on a pumpkin during our pumpkin theme!

P is for...

P is for Pooh!

Winnie the Pooh's A-Z by Don Ferguson

I love this book (and most children do also)! I decided that today we were going to go through each letter in the book and do a related activity.  Because of time, we put a couple letters together and did some during free play and outdoor time. 

24 piece puzzle done all by herself!

 FYI:  I would not plan a morning like this for a large group of preschoolers, actually I wouldn't plan all these activities for a morning session for a small group of preschoolers! :-P  Today I knew I would only have 1 preschool aged child here this morning (almost more like homeschooling-except not my own child!) and I know this gal well, and knew we could get through it with very few issues and so we started with the thought in mind that if it gets too much we'll stop and do the other activities in the afternoon or another day.  But, we got through all but one "extra" task.  Busy morning!

A is for Acorn.

We used acorns to practice the concept of odd and even.  I liked this little sheet as the numbers on the acorns were out of order so it helped with number recognition.  She counted out the corresponding number of acorns and buddied them up to see if there was an "odd one out".  We also formed the letter P for Pooh out of the acorns.

B is for Bears.   After looking at several pictures of various types of bears and talking about how they sound we came back to "Pooh bear being the humming sort" and did a simple listening activity where I hummed a specific pattern and they repeated it back to me.  At first she was saying "I can't" laughing every time I hummed something.  She eventually got it and then did some humming patterns for me to copy.  We ended with humming the Winnie the Pooh song. 

C is for Carrots and R is for Rabbits.

We hopped a rabbit (sticker) down the number line counting by 1s and 2s and put the rabbit cups in count by 2s order.  Then tweezers (fine motor) were used to put the corresponding number of carrots in the first, middle, and last cups.

D is for Door and P is for Piglet and T is for Tigger.

We did a simple patterning activity where she created a pattern using Tigger and Piglet stamps behind the doors.  She also, on her own, stamped a pooh on each door (1:1 correspondence), counted how many doors there were and told me 6 was even.  :-)  The different colored pom pom door knobs were intentional.  I used colors that she doesn't always state the name correctly and I also added a light and dark blue pom pom since we have talked about shades. 

E is for Eeyore:  I found it difficult to come up with a specific activity for Eeyore.  We talked a bit about the personalities of each of the characters and I provided some bookmarks to be cut out and written on to give to friends/family.

  You can get the bookmarks from http://www.familyshoppingbag.com/.

F is for Footprints.

I've had a book called Who Made These Tracks that I got at a Scholastic fair awhile back that we've never used.  So I pulled it out for today. First we looked at bear tracks and then we went through some of the other pictures.  Something that is neat about this book is that it shows the tracks in "raised print" and picture clues to go with the written clues about what the animal is.  Then the back side of that page is a real life picture of the animal.

G is for Gopher.

Our friend gopher came to tell Pooh Hello!  A bit of pencil control practice.  Clip art came from http://www.disneyclipart.com/.  So many cute pictures of Pooh Bear!  In any of our projects today that included Winnie the Pooh clipart, it came from the site, www.disneyclipart.com.

H is for Honey and N is for Nose.

Decided to do a Five Senses Study of honey.  These simple studies are always a great way to review our five senses, practice verbal language/description vocabulary, and reinforce literacy concepts.

This is the little song we often sing when our 5 senses come up.  Easy to memorize!

I is for Ice.

Normally I would make "ice pops" for an activity like this but ran out of time so we just used normal icecubes and a pair of gloves to skate across the paper that was previously sprinkled with powdered tempera paint.  She definitely enjoyed this!  She knew that red and yellow makes orange but she kept getting a red paint (because she put a bunch more red than yellow on the paper).  I loved hearing her talk it out!  She experimented with the powdered paint and eventually got a nice orange color.  We'll probably turn it into a pumpkin this week. 

J is for Jump.  Well, we did plan to jump rope outside like Kanga and Roo but...we got sidetracked with some sandbox play (a toad appeared) so we just did some jumping back into the house.  :-)

K is for Kite.

Our regular kite just doesn't work out well with children under school-age so we did the ol' plastic bag kites.  :-)  They always like these.  Just a reminder to make sure you supervise and put the bags/string up out of reach when no longer using.

L is for Ladder.

Had the child cut out tree trunk and top and create a ladder.  Then we reviewed short vowel sound /p/ cvc words---pup, pan, pig, pen, pot.  Love how she turned it into an apple tree!

M is for Mirror, V is for Vest, and Y is Yawn.

Always am looking for a good idea to pull out our tabletop mirror.  :-)  We made many faces and talked about different feelings and the idea of nonverbal communication.  We also did a very simple drawing/dictation page.  On the Y page in our book it stated "Y is for yawn...A yawn is what your face does to say it's time for bed."  So our dictation fill in the blank sentences read, "A smile is what your face does to say (I love you)."  "A frown is what your face does to say (I'm sad)."  Note:  V is for vest...we have had a dress up station out these past couple of weeks and lo and behold there are 4 vests to choose from.  :-)  So she chose a vest and wore it like "an all day hug" for most of the activities.

O is for Owl.

This paper carft came from http://www.spartypantsfun.com/.  I used it to incorporate a bit more dictation.  We talked about how Pooh Bear's friend Owl is sometimes called the "wise old owl" and we talked about what wise meant.  So in the tree tops are dictation of what wise things the owl may be saying.

Q is for Quilt and Z is for Zzzzz

Made a simple felt quilt to go over Pooh bear who was getting some Zzzzz's!

S is for See Saw:  This was a new vocab for her...that a see saw is like a teeter totter.  So we made sure that we got some see saw play in this afternoon.

U is for Umbrella.

Well, Pooh went floating in his umbrella boat so we did a couple activities.  First a simple word family sort file folder game that I used with my kids when they were her age.  And then we also chose some containers to use like boats and explored with putting bears inside of the boats.   We found out that they would hold a LOT of bears before they started sinking!

W is for Woozles

For our book journal, I mentioned the reminder about woozles were part of Pooh Bear's dreams.  And, "What is something that you dream about?"  Sure glad I didn't ask her to draw a "scary" dream after she drew a picture of "you and me working"!  LOL

X is for Xylophone.

Did I ever mention that I don't like it when books and activities use xylophone as a word to represent X?  :-D Anyway, I pulled out of xylophone with our number stickers on it for during free play.  We talked high/low and a scale.

Sure was a busy morning...I'm ready for a few Zzzz's myself!  But it was fun and worth it all.  Tomorrow will go a 'little' slower.  :-)