Wednesday September 28th Review and Boats, Boats, Boats

You children have amazing memories.  They reviewed all the songs we have learned this month.  I am sure they sing them at home, because they did great.

We learned the names of the 3 ships that Columbus sailed to America.  Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria.

A wet fun activity was playing with boats in the water.  They experienced shapes, colors, and the theme of boats.

They explored our weekly theme in books and pictures. 

We pulled out some exploration activities from the different weekly themes this month.  It was great to see them exploring some of the themes from week 1 Caterpillars and to see how much  they remembered.

In Arts and Crafts we made Tear Art Sailing Scenes.  I forgot how hard it is for little fingers to tear.  This was a great skill for them to practice.

We get better and better at raising hands and taking turns talking each day.  So much excitement.

Did someone call my name?

I am always so happy

Taking Turns

Big Beautiful Eyes

Showing off my nose

Bowl of Butterflies

Flicking Water off her hands

Columbus sailed over the ocean

I spy Butterflies, Bugs, and Shells, what else can I add?

Look how big the dragonfly is

Little girls love bugs too!!!!

Monday September 26th Christopher Columbus

This week we are exploring Christopher Columbus.  Next month we will celebrate Columbus Day on October 10th.  We are also reviewing all the letters, numbers, shapes and colors that we have learned this month. 

We talked about Columbus navigating a boat through the ocean.  We played a game with directions.  We played North, South, East and West.  They had to choose a direction and number and take that many steps toward that coordinate.  Eventually they all ended up at West.  It was a fun game.

We are working on a song:

Columbus sailed over the ocean
Columbus Sailed over the sea
Columbus discovered America
The home  of you and me!

Nina, Pinta,
The Santa Maria, too,
They all sailed
Over the Ocean blue

It is sung to the tune of "My Bonnie Sailed Over the Ocean"


Spyglass Telescopes were made today.  We used these in free play with maps and boats.


They were all so excited today.  They were talking and playing and it got a little loud and they all recognized that it was loud.  It was the perfect opportunity to introduce our life skills on raising hands and waiting our turn to talk.  We had a great discussion about no one being able to hear when everyone is talking all at once.  I am optimistic for the rest of the week.

Friday September 23rd Little Miss Muffet, Spiders and the Letter "N"

Little Miss Muffet was the Nursery Rhyme we explored today.  After reciting it a few times we did role playing with 2 kids at a time.  They took turns being the spider and Little Miss Muffett.  Ask them which part was their favorite to act out.

We also did the Box of Sounds.  Ask them which item they pulled out of the box that represented the letter N.  nickely, nylon, nuts, notebook, nail, nest , newspaper, etc.

Spiders, not my favorite, but we had fun with them today.  They sorted, played with, and put into patterns orange, black and pink spiders.


Art and Crafts we make hanging spiders.  I hope they were still playing with them when they came home, they had a blast walking their spiders.

I was hesitant to show the spider video but they loved it.  The kids asked to watch it 3 times.  Check it out on this link....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCO56iyBXtU

We read a fun Count along book with Little Miss Muffet.  1-10 friends that came to her Birthday Party.

Scary Spiders on our Fingers

I love Shapes

Walking the Spiders

So Proud of my Spider

Writing Practie

See my spider mom.....

See what I can make with shapes

Humpty Dumpty Sat on the Wall Activity

This weeks Life Skills are wonderful.  I have seen a huge improvement in their understanding of sharing with each other.

Nursery Rhymes are so Exciting

Today we introduced Noah the Newt.  I am sure you saw the cute colored pages and they have been singing it all afternoon.  We watched a quick video to introduce Newt's.  This is a different name for a lizard and many of them did not know what it was.  You can catch the video on YouTube...see the link below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqqhChLGSCU



For our Fine Motor Skills we took an egg carton, turned it upside down and tried to balance plastic eggs and little soldiers.  We talked about Humpty Dumpty today.

We sorted and did patterns with colored spiders and learned about Little Miss Muffet.

They explored all of the Nursery Rhyme Books that we have this week with each other, it was great to practice our Life Skills this week on sharing.

Ask your child which prop they held as we learned the rhyme Little Boy Blue. 

I found out that the children are good with shapes and tangrams.  Ask your kids about what shapes are in the Little Boy Blue Tangram.

Lastly,  we worked with our Life Skills this week on sharing.  They learned a song to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and replaced the words with...

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You Very Much


Thank You, Thank You, Thank You Very Much

We passed toys around a circle while we sang.  Can't wait for Friday.  See you then!

"N"ursery Rhymes, Jack and Jill, and A Well

This week we are exploring the Letter N, by learning about Nursery Rhymes.

We practiced writing "N" several times.

Today was beautiful outside.  It was a great day for a relay race.  Ask your kids about a well and what it is used for.  They experienced what it would be like to have to go and get water from a well.  We did a relay race game.  From a large pot labeled "well", they scooped water with their pails and had to fill their teams bucket.  It was really fun to see them go from walking slowly with water in their pails to running to fill their  bucket first.

Ask them if they would rather get water from a well or your faucet?

We learned a fun rhyme using finger play.  See below their thumbs with stickers representing Jack and Jill.  See if they can remember what to do with their thumbs?   It was fun to learn the second verse of this  rhyme along with the kids.

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down and broke his crown
and Jill came tumbling after.

Then up got Jack and said to Jill
As in his arms he took her:
Brush off that dirt for you're not hurt
Let's fetch that pail of water

So Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch the pail of water
And took it home to Mother dear,
Who thanked her son and daughter

I loved the colors of all the pails that they painted today.  It is so much fun to see their creativity.

Snacks were Nuts, grapes and milk.

We read an altered version of Jack and Jill.  Ask your children what Jack and Jill found in the well.

This week in Life Skills we are learning the importance of sharing.  Ask the kids about the puppet show.

 

Exploring Mother Goose

The Three Little Kittens

Silly Mother Hubbard

Move Over Mother Goose

L Sound Box, Pigs at the Luau, and Limbo

Ladders, Lamps, Logs, Leafs, Lizards, Lobsters, and Lamb's.  Ask your child about the Letter L Book we read.  They had fun finding the pictures that start with the lllll sound.

During Activity Time they rotated to which ever center they wanted to explore.  We had a Hula Center, Drawing the letter "L", an ocean bottle, reading center and examining shells with magnifying glasses.  These are some activites that we have done earlier in the week.  They now had the chance to go back and spend more on their favorite activity.  

You should have seen the handsome pigs that they put together.  We talked about roasting pigs at Luau's.  The kids also explored the different shapes that made up the eyes, snout, ears, and mouth.  

With maracas we learned the song:  To Market To Market

Snack time was healthy, but we also snuck in a few fun letter L treats.  We had raisins, milk and fish crackers, along with a stick of licorice and 1 lifesaver.  

The highlight of the day was most definitely durning Discovery Time when they learned to do the LIMBO.....  watch the video below

 

Lions, Leis, Animals who wear Hula Skirts, and Following Rules

What a fun day today.  So much fun, that we forgot to take pictures  :(

Ask about our Alpha Pet for this week.  We love Larry the Lion.  The kids are wonderful singers.

We pulled out the magnifying glasses and explored Sea Shells today.  Little minds are so inquisitive.  They saw the most amazing things on the seas shells.  Ask them which shells were their favorite, and what colors and shapes they found. 

They also got to explore writing the letter L with their buddies.  A fun question to ask would be,  "What did they erase their letters with?"  They got a kick out of it.  We use dry erase markers when drawing. They are also learning to take turns, share and asking please. 

How did their Crepe Paper Hula Skirts do?  We did a lot of hula dancing today.

We explored many different tastes today.  Sweet... Lemon Heads and Sour.... Lemons and then they had graham crackers and milk.

Today we laughed while we read about animals who wore hula skirts,  and ate chocolate chip cookies, porcupines that ate a pie ( ask if they remember what kind of pie), and animals that live in pink hotels.  Quiz them to see if they remember.

During our Life Skills time we played Red Light, Green light.  We talked about how rules keep us safe and happy.  I asked the children how they feel when they follow rules and how they feel when they don't.  Some of the children said happy, and some said sad, but one funny comment was that they feel like time out. 

Aloha

"L" is for Luau, Leis, Lemonade and Lots of Love

Monday starts another great week.  We are working on Letter "L" this week.  We are learning our "L" Letter song so that we can practice and learn how to draw our letters.

Ask your kiddos what Aloha means and what kind of good foods grow in Hawaii on the trees.

We sang the song "I'm a little Hawaiian child", to the tune of I'm a little tea pot.  We did hula dancing, swimming, diving, climbing coconut trees, and saying Aloha.  (hello and goodbye)

For Arts and Crafts your children learned to make leis.  They colored beautiful flowers and strung, straws, ribbons and flowers on their necklaces.

We read books to each other about Hawaii and watched some fun videos about hula dancing and fire dancing.  Go ahead and check out the links below and asked your child which dance was their favorite.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkYYjiOQoNw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceMDzzfT_qQ

Letter "L''  from pretzel sticks, say cheese!

Big Letter "L", I can do it too.

Letter L, holding steady

Dressing our Fabulous Frog

We are also learning about following rules and why it is important.  We will be doing puppet shows this week to tell stories about following rules.

Another great day at "Here We Grow"

Cantaloupe is Fantastic!!!

Insects are So Cool!!!!!!!

Mom,  I love this Leaf Hopper!

"C" is for Caterpillar

My Friends

Preschoolers in Action

We have just finished our 1st Week at Preschool.  Your little ones learned  letter "C", all about Caterpillars, Circles, the color Blue, Caleb the Cat, and most importantly, each others names.

Ask you children to teach you about the life cycle of Butterflies.  We had fun imitating this life cycle with blankets as their cocoon or chrysalis.  They were very energetic and wanted to repeat the cycle several times. 

We read several books about caterpillars and butterflies.  My favorite was the Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.    Ask them which one was their favorite. 

They brought home their very first art projects.  They were so proud of their new painting, coloring and cutting skills.  Ask them to tell you about their art. 

We have a large caterpillar in the preschool room that they built.  We did number sequencing 1-10, the circle shapes of the caterpillars body and then we hung it on the wall. 

Cantaloupe and Dried Cherries were the most  popular snack this week.

Have them tell you also about the puppets shows, and why it is important to learn other peoples names. 

Your children brought home 2 of the songs we learned this week.  Caleb the Cat and Letter C.

and lastly, you should have received a Calendar for the year.  If it did not make home, please let me know and I can either email it to you or send another one home.