Here is what One and Two will be doing today:
http://www.education.com/activity/article/write-letter-president-president-day/
and
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=2888
And for Three:
We'll look at pictures of the first presidents and then do this craft.
Presidential Wig (from www.everythingpreschool.com/themes/presidentsday/art.htm)
What You Need:
Paper Bags
Packing Peanuts or Cotton
Glue
What You Do:
Talk to your children about how the president's uses to wear white wigs then have them make a wig. They do this by simply cutting one side off of a small lunch bag and then gluing packing peanuts or cotton all over it. When it dries your children can look quite presidential!
Also from everything preschool:
Do You Know? (Sung To: "Mary Had a Little Lamb")
Do you know who's on the penny? On the penny? On the penny?
Do you know who's on the penny? Abraham Lincoln.
Do you know who's on the quarter? On the quarter? On the quarter?
Do you know who's on the quarter?George Washington.
Note: Continue with other coins if you wish
We'll also look at the presidents on the coins (talk about the names of the coins too) and do coin rubbings. We'll put the coins in order from smallest to largest.
We'll locate the capital on a map.
We'll talk about the story of George Washington and the cherry tree, and do a coloring page of that.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
The catch up picture post....
When I plugged my camera in, there were 179 photos. Yikes. That actually didn't include any of these. I'm a little behind. So this is the "catch up" post, which will probably come in 3 parts. This is "The Snowy Day" unit we did, with the exception of 3 pictures (2 of Two doing some neat projects I managed to work in in January) and the very last one that has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that my kids are awesome and love each other to pieces. :D
Two is making a cell model from play-doh.
And dove into them wet.
Two is making a cell model from play-doh.
This is instant mashed potato flakes. Three played in them dry (practicing the letter S.)
Then he added the water:
Did you know that if you lick things they will stick to marshmallows? Three built a marshmallow, chocolate chip snowman.
A project to go along with a quick lesson the printing press, I wrote out a code and Two had to use stampers to stamp out the hidden message.
Number matching game.
After gluing the snoman together, Three practiced writing the letter S.
He LOVED this game. This is the "It is Snowing..." song from the lesson plan for The Snowy Day. He asked to do it OVER AND OVER AND OVER. It was a HUGE hit. Here he is all dressed at the end of the song.
Three is making 3 different sized snowballs, to see which one will melt the fastest. We hypothesized about it, and Three's guess was the middle sized snowball.
Four playing with some of the snow.
A project to go along with a quick lesson the printing press, I wrote out a code and Two had to use stampers to stamp out the hidden message.
Number matching game.
After gluing the snoman together, Three practiced writing the letter S.
He LOVED this game. This is the "It is Snowing..." song from the lesson plan for The Snowy Day. He asked to do it OVER AND OVER AND OVER. It was a HUGE hit. Here he is all dressed at the end of the song.
Three is making 3 different sized snowballs, to see which one will melt the fastest. We hypothesized about it, and Three's guess was the middle sized snowball.
Maybe that was his guess because the sun was shining on it? LOL I actually moved them, so it wasn't the case.
Four playing with some of the snow.One made this super-hero costume for Three out of some fabric scraps. Cute, huh?
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
February Week 2
The Napping House is the book basis for this week's unit.
http://www.brighthub.com/education/early-childhood/articles/61207.aspx
http://www.kizclub.com/stories3.htm
Put the characters on index cards. Sequence the story using these cards—also use left to right progression. As a 2nd activity with the cards, have child arrange them from smallest to largest.
Make a rain stick. (music/art)
Paint a picture of your house. (art)
Build a house from paper bags. (Gross motor/problem solving)
“Ten in the Bed” song (Music)
Discuss all the different words for sleeping in this book. (Vocab)
After you've read the story once or twice, go back to the first illustration and ask your student if he can spy the other animals. They are there! It may take a little bit to find the mouse and flea, but they were in the room from the beginning of the nap.
Discuss: Nocturnal animals (science)
Life Skill: Making the bed.
N is for NAP!
Have pajama day! (Thanks to the flu, we've had lots of these!)
N is for Noodle--three glued colored noodles to a foam letter N
Other stories: Time for Bed; Goodnight Gorilla.
http://www.brighthub.com/education/early-childhood/articles/61207.aspx
http://www.kizclub.com/stories3.htm
Put the characters on index cards. Sequence the story using these cards—also use left to right progression. As a 2nd activity with the cards, have child arrange them from smallest to largest.
Make a rain stick. (music/art)
Paint a picture of your house. (art)
Build a house from paper bags. (Gross motor/problem solving)
“Ten in the Bed” song (Music)
Discuss all the different words for sleeping in this book. (Vocab)
After you've read the story once or twice, go back to the first illustration and ask your student if he can spy the other animals. They are there! It may take a little bit to find the mouse and flea, but they were in the room from the beginning of the nap.
Discuss: Nocturnal animals (science)
Life Skill: Making the bed.
N is for NAP!
Have pajama day! (Thanks to the flu, we've had lots of these!)
N is for Noodle--three glued colored noodles to a foam letter N
Other stories: Time for Bed; Goodnight Gorilla.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Valentines Craft Links (sharing a friends blog!)
My friend over at grahamcrackerbabykisses shared several Valentines Craft links on her blog, and I want to linky to that. :)
http://grahamcrackerbabykisses.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/craft-time-valentines-ideas/#comment-15
Our flu situation will determine how much fun stuff we can do this week leading up to V-day....the boys are on Tamiflu, so I'm hoping that will shorten/lighten their flu experience and allow them to still get to do some fun stuff.
Enjoy!
http://grahamcrackerbabykisses.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/craft-time-valentines-ideas/#comment-15
Our flu situation will determine how much fun stuff we can do this week leading up to V-day....the boys are on Tamiflu, so I'm hoping that will shorten/lighten their flu experience and allow them to still get to do some fun stuff.
Enjoy!
Slacker, that's me.
I've not been posting, because well, we haven't done much worthy of posting. We've veered from our lesson plans, and have only been squeezing in work book pages and unrelated crafts here and there. I've been focusing more on Three's social needs, by getting him out and about in group situations more often, but that leaves less time for "school." I am fine with that, as I did sporatic units with the girls until they were around 3rd grade level, and they have turned out just fine. We did a TON of social activities (lots of which were learning activities as well) when they were small, and that is an area that has been more difficult for me because of Four needing to nap. The girls were so close in age that their schedules were almost always exactly the same.
I do have another weekly plan to share, AND I have a ton of pictures to share, and I may get to those in the next couple days. Three and Four have the flu, I think hubby has the beginnings of it, Two went to bed last night complaining of the same symptoms One had in the beginning. It all started with One, 6 days ago, so she's on the good end of it now. This may give me extra napping time from the kiddo's and I may have a few extra minutes for blogger.....or not. We'll have to see how that plays out.
I do have another weekly plan to share, AND I have a ton of pictures to share, and I may get to those in the next couple days. Three and Four have the flu, I think hubby has the beginnings of it, Two went to bed last night complaining of the same symptoms One had in the beginning. It all started with One, 6 days ago, so she's on the good end of it now. This may give me extra napping time from the kiddo's and I may have a few extra minutes for blogger.....or not. We'll have to see how that plays out.
Monday, January 17, 2011
January Week 3
I'm so late in getting this up! However, this unit, doesn't take much prep. Tihs unit is built around the folk tale, Stone Soup. We did this unit last week, and will be doing The Mitten unit this week.
First things first, plan a playdate. Invite some friends and make your own Stone Soup following the outline in the story. We did this (and I totally forgot to take pictures.) Each child brought something to add to the soup, and they REALLY enjoyed the process. As I read the story, they came up and added the indredient they had brought. The kids were not fans of the soup, so as an add-on I'm going to have Three create a recipe for a soup that he thinks he actually WILL like.
We put up our map of the world, and identified where we are on the map in relation to where France is (the story originates in France.) We talked about the ocean between us. As a result, Three became super interested in the names of places on the map and can now identify 3 of the continents.
We talked about folk tales, and what that means. That the story did originate in truth, but the details have changed over years of it being retold.
Create a recipe: We'll look at recipes in cookbooks, and then talk about what kinds of things he'd like in our soup. Then we'll make a trip to the store and buy the items, and see if that soup is yummier. :)
Discuss where the vegetables in the story come from. Potatoes and Carrots come from the garden and they grow UNDER the ground. Cabbage also comes from the garden, but it grows in a head ON the ground. Barley grows in large fields (we actually sustituted orzo for barley.) Beef and milk both come from cows. Etc.
Print out pictures of different vegetables/fruits and have the child sort them based on where they grow (under ground, on the ground, on a tree, etc.)
This leads to a discussion about healthy eating...how many vegetables we need each day, and why.
Crafts:
Paint a stone! This was a hit at the playdate.
Cut out a large "iron pot" from paper. Cut out different food items from a grocery store circular. Have the child add ingredients to their soup pot.
We revisited the letter S, but didn't do any new crafts related to it. :(
First things first, plan a playdate. Invite some friends and make your own Stone Soup following the outline in the story. We did this (and I totally forgot to take pictures.) Each child brought something to add to the soup, and they REALLY enjoyed the process. As I read the story, they came up and added the indredient they had brought. The kids were not fans of the soup, so as an add-on I'm going to have Three create a recipe for a soup that he thinks he actually WILL like.
We put up our map of the world, and identified where we are on the map in relation to where France is (the story originates in France.) We talked about the ocean between us. As a result, Three became super interested in the names of places on the map and can now identify 3 of the continents.
We talked about folk tales, and what that means. That the story did originate in truth, but the details have changed over years of it being retold.
Create a recipe: We'll look at recipes in cookbooks, and then talk about what kinds of things he'd like in our soup. Then we'll make a trip to the store and buy the items, and see if that soup is yummier. :)
Discuss where the vegetables in the story come from. Potatoes and Carrots come from the garden and they grow UNDER the ground. Cabbage also comes from the garden, but it grows in a head ON the ground. Barley grows in large fields (we actually sustituted orzo for barley.) Beef and milk both come from cows. Etc.
Print out pictures of different vegetables/fruits and have the child sort them based on where they grow (under ground, on the ground, on a tree, etc.)
This leads to a discussion about healthy eating...how many vegetables we need each day, and why.
Crafts:
Paint a stone! This was a hit at the playdate.
Cut out a large "iron pot" from paper. Cut out different food items from a grocery store circular. Have the child add ingredients to their soup pot.
We revisited the letter S, but didn't do any new crafts related to it. :(
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
January Week 2
Read “The Mitten”
Play “mitten match” with all the mittens in your home. There are 6 of us, so we have LOTS. If you don’t have many (or any) mittens you could always create them from paper—plain construction paper or patterned scrapbook type paper.
Discuss what a “pair” is.
Arrange the mittens by size (Four’s mittens are smallest, Daddy’s mittens are the biggest. Etc.)
Look at pictures of the animals in the book. Discuss whether or not those animals could really fit in a mitten.
Sequencing: print/cut out pictures of the animals from the story; cut out a large mitten shape from poster board. Add the animals to the mitten in the order of the story. This would be a great felt board activity as well. Also, good for a discussion of ordinal numbers: The mouse is FIRST, the fox is SECOND, etc.
Place a small object into an adult sized mitten. Have child feel it from the outside and try to guess what it is.
Fingerpaint with mitten on! Luckily, we have a few mismatched mittens around that we will use for this, but if you aren’t that lucky…use washable paint and you’ll be fine!
This rhyme, with matching colored mitten cut-outs is mostly for Four (since Three has known his colors for what seems like forever) but knowing Three, after Four does it he’ll want to do it as well.
My poor little kitten lost her mitten
And started to cry, boo-hoo.
So I helped my kitten to look for her mitten.
Her beautiful mitten of BLUE.
I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Under my mother’s bed.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored RED.
I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Under my father’s pillow.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored YELLOW.
I found a mitten just right for a kitten
On the hand of my brother’s toy clown.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored BROWN.
I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Under the laundry so clean.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored GREEN.
I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Inside a grocery bag.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored BLACK.
I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Under the kitchen sink.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored PINK.
I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Inside my favorite shoe.
And this time the mitten was just the right mitten,
For it was colored BLUE!
Read “The Three Little Kittens”
Discuss Rhyming words (kitten, mitten) and make a self correcting game.
Pictures of rhyming words, different colors on the back so that the child can check it themselves.
Discuss animals in winter (check out books from the library on this subject) and some of the modifications these animals have to help them when it’s cold. Discuss hibernation, and build an indoor “bear cave” to hibernate in.
Read “Bear Stays Up.”
Play in “snow” with polar animals (Arctic Animals Toob). The snow will be shaving cream, that I may add glitter into. Three LOVES to play with shaving cream, so I’m 100% sure this will be a HUGE hit.
Practice drawing the letters of Three’s name in the “snow” as well.
Make play dough snowmen. I’m going to use homemade play dough, since it’s seems to be softer. Three is still really working on building up those muscles.
Giving credit where credit is due, a lot of these SUPER ideas came from a unit prepared by someone else--I've only highlighted here the ideas I think MY kids will like, you should check ou the source: http://momofmonkeys.wordpress.com/kindergarten-curriculum/unit-on-the-mitten-by-jan-brett/
Play “mitten match” with all the mittens in your home. There are 6 of us, so we have LOTS. If you don’t have many (or any) mittens you could always create them from paper—plain construction paper or patterned scrapbook type paper.
Discuss what a “pair” is.
Arrange the mittens by size (Four’s mittens are smallest, Daddy’s mittens are the biggest. Etc.)
Look at pictures of the animals in the book. Discuss whether or not those animals could really fit in a mitten.
Sequencing: print/cut out pictures of the animals from the story; cut out a large mitten shape from poster board. Add the animals to the mitten in the order of the story. This would be a great felt board activity as well. Also, good for a discussion of ordinal numbers: The mouse is FIRST, the fox is SECOND, etc.
Place a small object into an adult sized mitten. Have child feel it from the outside and try to guess what it is.
Fingerpaint with mitten on! Luckily, we have a few mismatched mittens around that we will use for this, but if you aren’t that lucky…use washable paint and you’ll be fine!
This rhyme, with matching colored mitten cut-outs is mostly for Four (since Three has known his colors for what seems like forever) but knowing Three, after Four does it he’ll want to do it as well.
My poor little kitten lost her mitten
And started to cry, boo-hoo.
So I helped my kitten to look for her mitten.
Her beautiful mitten of BLUE.
I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Under my mother’s bed.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored RED.
I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Under my father’s pillow.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored YELLOW.
I found a mitten just right for a kitten
On the hand of my brother’s toy clown.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored BROWN.
I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Under the laundry so clean.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored GREEN.
I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Inside a grocery bag.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored BLACK.
I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Under the kitchen sink.
But, alas, the mitten was not the right mitten,
For it was colored PINK.
I found a mitten just right for a kitten
Inside my favorite shoe.
And this time the mitten was just the right mitten,
For it was colored BLUE!
Read “The Three Little Kittens”
Discuss Rhyming words (kitten, mitten) and make a self correcting game.
Pictures of rhyming words, different colors on the back so that the child can check it themselves.
Discuss animals in winter (check out books from the library on this subject) and some of the modifications these animals have to help them when it’s cold. Discuss hibernation, and build an indoor “bear cave” to hibernate in.
Read “Bear Stays Up.”
Play in “snow” with polar animals (Arctic Animals Toob). The snow will be shaving cream, that I may add glitter into. Three LOVES to play with shaving cream, so I’m 100% sure this will be a HUGE hit.
Practice drawing the letters of Three’s name in the “snow” as well.
Make play dough snowmen. I’m going to use homemade play dough, since it’s seems to be softer. Three is still really working on building up those muscles.
Giving credit where credit is due, a lot of these SUPER ideas came from a unit prepared by someone else--I've only highlighted here the ideas I think MY kids will like, you should check ou the source: http://momofmonkeys.wordpress.com/kindergarten-curriculum/unit-on-the-mitten-by-jan-brett/
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