Lucky Charms and the Letter "I"

"I" is a harder letter to teach children. There are not a lot of "I" sounding words. I went with the word "in" we put a picture of "inch", "insect", "ice", and "itch" Into a pocket. Then we sang the "Itching"song and the "In and out of the window" song. A lot of silly movement!

We had fun exploring what was a lucky charm. We talked about St. Patricks Day! What a lot of Lucky Charms there are with St. Patricks Day like, 4 leaf clovers or shamrocks, Leprechauns, Rainbows and Pots of Gold. We read the story, "Jack and the Leprechaun", by Ivan Robertson about the luck you receive if you catch a leprechaun. I showed a few other lucky charms, such as a rabbit's foot, and a horse shoe. Best of all was bringing out the "Lucky Charms" cereal, and sorting the marshmallow charms and eating them. We used our fingers in finger paint to make a "Field O' Shamrock" picture. For snack we ate green pudding, and everyone ended up Lucky, because each of us found a gold coin in our pudding! What a Lucky Day!

In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb! Letter "H"

Today we Change our preschool tree from Hearts to Shamrocks. We talked about the new month. We talked about March and how spring is almost here! The Color green is a popular color during the month of March because of St. Patricks Day. Then we learned that during the month of March there can be funny weather. One day it can be nice and warm and then the next day it can rain, be windy and maybe even snow. I explained the temperments of a lamb and lion is a lot like the weather. We read the book, "Sheep in a Jeep", by Nancy Shaw and Looked at some pictures of lions. Then we played a fun game pretending to be lions and lambs. Don't be surprised if your child starts recognizing each day a "lamb" or "lion" day. For a fun craft we traced our hands, one on black paper and one on yellow. After I cut them out, we glued cotton balls onto the black hand to make sheep. Then we glued orange onto the yellow hand to make a lion. A fun march keepsake.
For letter "H" we read the story, "Old Hat, New Hat", (one of my very favorites as a child) by Stan Berenstain. Then we made our very own "just right" Hats, with "H" pictures glued to it. The girls wanted a princess Hat, so I stapelled pink streamers to the top of them. All the children enjoyed our snack of HOTDOGS!!!
singing time we had fun taking turns with actions to the fun moving song, "If you're Happy and You Know It!"

Letter "G" and Dr. Suess

What's in Goat's Garage coloring book with "G" pictures was colored, the the fun "The Three Billy Goat Gruff", book was read and acted out with our very own Billy Goat puppets. We reviewed sizes, with our 3 goat puppets. For our snack we had Granola Bars.

We then talked about who Dr. Seuss was. Some of the children thought Dr. Seuss was the "Cat in the Hat". I had some explaining to do. I wish I had a picture of Dr. Seuss, because they were hard to convince that that he was a real person, not make believe. After the deep discussion, of who Dr. Seuss was, we talked about his books. We then read "The Cat In the Hat", "There's a Woket in my Pocket", and "Ten Apples Up on Top". Then like the book, we glued tiny paper apples onto a picture of ourselves, we looked like the funny characters in the book, "Ten Apples Up On Top". We painted red stripes on tall paper to make our very own tall hats just like the cat in the hat.

Nursery Rhymes and letter F f

We started out with preschool with another fun Dr. Seuss Book, "The Foot Book". We then made our very own foot book by painting our fist to make little baby feet then put them to make left and right feet and then feet in the morning and feet at night. We got into partners and took turns tracing our partners feet. We then glued "F" pictures to our traced feet. Miss Janalynn gave us plastic jumping Frogs to play with at home.

After a snack of fruit snacks and a game of hopping on imaginary things, with our left and right foot, we read a Mother Goose rhyme book. We talked about who Mother Goose was, and her fun and some familiar poems. We played a "Jack Be Nibble" follow-the-leader game using different ways to go around the candle stick. Then took turns rolling the dice to see how much wool we would get from "Baa Baa Black Sheep". We colored "Hey Diddle Diddle" sequence cards to take home. Then we drew a picture of what was in "Old Mother Hubber's" cupboard.

Our older class practiced cutting on paper, fishes on a fishing line and hook. Dressed up as queens and kings that were in our fun nursery rhymes, and made a fun candle out of a toilet paper roll to go along with our "Jack be Nibble" rhyming cards.

Clean Teeth and letter E e

E is for elephant. We read Babar the Elephant, where his story begins. We colored gray crayon onto a large elephant then water colored over the crayon to make a wrinkled look. We then wrinkled up gray construction paper to make ears for our elephants. Last but not least made a twine type tail and glued on a peanut.

Another "E" word is Egg. You can never go wrong with Sam-I-am and "Green Eggs and Ham", by Dr. Seuss. After reading the fun rhyming book, that's exactly what we had for snack, green scrambled eggs! The children where a little skeptical about eating green eggs, but after one bite, they were convinced that they did like them. We had a fun time asking each other if they could eat them in different places. We got in some great and funny rhymes.

Dental care is so important. Today we got out Miss Janalynn's extra large laminated smile with teeth. We each took turns drawing plaque or cavities onto the teeth then using the extra large sponge tooth brush to brush off. We looked at diagrams of teeth that are healthy, and some that were not so healthy. We talked about things we can do to keep our teeth healthy like going to the dentist, eating healthy food like vegetables, and brushing and flossing every day. After reading, "Bearstein Bears visit the dentist", we colored and sprinkled sparkles onto our very own toothy smile. As a reminder to what might happen if we Don't take care of our teeth, Miss Janalynn sent us home with some funny fake "rotten teeth".

"Dd" is for Dinosaurs!

Lots of words begin with the letter "D" the children had fun making the "D" sound. However the real fun got started when we started talking about Dinosaurs. We read the book, "Patrick's Dinosaurs" Patrick has an over imagination and while visiting the city zoo, imagine dinosaurs there. We compared the different types of dinosaurs. We sorted them into sizes, colors, plant eaters, or meat eaters. Our fun craft was sponging a triceratops to make it's skin look rough, then gluing on noodles for it's horns and claws. For our snack we followed a step by step recipe, and made banana and cereal Stegosaurus dinosaurs. We got out our scary dino sillies out by doing the "Dino Dance" (hokey pokey). We roared, growled, and stomped around.

The older class did a floor size Dinosaur puzzle. I'm so pleased to see how fast they could put this together. Each did a section, and they all recognized each others section and worked together putting it together. After our puzzle, we made "Dino Dinner" (no bake cookies) I changed the name of the ingredients to be dirt, crushed bones, swamp water ect. Olivia said she didn't like oatmeal, Braden assured her that it wasn't oatmeal, it was dead grass. She seemed to accept that, and I just laughed.

Preschool Valentines Party

For our Valentines party, we finished making our "Head over Heels" feet print. We laced it then glued our picture onto it. Then we decorated "Valentine Pockets". I thought these were so cute! Unfortunately the are not meant to hold very many valentines, or at least candy valentines. We used our fine motor skills by crumpling white tissue paper and gluing it onto our heart to form a lace look. Then we continued decorating with dollies, stickers and glossy hearts.

We read a fun rhyming book called "Rhyme Time Valentine" about a girl who looses her valentines in the wind, however the people who get them are happy to receive them. After playing Valentine Bingo and a snack of "Heart Shaped" toast and strawberry jam, We got our valentines ready to pass out. I know it is easier to put "from ____", however with the children now recognizing their name, kept saying that the valentine wasn't for them because it wasn't their name on it. Some of them even recognized other's name, and kept trying to give back the valentines to that person. I had to keep explaining that it said "From" that person . Over all I was just proud that they can recognize their name and others too.

Valentines is one of my favorite celebrations. I hope I made it clear that it is important to let those we love know how much we love them and Valentines day is great day to tell them.

"C" is for Cookies

Today we colored then decorated a paper cake with sprinkles. On our cake we placed candles with pictures with other "C" letter words. I think the children now know how to pour sparkles onto glue, then pour onto another sheet of paper and start over pouring the sprinkles by using the previous sprinkles that were poured. It was fun watching them pour then re-pour over and over. I don't think we wasted any sprinkles.

Each of the children were asked to bring cookies for the class. After snack of Cheese and Crackers, we took turns passing out our cookies to one another and placing them in our homemade cookie jars. We had many different types of cookies, from oreos, animal, oatmeal and of course chocolate chip. We played/sang the song "Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar", and read the book, "Mr. Cookie Baker". I was successful at making my 3 year old class wait to eat their cookies after they left preschool, however I'm sorry to say, my 4-5 year olds couldn't Wait, and had eaten all their cookies before preschool was through. (sorry if that spoiled any lunches or caused any stomach aches).

My older class then practiced cutting. Then we read the story "Bit by Bit" about a Caterpillar that makes a cocoon then eventually turns into a butterfly. The children practiced wrapping yarn around a pom-pom Caterpillar to form a cocoon, and then made a paper Caterpillar with round "C" pictures.

B is for Bear and Heart Art

We started Preschool with the popular story of, "Goldie Locks and the Three Bears". The kids are familiar with the story and they love when I use funny different voices for each bear. I then attempted to teach them a song that I learned when I was younger at girls camp. Basically it's a jazzed up version of the story. They just laughed and made me sing it over and over for them. We shared and showed our own bears that were brought to school today. We colored and put together a bear with a basket. Inside the basket were "B" letter pictures. And then for our snack today, we had bananas.

Our theme today was Heart Art. We had different sizes of cut out hearts and explored different ways we could put them together to make different animals or pictures. We then glued them together to make a bear and a mouse.

With different decorated hearts we played concentration and matched up the paired hearts.

My Shadow "A a"

Today we again took a look at our Preschool tree, and changed the appearance. We took down our snowflakes and put up hearts, on our tree. We changed the month from January to February, and talked about events that will happen this month. Since tomorrow is Ground Hog's Day, we started our day talking about shadows. First we read, "Go to Sleep Groundhog!", a funny book about a groundhog who couldn't sleep and ended up awake for all the fun winter holidays, Then Miss Janalynn brought out a large spot light, and we turned out the ceiling light. We took turns making funny shadows on the wall. We then matched up pretend shadows to their owner. (This was interesting to see if the children could use their imagination and actually face the shadow in the right direction).

We started our Alphabets today! We went around the room a pointed out items with the "A" sound. We colored pictures and then practiced some cutting skills, and cut out pictures that had the "A" sound so we could glue them to our craft Apple. We put on our Aprons so we could paint Black Ants, out of egg cartons. The older class practiced folding the legs back and forth to make legs for our Ants.

We sang a fun moving song, "The Ants Go Marching" , and the children guessed correct, when I made them guess our snack.....Sliced Apples!