The Face of Success

I just couldn't stand to look at that cat photo any more (ick) and decided another post was necessary, tonight.

This photo is much more pleasant: one of my preschool students, right after he conquered a major food aversion.

That is the happy face of a child who just overcame a huge obstacle.

That is a child who knows he can do hard things.

That face is why I totally love my job.

Young Learners: For the Birds

Book: The After Christmas Tree By Linda Wagoner Tyler
Book: Usborne Discovery Birds by Dorothy Gillian
Book: Cardinals, Robins and Other Birds by Golden Books
Book: I Love My Nest by P.D. Eastman
Book: A Year of Birds by Ashley Wolff

Share: Bring something that is white
Dramatic Play: Bird Puppets
I have a large assortment of bird puppets. We talked about the different characteristics of each bird and what makes them unique, then the children used imaginative play to create stories about their birds. Max had a toucan that shared grapes with everyone.
Dramatic Play: Bird Watcher prop box (bird cage, identification chart, binoculars, bird calls, safari hat)

Art: What makes it a bird?

Sensory: bean transfer

Cooking: Bird Suets: In The After Christmas Tree, a family recycles their dried out and undecorated Christmas tree by turning it into a habitat and feeder for the local winter birds and woodland critters. The family invites their friends over for an "After Christmas Party" and they sip hot cocoa while they watch the birds have a party of their own, outside in the tree. The children made their own bird seed cakes to take home and place outside a favorite window. Hopefully, the birds will come and the children will be able to enjoy an "after Christmas party" of their own.

Mix: 1c shortening, 1c crunchy peanut butter, 1c cornmeal, 2c oats, 1c bird seed, and 1c sugar
Pack into cookie sheet or molds and freeze until ready to use

Dramatic Play: Bird Identification
Provide the children with an assortment of bird hand puppets. What kind of birds are they? (owl, peacock, bluebird, hummingbird, eagle, flamingo, etc)

Language: What do birds eat? Where do they live?

Practical Life: Taking turns.

Assist the children in proper turn taking with bird themed games. Duck Duck 1-2-3 and the Busy Bee class played Lucky Ducks.

Music and Movement: Bird Songs
Birds in Springtime:
"Way Up in the sky, the little birds fly.
Way down in the nest, the little birds rest.
With a wing on their left, and a wing on their right,
The little birds sleep all through the night.
Shhhhh…..they’re sleeeeeeeping!
The bright sun comes up, the dew falls away.
“Good Morning! Good Morning!” the little birds say"

Hap Palmer Birds and Baby ChickieI love this picture of my little chickies. They are so cute when they burst out of their "eggs" and say, "Welcome to the world, baby chickie".
Science: Are chickens birds? We took our charts out to the chicken coop and took a look at the chickens. Does a chicken have a beak? Does it have wings? Did it come from an egg? Does it have feathers? The children were able to determine that yes, chickens are birds.

I love my job!

Young Learners: Happy New Year!

After missing my students over the holiday break, I happily welcomed them back into my home for preschool this week.

January:
Shape: Star
Color: White
Number: 12
Letter: W

Happy New Year!
Literature: Book: Chicken Soup With Rice by Maurice Sendak
Books: A Year of Birds and A Year of Beasts by Ashley Wolff
Book: A Child's Calendar by John Updike

Share: Bring something that begins with letter W

Dramatic Play: Ring in the New Year with a countdown to “midnight”, noisemakers, and party poppers! I took a turn with each child and together we counted, "3-2-1 Happy New Year!" and did a popper together. I wasn't able to get any photos, because I was busy participating, but was great fun! Art/Phonics: W collage Cooking: "Stirring once, Stirring twice, Stirring Chicken Soup with Rice!"
The children worked together to add bullion, water, white and wild rice to the pot, then took turns stirring before I put in on the stove for 15 minutes.

Snack: Crackers and chicken soup with rice taste test. I was amazed that every single child in the Busy Bee class ate their soup, and 4 of them asked for seconds, or thirds!


Music: Sing Through the Year, 12 Months in a Year (to the tune of 10 little indians: ("January, February, March and Ap-ril. May, June, July and Aug-ust. September, October, November, De-ce-mber, twelve months in a year!")


Sight Reading/Cognitive Activity: 12 Months in a year Calendar memory Match
I made these sight word cards and we used them as a visual aid for music time and for the following activities.
Math: Numbering the months 1-12

Games:
Calendar Cake Walk -Friendly Frogs
Place 12 month names on the floor and play music while the children walk around in a circle. When the music (sing through the year) stops, call out the name of one of the months. The child that is on the month wins a trip to the treasure box!

Name that month-Busy Bees
This is a guessing game where I held up the card for a month of the year, said the name of the month and the children looked at the pictures on it and told us what happens that month. (ie: October has halloween, pumpkin carving, and colorful leaves)

Practical Life/Vocabulary: What is a resolution? What is a goal?
What is your goal for this year? (friendly frogs)
After a fairly brief explanation of what a goal/resolution is, I was pretty impressed with the answers the children gave me. They came up with these all on their own.
Quincy: I will read scriptures with my family and be reverent in the prayer
Max: I will read lots of books instead of video games
Jackson: I will eat apples and try a new food.

Language: Add to our list of W words

For sharing, the children brought a walrus, wombat, wagon, watercolors, color wonder, whale, waffles, water bottle, Wall-E and Wendy.

Young Learners: Brrr! It's Cold!

I haven't posted about preschool in awhile, but we've been having a lot of fun!

Dec 6th/7th: Brrrrr! It's Cold!

Book: One Mitten by Christine O’Connel George
Book: The Mitten by Jan Brett
Book: The Jacket I Wear in the Snow by Shirley Neitzel

Dramatic Play: The Mitten Masks-provide the children with masks so they can act out the story of “The Mitten”.

Fine Motor: Mittens on a clothesline


Literacy: Mitten Match upper case and lower case letters


Practical Life: Weather Bunny-I can dress appropriately for cold weather
Choose Helper
Calendar/Weather/Job Chart
Snack

Art: Paper Chain Advent

Math: How Many Days until CHRISTMAS????!!!

Music & Movement: Holiday Songs
Sensory/Fine Motor: Lacing jingle bells for music time Gross Motor/Outside Play
Goodbye Friends

Young Learners: Mice!

Letter: M
Color: Black
Shape: Triangle
Number: 3
Songs/Poetry: The Leaves on the Trees, 5 Little Pumpkins, Mrs. White had a fright

Books: Mouse’s First Halloween by Lauren Thompson, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and If You Take a Mouse to School, by Laura Numeroff, Mouse Count and Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh

Dramatic Play: Mouse Count!
Provide mice, a jar, a rock, and a snake for the children. Encourage them to recreate the story of Mouse Count.

Share: Bring something that begins with letter M

Art:
Busy Bees: Triangle Mice.

Friendly Frogs: Mouse Shapes! Just like the story by Ellen Stoll Walsh, we fool the sneaky cat by creating mice from paper circles, squares, and triangles. Math: pre-time-telling clock matching activity I have two of these clocks. I would "set the time" on one clock and challenge the children to move the hands on the other clock so the times matched.

Shared Reading: A Mouse Has…
Each page adds a piece to the mouse. This is a simple repeat sequence story and the children catch on quickly and add to the story as they read out loud and give the mouse a body, a tail, eyes, whiskers, ears, and at last 4 legs and it "runs" away.

Later, when it was time to go outdoors, I did a cognitive activity and each child named the mouse parts from the story back to me as a "passoword" to get through the door to play outside.
Cooking: Let’s bake cookies!

Question: Cause and Effect
Friendly Frogs: If you give a real mouse a cookie, what will happen next?

Fine Motor:

Friendly Frogs: I can use scissors

Busy Bees: Mouse Tweezer Transfer
Gross Motor: What Time is it Mr. Wolf?

This is a game similar to "mother may I" where the children line up along a fence and take turns asking one child (the wolf), "What time is it Mr. Wolf?" Mr. Wolf has his/her back to the children and states a time ("one o clock", "six o clock" etc) in response to each of the children as they take turns asking. The hour of the day equals how many steps the child can take, so if Mr. Wolf answers with "4 o' clock" the mouse can take 4 steps closer to Mr. Wolf. Since Mr. Wolf can't see the children, he doesn't know which of the "mice" is going to catch up to him first. The sneakiest mouse arrives first and gets to be the Wolf next.

Dramatic Play: Face Painting check out my little mice...don't get eaten by the wolf!

Phonics: All Aboard the M train! We attempted to create a giant letter "M" with the train tracks...but it ended up looking like an S. We found items that begin with letter M and placed them on the tracks for the M train to pass. Phonics: Create a list of M Words and Share items that begin with M.

Music and Movement: Hickory Dickory Dock and October songs/poems.