Picture Dictionaries and Mystery Letter Fun!

Last week we looked at picture dictionaries and played Mystery Letter Bag to learn about things that begin with the letter Bb. First, I had made this little flip book for each letter a while back ago and thought maybe the girls would enjoy having a little "book" of their own.  We said the letter and the sound it makes then we flipped through the picture dictionary (from my childhood) and read some of the words that begin with /B/.  They loved the picture dictionary and of course wanted to draw the impossible b words....like belong. :o) We settled for birthday and ball.  Balloon and bee were already a part of the flip book. So we added our two for a total of 4 words in our book.

 

This girl loves some markers.

 Reading her Bb flip book to Elsa the Zebra.

 

If you would like a copy of the alphabet flip book you can find it in this pack....

 just click on the picture.

Then we sang and played Mystery Letter Bag. I threw a lot of /b/ objects into a bag. We would sing our song and reach into the bag and say the objects emphasizing the /b/sound.

Tune: Farmer in the Dell

What starts with Bb?
What starts with Bb?
Reach into the letter bag.
Let's see what starts with Bb!

Then for little bit, we played point to the Bb word. Where is the /b/, /b/, brush. She loved using the pointer.

Are you ready for some football?

In honor of football season beginning, we did some early counting fun with our Football Guys. I found these at a thrift store for nearly nothing. Even though I have girls, I figured they may have some fun with them. And they do.

 

I first game was "Touchdown". Simple, simple. We each had one football guy standing at our end of the field. We took turns rolling the die, counting the dots, then moving our player down the field. Whoever reached the other side first, scored a Touchdown and won. Easy, easy but lots of counting practice.

Our second game was a football counting game. First she lined up her footballs in order from #1-5.

Then she counted out her football men to correspond with each number on the footballs.

Again, very, very simple but great counting practice.

Speaking of football, we met up with Daddy-O for lunch and he and Marin had this conversation.

Marin: Daddy, we played a football game in school today.
Daddy: You did. Do you like football?
Marin: No.
            I like Peppa Pig.

Let's Pretend BAKERY

Because the girls love play doh and pretend play so much, I combined them to make a fun, little letter Bb activity.  A BAKERY! We pulled out all of our pretend food that would be appropriate for a bakery, then cut out some cardboard circles for play dough cookies and pies. We made a menu board and used magnetic letters to spell the word bakery. It, of course, was a hit. 

Making play doh cookies was a favorite of Hollis'. She loved rolling, patting, and stamping all the shapes to make a cookie. It was so cute to watch her concentration.

 Princess Elsa and Princess Jasmine had to help out in the Bakery too.

 They took their job very seriously.

 Thinking about improvements. Then....improving. :o)

 Princess Jasmine was our first customer. They had such a great time!!!

And we may have stopped by a REAL bakery and got a cupcake! Yum.

Color Puzzles

The girls love to paint. They enjoy creating a picture with paint, but if you give them an old fashioned worksheet (cringe) to paint, they get so very excited. To accommodate their love for worksheets and my teacher need for it to be a little more interactive, I made Paint a Puzzle: Color edition. It's simple and really it's still an old fashioned worksheet (cringe), but they can at least do a puzzle afterwards with their art work. That makes me feel a little bit better and hopefully we will learn some colors and color words with them as well! Score! 

I made the pictures to match up with the songs made by Ashley over at The Lovely Commotion {find them here}. We love anything put to a catchy tune. And Marin is definitely learning how to spell color words with these songs!

If you are interested in the Paint a Puzzle:Colors, you can find them {here}.

From Head to Toe

From Head to Toe by Eric Carle is a big favorite around our house. Sometimes we read it no less than five times in one sitting and act out every single page, every single time. So I decided to make a few little games to go with this family favorite. 

 Here is our first day of From Head to Toe activities. First we scanned our QR Code Listening Center and listened to the story. This particular reading is a SONG (that's why I didn't read it). The video plays each page of the book but the reading they have made into an adorable song with funny voices for each animal. The girls loved it. 

They raised their shoulders like a buffalo.....

Arched their back like a cat.....

Bend their knees like a camel....

LOVED it. As usual. 

Then we played Roll and Move. A cute, little dice game. Marin rolled the dice and counted the dots. Then she drew an animal card. She had to act out the movement the number of times rolled. For example....

She rolled two. (She counts the dots on the big dice to practice one to one correspondence. I found the die at the Dollar Tree a long time ago but I still see them there some times.)

Then she drew a card.....WIGGLE YOUR HIPS LIKE A CROCODILE! 

So she wiggled her hips two times. And let me tell you, it was some really cute wiggling. 

Today we will do Animal Movement patterns. They will follow the pattern already made on the cards then they will have an opportunity to make their own pattern with a pattern board and animal pieces. Can't wait! 

If you are interested in these games, you can find them {here}.

Peek At My Week (Week Two-ish)

We started a new week today (even if it was a holiday). When I started thinking about plans for this week, I wanted to try and do as many activities that revolved around their favorites. And right now, their favorites are play doh, pretend play, and painting. So we have a play doh Bakery (pretend play) and yellow painting puzzles thrown in the mix of our preschool this week. I pretty excited for the little boogers.

But.... I learned a little trick last week with lesson plans. I love having them handy so I can gather supplies each night or glance at each day to see what got done, what didn't, etc. I have used lesson plan books, fancy planners, printing it out and putting them in a bulky binder. I've done it all. BUT....last week I threw my plans in a clear dry erase pocket. I love it. They were super handy and I didn't have to flip through anything to find them. I used my marker to check off each activity that we completed and circled those that needed to be postponed. I will never do it a different way again.

I love it. So easy. I used it to plan the next week and then erased all my notes. Print and slide in the new week's plans! 

Daily Five- Preschool Edition

Back in my traditional classroom teaching days, I loved the Daily Five.  Daily Five is a literacy block rotation where students go to five different stations while the teacher meets with students in small groups. It works well in teaching children to be independent in their learning while giving the teacher much needed time to work with students. There are five components: Read to Self, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, Work on Writing, and Word Work. (If you want more info on it, just Google it, you will find no less than 8 gazillion articles, posts, books, and ideas on the subject. It's been around for awhile and you will be set for life with information.)

So since Hollis still naps in the afternoon and Marin doesn't (insert eye roll here), I have decided to try the Daily Five with little Miss No Nap because, well, Momma needs a break. I am still trying to figure out my set up for it exactly but I've got some general ideas.

Read to Self/Read to Someone:
Clearly, she is going to read. Marin LOVES reading right now so she can "read" from a selection of easy readers or books we have read a million times so she can retell/read the story.  And if she so wants, she can line up all her favorite stuffed animals or her Wizard of Oz characters (Oh my gosh. Obsessed.) and read them a good book.

Listen to Reading:
I have a ton of these handy dandy QR Code listening centers in my shop. You can find them {here}. I print them and put them in a cheap photo album. I used to laminate, hole punch, and put on a ring. But I skipped all those steps and just throw them in a Dollar Tree album. Easy Peasy. But Marin will flip through, pick a book, scan the code, and listen the story. Fun, huh??

 

You can grab the Fall QR Code Listening Centers by clicking on the picture below!

Work on Writing:
For Marin this will be name writing and letter/number writing.  She can use dry erase markers and her notebook (more to come on the notebook). Also, there are a TON of apps on the iPad for writing practice. I want to make a "cheat sheet" with a picture of all the apps she can play during each of these times.

Word Work:
Again, the iPad has great apps for this one. But we have word puzzles, letter stamps, letter tiles, stickers, Wiki sticks /ABC cards, and games I will be making to go along with themes. She will be mostly working on sight words and theme words. Lots of manipulatives on this one!

There is still quite a bit to do and we will learn a new 'station' each week......building up to do all the rotations in one "quiet rest time'.  But to start things off, I have made an Apples: Daily 5 packet to use! I like having themes. Themes are cute. It has all the components with activities centered around apples for each rotation. I love it and can't wait to get it started.  Here is a little preview of a word work activity.........worm word families!

You can grab your copy of Daily 5: Apples by clicking on the picture. 

Baby steps but it is all coming together and I can't wait to get going!

Where did that week go?

So this week was a bust. School happened in random, unorganized spurts throughout the day because it quickly became an "off" week. Hollis was/is sick for most of the week which included a doctor's visit and lots, and lots of Kleenex. Holy snot balls. She is full of snot....and other good stuff. But sickness and crabbiness and overall aches and pains prevented a lot of "school" from happening. Plus we were supposed to travel this week but because of the snots, we have decided to bunker down at home and get our heads clear.

So with all that being said, I really just picked up last week's plans and finished up some activities we didn't get to. But if all gets well (fingers crossed) next week is a fun filled planned week of school goodies. More to come on that....

I really didn't pull out my camera that much this week. But as I was thinking about next week's plans and what interests the girls the most, play doh and paint were at the top of the list. So I finally got around to making some play doh mats. There are only a million out there and I picked about 20 of my favorites. I really only wanted 10 or so but they all were just so dang cute. The girls LOVED them! We have played play doh every. single. day of our snotties.

 The happy girl with her happy face.

 This one was a favorite. Marin made carrots for the bunny. I'm pretty sure I found it and the faces {here}.

 Uh, yeah, that bunny is going to be full.

 Hollis woke up from her sick coma and joined in on the fun and decorated a chocolate cake.

 Seriously, how sweet is that face. Hate it when she's sick.

 Uh, yeah. That's a booger (or more like a clump of snot) she's handing me. :o) I love being a mom. I love being a mom. I love being a mom....

Actually. Snot, boogers, brown poop, green poop, runny poop, pee, already chewed up food spit out in my hand because she didn't like it....all seems kinda normal.

Painting. These girls (especially Hollis) could paint or color all day. And these paint pens (or Dot Markers) are awesome! They get to 'paint' without all the fuss. So we painted the letter Aa with our dot markers. I love these dot sheets.  It is way too easy for Marin but she didn't mind at all. Still had fun dotting but she went super fast and was done. Hollis, well, she likes a good mess and did an awesome job taking her time to hit the dots with her marker. **Must include more of these activities in their day.***

 So proud of their work but so not loving the bright flash on the camera. Squinty eyes.

Probably their favorite "on the fly" lesson this week was watching the fallen popsicle melt under hot water. Seriously. It dropped on the floor and instead of trashing it, we ran it under hot water and watched it disappear.
MESMERIZED.
I performed the greatest magic trick of all time.

Our First Week- 2014-2015

Here is a little sample of some of the activities we did for our first week! We got most of the "plans" done but some activities may need to roll over into next week.

We talked about the color blue this week. Hollis is trying to recognize it and Marin is trying to learn the color word. But they painted the objects blue on their paper. So. Very. Simple. Yet it captivated their attention for a good half hour.

Hollis LOVES to paint! And to wear her headband on her forehead. :o)

We played Pete's Shoe Showdown from my Colors unit. It was hit! "It's all good!"

They colored in their shoes a different color.

Then covered the shoe with a button when the color was called.

This week Hollis worked on sorting colors. Marin sorted by color and shape then made patterns. Patterns is a new concept for her but she got it quickly.

 

We went on a color hunt with our magnifying glasses. Going on a color hunt and we going to find something..............blue!