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!