Rhythm and Rhyme

We began our look at rhythm and rhyme with Mother Goose. We explored "Baa Baa Black Sheep" with our Mother Goose collection and Raffi. We focused on the words that rhymed and came up with some of our own... wool- bull, sheep- sleep, etc. We used the following activities to go along with the rhyme:

This folder game is from a Carson-Dellosa resource book I own.

 

We explored activities using cotton balls:

Our art project included painting with cotton balls to make a sheep. This activity was inspired by Teach Preschool.

The next book we explored was Juba This and Juba That. We watched the following video and did our best to dance like the man in the video.



We used permanent markers to color our own rhythm sticks. The sound changes according to which end is used.

We also used our Jack Hartmann DVD to explore rhythm. We love the "Hip Hop Tooty Ta" song.

For our look mittens and kittens, I used the following folder story that I have had for a while. The rhyme is from a Jean Warren resource book I own. The rhyme explores all of the colors as the kitten looks for her blue mitten. I love how the color appears in the mitten area as each sheet is removed.

We also practiced hanging mittens and gloves as inspired by Teach Preschool. We also painted with mittens using a tape-resist on black paper with white "snow" paint.

We also explored snow with our mittens and gloves in the sensory table. We looked at how mittens and gloves protect us as well as melting snow and how the properties change.

We also used the following worksheet from this link for our table games and light table.

We explored music and sound with Wiggle Waggle Fun: Stories and Rhymes for the Very Very Young. We also sang and recited different rhymes from our Jewels: Children's Play Rhymes big book. We used clapping to explore the rhythm. We made a shaker to go along with our rhymes.

 

At the end of the week, we explored rhymes from Tortillitas para Mamá and Other Nursery Rhymes. We also watched authentic tortillas being prepared and had our own taste test between wheat and white flour tortillas. Our sensory activity included cornmeal, wheat flour and white flour.

 We also explored sound with a variety of containers and items to place inside the containers. We compared the items, sounds and decided which container produced the biggest or smallest sounds.

We also played "Hot Cross Buns" with water glasses.

Some of the other activities included fishing for numbers and searching for letters.

We also had free time at the light table and time for play dough this week.

Join us next week as we begin our two- week unit on transportation. I purchased curriculum from Teachers Pay Teachers that I am excited about teaching. Until then, enjoy a video we used with our books this week.

 

  

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Hearts, Valentines and Friendship

This week we incorporated shapes and friendship into our Valentine's Day theme. Some of the books we had available for reading this week were "The Best Thing About Valentines" by Eleanor Hudson, "Valentine Mice" by Bethany Roberts, "The Shape of Me and Other Stuff" by Dr. Seuss and two books from Storyline Online including Eileen Spinelli's Somebody Loves you Mr. Hatch and Enemy Pie by Derek Munson:

For Enemy Pie, I used think- aloud questions which included the following, "I wonder why the dad had his son spend a whole day with Jeremy Ross? I wonder what will happen after the boy and Jeremy spend a day together? Why would the boy let Jeremy Ross go inside his tree house? I wonder what is in the pie?" We came up with the idea that spending time with others helps us become friends and made our own "enemy pie," which was really friendship pie.

 Some of our math and literacy stations included the following activities. The first is a number heart puzzle match that I adapted from File Folder Fun.

This heart activity was adapted from Making Learning Fun.

The heart shape block pattern we used is also from Making Learning Fun.

We spent time as beauticians in the home center and worked with our princess folder games.

We also completed open- ended heart crafts throughout the week with stamping, clear contact paper and stickers.

 

 

 We also explored graphing and science with candy hearts. Our graphing worksheet and observation chart were found at 2 Teaching Mommies.

We also completed a warm water candy heart experiment with a baking soda/ water candy heart experiment. The warm water created the color in the cups and the baking soda hearts floated and fizzed. We also placed candy hearts in Sprite which caused them to float as well. The ideas were found here and at this link.

For our game and music activities, we incorporated ribbon dancers made from crepe paper, action cards made from valentines and a heart-shaped bracelet ring-toss game.

 

 We also spent time with hearts, pink shells and tools in our sensory rices. Later in the week we added our vehicles.

For our light box activity, we added heart-shaped rings, bracelets and a worksheet from this site.

We spent time at the beginning of the week exploring symmetry. The worksheet we used was found here.

We completed our look at symmetry with a squish-art heart activity.

We also completed a couple of book-specific activities. In the book Valentine Mice, the mice end up throwing valentines in the air. I provided tissue paper squares to throw up in the air. We watched how they moved through the air and had a great time doing the activity over and over again.

 

 While exploring The Shape of Me and Other Stuff, we completed life-sized tracings of our bodies and explored shapes with Bendaroos and worksheets from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

 

We had a great day for sticky snow and I will leave you this week with a picture of our snow man. Next week we will explore poetry, rhyme and rhythm. Have a great week!