Apples, Colors and Circles

    The books we read over the past two weeks included The Pig Who Ran a Red Light, Ten Apples Up on Top and My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother. We explored the letter Aa through different magnetic and textured versions as well as creating the letter A with a partner using our arms and legs. We sang songs about apples, including 5 Red Apples.

    We enjoyed dancing and playing our instruments along with songs about apples, rain and more. We had several days of extended play, including a very tricky case in capturing Sally the jewelry thief. The case involved A as police chief, E as the investigator, Princess Fiona and the beautiful police officer Kristin. Chain link traps and toy obstacle courses led to the eventual capture of S as Sally. Puzzles and empty containers were turned into computers and all of the children were involved in the case. This type of imaginative play teaches a variety of skills in an authentic situation.Other activities included the following.

In art, we explored the colors red and green. We also looked at real apples and the variety of colors found on a single apple. These are squish art apples, which are created by folding the two sides together after placing paint dots on the paper.

     We also painted with an apple in a type of marble art. This idea is included in the curriculum from Preschool Palace.

    Other worksheets and projects from the curriculum included a color red book and a Ten Apples Up on Top hat.

We enjoyed using our Do-A-Dot markers with the following worksheet from Making Learning Fun.

Our light table activities included color sorting with our large collapsing circles from Learning Resources.

     Other math activities included using manipulatives to build towers and matching numbers to their index card.

     Sensory activities included finding the red circles and our favorite shaving cream. We also used the red circles during circle time for hiding, counting, learning about spatial concepts such as above, beside and behind and musical spots. We also found items that matched the red circles from around the room.

    During the week, we also had a piñata party with wise owl this week for all of my kindergarten and preschool students. We talked about being readers, writers, scientists and more after successfully completing our first week of school. We used the apple tree outside, a rope, bandanna and a shorter PVC pipe as our stick. Here is a photo of the owl after the fun.

     We also had a school-age sleepover party during these past two weeks. We enjoyed making Alka-Seltzer rockets, Mentos geysers and playing group games like freeze tag and Night at the Museum.

 
    We are moving on to the letter Bb. During our walk at the end of the week, we looked for the letter Bb in signs along with the colors red and green. We drew pictures of what we saw on our walk.

    I will leave you with photos of a bird that was created by one of my school-age children. The bird actually glided when thrown. We will continue our look at the letter Bb along with the colors, shapes and numbers during the next two weeks.

Ocean Life, Backyard Fun and Play

I took an unintentional break from blogging due to my laptop needing repairs along with getting ready for the school year. I am very excited about the curriculum I purchased from Preschool Palace and can easily incorporate more sensory and light table activities to the existing curriculum. I have also been receiving much-needed supplies from Discount School Supply and find myself cleaning out and re-arranging our supply closet.

We began our look at the ocean with The Rainbow Fish. We decorated a picture of the fish and discussed what items would be hard or easy to share with friends.

We looked at the properties of ocean water by floating an egg in salt water after observing the egg in tap water. Those who have been to the ocean shared how the water felt and tasted.

I also purchased some flat canvas from Walmart to use with our old crayons. The crayons were hot-glued on the canvas and melted with a heat gun. The idea came from a training session and can also be found on Pinterest.

 

 

We also used collage materials, glue, and glitter to create ocean life picture.

 

Other rainbow inspired activities included color- sorting. The finished project is a result of great team-work!

We had many opportunities to explore with starfish (sea stars) and sea shells. We learned about star fish from our classroom expert along with the following site.

Our exploration led to a drawing/ tracing of shells.

We took a day to explore sharks and enjoyed a book and shark necklace that was shared by one of the children. Our activities included water and water bead play along with using the sharks from Oriental Trading Company to extend our play.

One of our art projects included drawing a shark or other sea creature in white crayon while using a blue water color wash with a cotton ball and clothespin. We finished the picture with shells from Jo Ann Fabrics and sand.

Another art project utilized our porcupine painters and tempera. We took a look at sea urchins and clown fish in our Ocean IQ book.

The new toys that we enjoyed from Discount School Supply included the wood pieces and Playdough tools.

We had the opportunity to build and play which resulted in the following creations.

Our backyard encounters included a bird that is not in abundance around here, a very small tree frog and our moth that emerged from its coccoon. I could not snap a picture of the bird quickly enough, but here is the image from our bird book. The name of the bird is House Finch according to the National Audubon Society Pocket Guide: Familiar Birds of North America and is typically found in cities in the East and deserts of the West.

This week we have begun our camping unit and have been busy creating and playing. We will be back to school very soon!