Welcome to a new year!

It has been a great first month. We have been practicing our routines and how things run at preschool this last month. I really have been loving our new rainbow chart to help reinforce positive behavior and the kids seem to really being liking it too!

The first week of school we had lots of fun getting to know each other better with games and art. The kids love making these masks that looked like them. 

haha, I love this picture! They loved using all my extra scraps and being creative. 

The kids always get excited to come to school and some hope to be able to ride a school bus. So we had a bus day. We practiced cutting out squares. (always a fun task with the newbies that are trying to use scissors for the first time.) 

We even made a bus for snack time. :) 

Letter A week included Apples, Ants and Alligators

For Apple day we enjoyed playing an apple name game to practice learning all our friends names.  We practiced writing our letter A's for handwriting. We played an apple harvest game to find the matching number. And the favorite of the day was hearing the Apple Story. This is a fun story about a little boy who is told to find a red house with no windows, no door and a star inside. At the end of the story his mother cuts open an apple to reveal the star inside. The kids love seeing the star and then enjoy eating their apple with some cream cheese and marshmallow cream dip. :) Yum! 

Apple Harvest Game

Little red house with no windows, no door and a star inside.

Alligator Day: We made an alligator out of the letter A. No pictures of that one, it is hard to get pictures at times because there is so much going on. We had fun playing some Alligator games for PE this day too. We acted out a rhyme: Alligator, Alligator, turn around. Alligator, Alligator touch the ground. .etc. 

Another game we played was Don't Get stuck in the swamp. You need two jump ropes to play this game. And keep moving them further apart. It is great practice to help your child practice jumping on two feet. 

We also played Cross the Alligator Pad. One child is an alligator and the rest got to walk quickly and try not to get touched by the alligator. If they got touched they would be an alligator until none were left to tag. They loved this game! 

If your child talked about a "movie" about an alligator this is it! I love this book by Mercer Mayer. 

There's an Alligator Under My Bed!

Don't Get Stuck in the Swamp

For ant day we sang the song "The Ants Go Marching". We finger painted Ants on an anthill and we we made ants on a log for snack time. For science we attempted to put food on a plate and guess which food the ants would like most when we put it outside. Unfortunately it was an overcast day and started to rain after we left our plate. At the end of the day no ants had come to our plate. Therefore, ants don't like rain.  Which goes right along with the song, "And they all go marching down, to the ground, to get out of the rain." :) 

Letter B week included Bears, Blue day and Birds

For Bear day we sorted bears into the same colored house. We painted bears. We played a rhyming game with pennies and gummy bears. And we learned a couple favorite songs: Going on a Bear Hunt and Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear touch the ground. 

For Blue Day we painted with balloons. (This was a FAVORITE!) We played a memory game to see what blue toy was missing. We made a list of all the blue things we could think of and Ms. Julie wrote them our white board. And we made a yummy blue slushy. 

For Bird day we made birds out of the letter B. We played another favorite game: Who is in the nest? The kids would close their eyes and sing their ABC's. If I tapped on their head then they got to hide under the table that was covered with a blanket. The rest of the kids would then open their eyes and try to figure out who was missing. We had a few peekers. :) 

I also had a giant egg that I told them had a surprise in it if they were really good. At the end of the day we got to open it and inside were little eggs with an action to practice. For example: Caw like a Crow, Coo like a pigeon, Walk like a duck, etc. 

Letter C week included Colors, Caterpillars, and Chicka, Chicka, Boom Boom! 

For Color day we did a color search game. We sang a song to do movements with each color. We experimented with the 3 primary colors and found out what happens when we mix them. And we made a gumball machine. I then asked them questions about their gum balls. Example: How many blue gumballs are in your machine? 

Journal Writing: I loved their answers on these. They say the cutest things! 

Center Time: practicing matching items to the write color. File Folder Games.

It was tricky to color right in the little circle.

For caterpillar day we made letter C into a caterpillar using all of our colors. And using circles. We red the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  And we made a delicious caterpillar snack. One little guy asked me if we could make them every time he comes. :) 

For Chicka, Chicka, Boom Boom day we read the story. We sang a song to go along with the story. We practiced adding and subtracting with Ms. Julie's coconut tree. We played a Chicka, Chicka, Boom Boom bingo game to practice finding our lower case letters. And we made a Coconut Tree with the letters from our names. 

As you can see we have been busy and have been having lots of fun! Thanks for letting me teach your child. I can't wait for October. One of my favorite months! 

First week and absolutely no tears!

This last week was a blast! I have such an adorable class and was completely shocked that nobody cried on the first day when they had to leave Mom and Dad. It was fun to see some of the kids that were 3 last year and so nervous, just run right inside this year as excited as ever! 

The first day is always really busy with learning how everything goes. We went over rules, and all the expectations while at preschool. We also read the book, "The Kissing Hand". I love this book because it talks about a little raccoon who is scared to go to school so his mother tells him the story of the kissing hand and she kisses him right on his palm. She reminds him that he can put his hand on his cheek and it will make his heart feel warm and always remember that his mom loves him. I gave each of the kids a heart sticker to put on their hand to remember that their moms and dads love them even when they are at school. Later we made "ME" masks. It was cute to see how creative they were. I did an example before hand and reminded them all the parts of their face, "nose, eyes, eyebrows, freckles maybe, ears, etc." They were excited to show them off to the class and the camera. 

 Love the big smile!

After making these we played the m & m game. Always a favorite! I made up a simple chart. Each child gets to pick 2 colors and based off of what color they pick they tell us something about themselves. 

Green: favorite animal  Yellow: Favorite Book  Orange: Best Friend   Red: Favorite food  

 Brown: favorite thing to do outside and Blue: Favorite Sport

Every kid loves seeing a school bus at this age! And even though they don't ride the bus to school we made a little treat and made our own buses. Nothing too fancy!

On Thursday we did our normal routine in the morning and then did Apple day to introduce the letter A. I always love apple day and telling the kids the story of the Little House with no windows and no doors, with a star inside. This year I even made the story about a little boy in our class. He loves sharks so we even made him visit a shark in the story. :) At the end I cut open the apple and show them the star inside. They always think it is so neat. Afterward we made carousels out of our apples. 

We also played a little math game with these apples to see who could find the number I called out first and cover it. They all did pretty well at knowing their numbers and being able to recognize them. There is also a fun game you can play with this with your more advanced learners. It is called Stinky 7. All you do is have 2 dice and some counters. One player rolls both dice and then adds up the 2 and covers the sum of what they rolled. They keep going until they can't go anymore. For example if they roll a number that has already been covered or if they roll a 7. (There are no 7's on the board, therefore the name Stinky 7) then the next player rolls.  The first person to fill up their chart is the winner.

It was such a fun week. I am really looking forward to this year! We also took class pictures. You have no idea how hard it is to get everyone looking at the camera with a smile. O well. I think our shirts turned out really cute this year. I love the lime green.