Fantastic Fall: Leaves!

 This week we started our Fantastic Fall unit.

We learned the name and sound for the letter 'A' and the sight word "the".

In our Aa Book, we underlined all the "the's" and highlighted all the "a's".

At the end of the week we read our Aa Book to each other.

Make sure to ask your child to read it to you!

 We learned about the signs of fall and created a Fall Book.

  We made a word bank with things we see in the fall.  The children used the words to complete the sentence, "When fall comes I see ________________. "
Then they illustrated their page.

(I'm saving these cute books for portfolio's!)

We used color words to complete a fall poem, and illustrated it using fall colors.

After reading books about Fall Leaves, we went on a Leaf Hunt outside.

We collected leaves in all different colors, sizes, and shapes. 

Fall brings morning dew and grassy feet!

Then, we used our collected leaves to make a Leaf Rubbing Book.

Safety Week

This week we kicked off Phonics with the letter M.  

Every week we will be adding new letters, and soon we will be blending sounds into words!

We use the white board to help us learn correct letter formation.  It's also an easy way for me to assess the children on an individual basis, while doing a group activity.

 Our theme this week was Safety!

We talked about fire safety, playground rules, home safety, and the traffic lights.

The children illustrated a fire safety picture which I will be keeping for a special portfolio I compile throughout the year and present to you at the end of preschool.

We had lots of practice this week with working together and sharing.

As our special treat on Thursday, we made our own Muffins together (in honor of the letter 'M').

They turned out delicious!

ABC, I Like Me!

This week we tested out some of our class jobs.

Bailee tried out Calendar Helper

And Montego was our Song Leader.

The girls had no problem following his lead for our song, "Monkey's and the Alligator"

Our theme this week was based on the book, "ABC, I Like Me".  

For our Balanced Literacy activities this week, we wrote our own "ABC, I Like Me" books.

In a shared writing experience, we came up with things we individually like.

Together, we "stretched" out the words to hear each individual sound . . . 

Then, we helped each other write the sounds and form our words.

Here's our final word bank: cakes, cars, snack, and zoo.

We used this word bank to write our own books.

Then, as an independent reading activity, the children read their finished books to the class.

 Still focusing on our names, we made a name graph.

Each child glued the letters of their name on our graph.

(Montego and Bailee love to help each other!)

 Then, we compared and contrasted our names.  The number of letters - least and most, who had the same letters, who had repeated letters, etc.

We played a fun guessing game, using clues about things we like, we had to guess
"Who" se name was under the owl's wings.

 We had fun guessing "who" the fun clues were about!

 The highlight of our week was our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom activities!

 We made our own Chicka Chicka trees with the letters of our names climbing up the tree. Art projects are a great practice of fine motor skills, as well as following directions.

We had a fun Balanced Literacy activity, where each child took turns placing their name within the text. Then, together, we chanted the words.

Thursday was our culminating event for the week: our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Party!!

We had a yummy Chicka Chicka Tree snack

We each shared our "All About Me" posters.  

It was so fun to see everyone's pictures and learn new things about each other!

After reading some books and eating our snack on our fun beach towels, we watched a 

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom movie - WHICH WE LOVED!

Our party was awesome!

All About Me: My Name

This week was all about our names!

We read the book "Chrysanthemum" and talked about how important, and special, our names are to us.

We practiced writing our names with all sorts of mediums.

A favorite was using our white boards!

 Using a white board is great practice for freestyle writing, where mistakes can be erased easily for lots of practice time!

We also created a "magic name"!

 First we traced our names carefully, and Miss Jessica wrote over the letters with glue.

 Then we sprinkled the "magical" powder over our names . . .

 And, tah-dah!  Our magic name!

 We played with name puzzles

We learned the first letter of our name is capitalized, and the rest are lower case.  We worked on the sequence of the letters in our name, and used our critical thinking skills to find the right fit.

 We also played a name sorting game with our own name . . .

 And with our friends' names!

This task teaches focus on similarities and differences, as well as sorting skills (getting us ready for our math unit on patterns).

One of our favorite games of the week was Name Concentration.

The children had to find all the letters in their names using their memory skills, while enforcing letter recognition of the letters in their own name, as well as their classmates' names.

We ended the week with a painting project. 

Each child took a turn feeling an invisible name (made of dried glue) and 

guessing whose name it could be. 

 Once we all found our names, 

we used watercolors to reveal the texturized names.

We did our final review of shapes.  We all know our shapes, but learning to draw a sharp corner and appropriately proportioned shape is a whole different story!

We had so much fun at play time this week!

Dress-Up time!

A game of memory

And here we are singing one of our favorite songs: "Throw the Bean Bag"!