First week in Feb. 2012

Our first week in February went pretty well considering I had basically three new children to the program and my FCCERS observation all packaged in the same week.  Ahhhhh... happy to have 3 new children and my observation behind me (at least until the R&R comes out in about a month to verify).

Here is what we did this past week...
This week we learned about letter Oo.  Due to having new children in my program who are much younger... I had to create a "tot" letter book.  You will find both books I used below.

Older Children's Book

 This is our cover.  We colored the letter Oo's and the ox.

 On the left we put together three-piece puzzles of the letter Oo and we colored

all of the octopus with a letter Oo inside.  On the right we colored the one that

was different and did a pre-writing activity.

 On the left we did a vowel spin and graph (one of my children's favorites) and we traced

Oo's.  On the right we did a letter hunt page for the letter Oo from Confessions of a

Homeschooler.

 On the left we listened to clues and then colored the pictures following directions and we

did a pre-writing activity.  On the right we colored the picture in each row that started with the

/o/ sound like in ox and we traced letter Oo's.

 On the left we said the picture name, circled the letter it begins with, and colored the picture.  We

also traced/printed letter Oo's.  On the right we said the picture name, circled the letter it began with, and printed the letter on the line.  We traced/printed more letter Oo's.

 On the left we colored the picture that began with Oo and traced/printed letter Oo's.  On the

right we said the picture in the triangle, circled the letter it begins with, and colored the pictures.

Tot Book

 We used dot-r-markers to fill in the Oo's from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

 Since this was there first day doing learning time I wasn't sure what they could/couldn't

do so here we just colored.  Obviously not ready to trace letters or words yet.  This is also

from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

 We talked about the letter Oo here and tried to find and color the pictures according

to directions.  I think with more practice we will soon accomplish this.  I got this from 1+1+1=1.

 On this page we talked about the ostrich and found the letter Oo's on him.  Then we

colored him.  This is from 1+1+1=1.

 We matched the bottom half of the octupus to the head by color.  You

can find this at Confessions of a Homeschooler.

 We did a size sort from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

 We matched pictures on this page.  The original picture that was pasted down

for the children was a grayscale picture... they matched the color picture.  This came

from 1+1+1=1.

And we did a pre-writing activity from 1+1+1=1.

We spent some time on learning about the Chinese New Year... a little late... but better than never.

Chinese New Year Dragon Puppets

I found this pattern here.  We waterpainted the template, cut out the pieces once

they dried, attempted to accordian fold a strip of paper, glued the pieces onto the

accordian fold, and taped sticks.  The children really liked these, but I need to rethink

the accordian paper strip... they tear easy.



Dragon Mask

We made these fun dragon masks from here.  We colored them, cut them out, and taped

large popsicle sticks on the back. 

Chinese Lanterns

A great cutting activity because they must cut on the lines and stop at the end

of the line to make these lanterns.



We couldn't miss out on learning about Groundhog's Day.  Below are the activities we did.

Groundhog Paper Plates

We used the idea from "I Heart Crafty Things".

We painted paper plates brown.

 And then we put together the finished product... paper ears, wiggly eyes, paper nose and drawn mouth (we cut mouth out with a razor... I did, not the children), Q-tip whiskers, and paper teeth.

Pop-up Groundhogs

We used a whole paper plate with a half paper plate stapled to the front of the whole paper plate but leaving a space at the bottom for the straw.  We dot markered the grass and the sky. 

While those were drying we colored the groundhog and taped him on a straw.  We glued either clouds... so he wouldn't see his shadow or the sun... so he would see his shadow.  We then inserted

the straw with the Groundhog.

Matching Shadows

Drawing Groundhogs

I like to get some dictated free art in each week... so this week one of our

projects was to draw a Groundhog doing something.  Here is what my group came

up with.

We worked a little on numbers this week... here is a number 6 page.

We also were introduced to our community helper puppet... Dr. Danny the Dentist.  We did a few dental health activities as well.

Tooth Puppets 

We used a template of a tooth with a toothbrush which we colored.  Then we glued it onto

a paper plate with a half plate on the back to put our hand into.

I got a few pictures of us using the rice and water tubs play.

 Hope you enjoyed our week!  Sorry it was late and I am hoping to catch up this week... so stay tuned.
Best,
Rose