Fourth week in May 2012

What a week... what a month...
This month I was to have my NAFCC observation.  Well I waited, stressed, anticipated all month and guess what... they didn't show.  I have to go through this for another 10 days in June.  Can I say... ugh!!!!!!!

This week we were introduced to the letter Zz.  Along with the other activities we did our letter books.  Below are pictures of both books.

Older Children's Letter Zz Book

 This is the cover and we colored the letters and the zebra.

 On the right we put together our three-piece puzzles and did a pre-writing activity.  On the left we found the one that was different and circled the letters that are the same as the one in the first box.

 On the left we found pictures using clues and colored them according to directions.  We traced upper and lowercase Zz's.  On the right we used Confessions of a Homeschoolers letter hunt.

 On the left we found and colored pictures that began with the sound of the letter and we traced/printed letter Z's.  On the right we circled the letter each picture began with and traced/printed letter z's.

 On the left we drew lines from the picture to the letter sound it starts with and we traced/printed letter Z's.  On the right we circled the letter that each picture begins with and printed/traced letter z's.

 On the left we colored pictures that began with the /z/ sound orange and the rest of the pictures were colored blue.  We traced/printed letter Z's.  On the right we cut/pasted pictures on the letter each picture began with (a column of w's and a column of z's) and wrote the letter it began with.  We traced/printed letter z's.

Tot Letter Zz Books

 We used Confessions of a Homeschoolers dot page for the cover.

 On the left we matched zebras by color from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  On the right we

completed the dotted stripes of the zebra and I forgot where I got it (sorry).

 On the left we matched pictues of clothing and on the right we colored zippers by color (color coded color words) from 1+1+1=1.

 On the left we found pictures by clues and colored them by following color directions.  On the right we found letter Zz's in the zipper and dot markered them.  Both are from 1+1+1=1.

 We did a pre-writing activity on the left and a matching the pictures (a grayscale and colored). Both are from 1+1+1=1.

Lastly we did a cutting zebra activity that wasn't in our letter books from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

We did the story "The Tortoise and the Hare" this week. 

We heard the story on the pocket chart... they are felt pieces but my felt

board is small and these are large pieces... so it made it a better fit.

We did a pre-writing activity where we helped Tortoise and Hare get to the

finish line.

 We moved in various ways moving fast or slow and then we did this song... "Move Fast/Move Slow" and you can hear the song here.

We categorized things by moving fast like the Hare or moving slow like the Tortoise with

this activity sheet.

We watched the Disney video of "The Tortoise and the Hare"

We made Tortoise and Hare props so we each could tell our own story of

"The Tortoise and the Hare".

We reviewed the country and talked about cows.

We talked about things we might see in the country.  We heard the poem "Pasture" and

talked about some of the country vocabulary in the poem... pasture, calf, barn, tractor, farmer, and

plow.

We made country headbands.

We talked about how cows give us milk, watched a video and pretended to milk a cow using a

latex glove.  The children had fun with this but I couldn't get a picture as I was busy helping

them.

We traced pictures of a cow from here.

And we made these cow puppets or masks... you can use them either way... from here.

Frogs were our next adventure.

We jumped up and down and then talked about animals that jump... then the frog was introduced.

We talked about frogs and did a graph... "Do you like frogs?"... and we talked about the graph results.

We sang...

Jump, jump, froggy jump

Jumping all day long

Jumping here and jumping there

While you croak a song

(to the tune:  "Row, Row, Row Your Boat) and we jumped like frogs while we sang.

We made frogs that jump out of paper towel roll (you push down on the back of the roll and it jumps).

And we sang "Five Speckled Frogs" using a magnet board and the video.

We matched frogs that we got from here.

We also talked about the life cycle of a frog.  We watched this video and sequenced the life cycle using a printable from here.

And that is our week's summary.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Best,

Rose

Third Week in May 2012

Hello Everyone!
This week was a very busy week.

This week we were introduced to the letter Yy.

Letter Yy Book

 This is the cover and we colored the Yy's and the yo-yo.

 On the left we completed our three piece puzzle of the letter Yy and we did a pre-writing activity.  On the right we found the one that was different and circled letter Yy's. 

 On the left we listened to clues to find the right Yy picture and then followed the directions to color the pictures.  We also traced Yy's.  On the right we used Confessions of a Homeschooler's Letter Hunt page.

 On the left we colored the picture that began with the letter in the box and we traced/printed letter Y.  On the right we circled the letter each picture began with and traced/printed letter y.

 On the left we said the picture name, circled the letter and printed the letter and traced/printed letter Yy's.  On the right we printed the letter that each picture began with.

 On the left we colored the pictures that began with the /y/ sound yellow and pictures that did not start with the /y/ sound we colored green.  We also printed the letter that each picture began with.  On the right we put /p/ pictures in one column and /y/ pictures in the other and then we printed the letter the picture began with.  We also traced/printed letter Yy's.

Letter Yy Tot Book

 We used dot markers to make the letter Yy for our cover from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

On the right we put together balls of yarn by matching colors from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  On the left we colored a yo-yo from 1+1+1=1. 

 On the left we matched balls of yarn by color to make a shape from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  On the right we listened to clues and found the picture and colored the picture by following directions from 1+1+1=1.

 On the left we found the Yy's in a yo-yo.  On the right we colored yo-yo's by color.  Both of these came from 1+1+1=1.

Above we matched pictures to a grayscale picture from 1+1+1=1.

The Three Little Pigs was heard, watched and many activities were added.

We talked aout pigs and learned as much as we could about the animal.  We then guessed what story we were going to hear that was about pigs.

We watched the following U-tube video of The Three Pigs.

We talked about the story and then made each of the houses.  We made these out of cut off milk cartons covered with white paper.  The straw house was made with yellow crinkle cut paper, the stick house was made with popsicle sticks, and the brick house was made with cut up red paper for the bricks.

We then made a story set out of these houses.  I cut slits in the rooftops so the children could play by themselves so that they could stick the pigs in the house of their choice.  It's fun to listen to how they retell or make up their own stories.

We then talked about how the pigs tricked the wolf and he never came back.  We did a dictate and illustrate paper in which they told how they would trick the wolf.

We painted plates pink and made pigs.

And we made wolf puppets from here.

The Little Red Hen was also heard, watched and activities were added.

This is the U-tube movie we watched.

We also heard a story board version that the pocket chart was used.

We talked about the things that were the same and different about the two stories.

We sang a song and did a fingerplay to go along with the story.

We sequenced the story using an activity sheet.

We played a game called Back to Back.  We started back to back and then moved to different positions... like hip to hip, hands to hands, ear to ear, etc...  If Little Red Hen was called everyone had to find a new partner.

 We are head to head here.

We learned the rhyme... Ring Around the Rosie.

We had fun using a music cd to do Ring Around the Rosie.  We do it a little different... we circle around our preschool table vs. holding hands and then fall when we are supposed to.  The children love this!!!

We talked about what posies are and made a pocket full of posies.  We sewed two half paper plates together and then taped posies on straws inside our pocket.

 We all found our own methods to accomplish the sewing... as sewing is a tricky business.

Our pockets complete.

And that sums up our week.

Best,

Rose