Mary Had a Little Lamb ~2014

Have you heard of “Discovery Bay Preschool” on facebook?  Every week she shares a lesson plan and some of the neatest ideas I have seen in a long time.  I love browsing through her page to see what they have been up to and love her current unit ~Holes.  Well this summer I decided I wanted a program more structured like hers, and so I began.  Of course, I still haven’t made it as wonderful as hers, but all things are a work in progress and she is truly a creative person.  It has made the whole lesson planning thing a much less daunting task because I make sure I have covered the areas.  Of course, I write the full lesson plan out separately with all those things you should have in a lesson plan. 
I also wanted to share that things have really changed a lot here at “The Kids Place”.  I  always had (and well still have, just in a different way) a preschool focus serving children 2 and older.  On occasion I would take one younger than 2.  This year is a whole new story… I currently have three young infants in my program and one preschooler.  I even moved my daycare room from May 1999 when we moved into this house to our living room/dining room to accommodate the infants and preschoolers.  I love my new space and am truly enjoying the change!  I will post my new set-up sometime in the future as it still needs plenty of tweaks and things changed to make it the space I want.
So back to the lesson…  our first week I decided to work off the theme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”.  

Here is the outline lesson plan I came up with:

And some of the activities I captured with the camera…

Homemade puppets used to sing “Mary Had a Little Lamb”

Counting sheep… we just used the number 1 due to the age of my child so I just left off the “s” in lambs.  I had numbers through 20.

Mary Had a Little Lamb pasting page.

Facts about sheep page.

Colored Sheep pocket chart story found at “Make Learning Fun”.  I didn't make the felt sheep, I made paper sheep... not as cute but I just didn't have the time.

Grass growing project. We covered it with saran wrap to help make it grow faster and not having to water (or overwater).

                                           Sheep paper plate project.

Emergent Reader on Colors ~found at “Making Learning Fun”.

Lamb color word activity ~found at “Making Learning Fun”.

Color sorting sheep and size sorting sheep.

 Matching sheep.

Sheep in a pasture art project.  I made my own stamp for the grass using a Costco milk top and fun foam cut like grass and hot glued to the milk top.  See below.

And then we did a “Mary Had a Little Lamb” rule book and inserted our own pages to go over the rules.

And lastly, our learning activity boxes.  I only got photo’s of one of the two… but they are all on my plan as to what we did.  I am thinking of making one for math, one for language and literacy, one for fine motor, and one for science and social studies.  My children that I have had over the years (and this year is no exception) love these boxes and the activities inside them.






 

And that concludes “Mary Had a Little Lamb”!  Up next week is “I Know My Name”.

Hope to see you back!

Rose