Activities for Thursday, February 25

Willow room- t/th class

Our question today was "how are you feeling? "
"If you give a pig a pancake?" by Laura Numeroff was our story today.

We did a flannel board rhyme called Kitten and mitten

We used funny brushes with glitter paint today and we had magnetic shapes at the easel.

We had a magnetic game with colored balls and matching them to the right color paint jar. We had letter "J", "K" and L" puzzles out today.

We sang Hap Palmers' Sally the swinging snake
Something special and Put your hands up in the air. We also sang the sunshine song.

We have a new ball and tube tunnel in the room and Styrofoam pieces in the sensory table.

Oak Room;

We read "If I were an astronaut" by Eric Brown

We talked about Mars Facts

We dipped star and moon shapes in glue and pressed them onto paper; then we sprinkled them with glitter.

We had spools with rollers on them at the easels.

We have some snap together blocks and a "U" letter puzzle.

We sang on the count of 5, and Tap your toes and follow me.

Activities for Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Willow room:

We read "Big bears can" by David Bedford

Our question was "Do you have the letter "K" in your name?

We did a big and little game with Clifford, the days of the week and the weather at our second circle.

For art today we rolled prickle balls in glitter paint inside a box.

We had dry erase markers and an eraser at the easel today.

We had color magnetic shapes on a magnet board, Mr. Potato head and button sorting out. We also had a classification board out today.

We sang "Stick to the glue and Jump Jim, Joe.

Maple Room:

We read "Alphabet Rescue" by Audrey Wood today. We painted with trucks today at the table and we had Alphabet stampers and paint at the easels.

We sang The February song", "5 green and speckled frogs", and "the tempo marches on".

We played "What letter is missing?

We have added some cut up tubing and connectors to our sensory table with the PVC pipe.

Oak Room:

We read "Bob's Best Ever Friend" by Simon Bartram (a space story)

We did letter "U" pictures in our journals and we took small groups of children out of the room at a time to play a game called "what's my job? a community helpers guessing game

We did some bean bag balancing activities and sang Over the deep blue sea.

We divided the class in half again today and did music with half while the other half enjoyed the gym. Then we switched places.

Activites for Friday, February 19

Maple room

Alphabet under construction by Denise Fleming was our book today.

We "constructed the first letter of our names" they are posted int eh hallway.

At the easel we painted with brushes.

We added some cut PVC pipe and connectors to our sensory table for building. The children are loving our construction site in our room.

We sang "Can't sit still", little fish, chicken dance, the January song, and Johnny pounds with one hammer.


Oak Room

We read Stars by Jennifer Dussling and The big dipper by Franklin Branley

We put star dots on black paper and then used colored pencils to connect the start to make our own constellations.

We had out some special space activities and our dramatic corner is becoming a great space adventure.

We have new playdough in each of the individual containers for the children to play with their own. We have red and yellow- It will combine to make a new color.

Activities forthe Willow room, February 19, 2010- February 24

Friday

Shape space was the story we read today. We painted with stencils at the easel and we used oil pastels on a shape today. This is part one of a two part process, next time we will paint over our pictures with watercolors.

We had Mr. potato head, puzzles, magnetic letters, bead stringing, and a magnetic puzzle shape book.

We sang bean bag pretend and Hello everybody.

We had fun with our lego table.


Monday-

We read One fish two fish, red fish, blue fish by Dr. Seuss
Our question today was Do you have the letter "J" in your name?

We painted over our oil pastel pictures with watercolors today. They are on display in the hallway.

We had magnetic shapes at the easels to make pictures.

We had magnetic letters out- we tried to spell some words. We had mouse shape up, stringing beads and the magnadoodle. We sang couch potato pokey, stomp and clap, and little fish.


Tuesday:

We did a CD story- called Chameleon's colors by Chisato Tashiro

We had magnetic letters on one side of the easel and magnetic shapes on the other side of the easel.

We had sort the shapes out on the table, let's make a snowman and a shape pegboard.

We sang little fish, list of dances, couch potato pokey

The children are really enjoying the lego table.

Activities for Thursday, February 18, 2010

Willow room: T/Th class

We read "shape space" by Cathryn Falwell

We painted using stencils at the easels.

We used special oil pastels on a shape today. Today is the first part of the process. Next class time we will be painting over our oil pastels pictures.

We made shape pictures like our story at free art today. We used a shape sorter and colors, and on our vocabulary classification board, we sorted shapes.

We did "bean bag pretend" and "hello everybody" at music.

We had fun with the lego table in the room.

Oak Room:

We read 2 books today; "Bamboo and friends- the moon" by Felicia Law and "Walking on the moon" by Deborah Shearer we talked about moon craters and moon characteristics.

We made our own moons with craters- we glued objects to a cardboard circle and covered it with foil to look like the moon.

We played the space bingo game again today. we had some ABC building blocks and the letter "t" puzzle out.

We did "Jump to Jupiter" an action song with different actions for each planet.

We had a scale out and we had pretend moon rocks and earth rocks to compare the difference.

Oak room- Wednesday, February 17

Oak room:

We read "There was a bold lady who wanted a star" by Charise Mericle Harper

The children are enjoying our space center set up in the dramatic corner.

We divided the children up into small groups and played a space word bingo game. We also divided them up into two groups and took half to the gym while the rest stayed in the room and did music; then we switched places. It helps to have a smaller group both for music and gym time.

For music we did our planet song, where is the astronaut, and the freeze dance.

We are talking about the letter "T" and the children made "T" pictures in their journals.

Activities for Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Willow Room- MWF

We read "The Chameleon Colors Book " by Gene Yates. We are talking about the letter "I" this week. We played a color bear game where we gave each of the children a color bear and they found something of the same color in the room.

For art, we used watercolors to make rainbow colors. At free art we had fun with glue today.

We sorted special color foods into color bowls, we had a magnadoodle out, and a shape find and match box.

We sang Jump Jim Joe, a dog in school, and baby fish

We have our play kitchen back and we have pink playdough.

Maple Room

We read "Building a house" by Byron Barton

We did a group painting project which we will turn into skyscrapers for our bulletin board.

We had rollers at the easels to paint with today.

We sang "The February song", "winter song", "Construction song"," On the count of 5", and "shake, rattle, rock" and we used rhythm sticks.

We are talking about the letter "M".

Activities for Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Willow room: T/TH class

We sorted our name tags by color. We read "The Chameleon Colors Book" by Gene Yates

We played a color game today, we gave each of the children a color bear and they had to find something in the room that matched the bears colors.

We did a watercolor picture today making rainbow colors

We had colored shapes at the easels.

We had out Mr. Potato head, some color mice for matching the right cheese to the mouse. and a shape puzzle book.

We sang Jump Jim Joe, Dog in School, and Put your finger on.

We changed our dramatic corner back into kitchen and doll play. We added a lego table to our classroom block area.

Oak Room:

We are beginning our unit on space and today we read "There's no place like space"

The children cut out rocket shapes and painted them with watercolors. We will add the pictures we took of the children wearing their "space helmets" and put them on our bulletin board.

We sang The planets revolve around the sun, dancing with ribbons, and floating astronaut.

We are talking about the letter "T" this week.

We changed our dramatic play area into a space . We have rockets, space helmets, astronaut back rocket launchers and more.

Activities for Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Willow Room- MWF class

Our story today was "I need a Valentine" by Harriet Ziefert and we are talking about letter H things.

We made Valentine wreaths out of paper plates and stick on hearts. We had dots on hearts at the easel.

We had "G" and "H" puzzles out today, Velcro dolls with clothes, and a classification board to sort objects.

We sang Walking shoes, and I'm a little snowman for music.

We brought some snow in and dripped water colors onto the snow to make rainbow snow.

We are having fun with our post office.

Maple Room:

We read "Tortoise brings the mail" by Dee Lillegard

We had heart shape stampers with paint: to make our Valentine Bags

We had colored construction paper and crumpled foil and paint at the easels.

We sang the February song, H-E-A-R-T (Like Bingo), Shake your sillies out, The wiggle song, Freeze Dance, and Tommy Thumb.
We worked on letter "M" activities, some Valentine rhymes, and a shape recognition game.

Oak Room:

"Quiet, there's a canary in the library" was our story today to go along with our library fun.

We worked on pictures of things that begin with the letter "S" in our journals.

We divided the children up into two groups and kept 1/2 in the room to do music including Musical chairs and the other 1/2 got to be in the gym. Then we switched places, so everyone got to spend time in music and gym.

Activities for Tue. February 9, 2010

Willow Room:T/Th class

We read "Never Mail an Elephant" by Mike Thaler

We are talking about the color brown and our question today was "Are you wearing brown today/"

We are decorating our Valentine's day bags today using "loveable" stampers and ink pads.

We painted hearts using purple and pink paint at the easel.

We had some puzzles, color maze, sort the different size hearts, alphabet beads for stringing, shape match and more at the tables.

We sang Tommy Thumb, List of dances, love grows one by one.

We did some Valentine rhymes at circle time too.



Oak Room:

We read "Arthur's Valentine" by Marc Brown

We made "love bugs" we cut out a bug shape and a circle shape. We used cork to stamp a print of circles onto the bug to make it look like a lady bug with a special Valentine message.

We played a pass the bean bag game at music time.

We are talking about the letter "S"

Activities for Monday, February 8, 2010

Willow Room- MWF class

We are still talking about post office this week and our dramatic corner is a post office. We read "Never mail an Elephant" by Mike Thaler. We also did some Valentine's Day rhymes.

We are talking about he letter H this week so we asked do you have the letter "H" in your name?

We decorated our bags for our Valentines! We had heart shape paper at the easels and we used paint to decorate them.

We had some puzzles, shape sorters, magnadoodle and a heart shape matching game out today.

We sang "Hands are for clapping", "Tommy Thumb", and "Cool bear hunt'

The children really enjoyed the doll house today.

Maple Room

We read "The giant hug" by Sandra Horning

We made prints from celery. If you cut the bottom off a bunch of celery, the print will look like a flower. We used red and pink paint.

We had heart shapes with water colors at the easel.

We did some Valentine rhymes and Mailman rhymes.

We are working on the letter "M" this week.

Oak Room:

We read "Froggy's First Kiss" by Jonathan London

We made our Valentine bags by using stampers with heart shapes.

We sang "Come and buy a Valentine", ABC sounds song (A phonics song), and "Put your finger on".

We are learning about he letter "S" this week.

Activities for Friday, February 5, 2010

Willow Room: MWF class

We read "The Jolly Postman" by Janet and Allan Ahlberg; it is a cute classic story about a postman delivering the mail, so it ties in nicely with our post office.

We asked the children if they have ever received mail?

We created our own giant stamps! We used heart shape cookie cutters on paper cut out to look like a stamp.

We had some heart sorting activities, sorting melting snowman, magnadoodle, and shapes peg boards out today.

We did the Silly dance contest song (we danced with ribbons), list of dances, and brown bear, brown bear.

We had shredded paper in the sensory table and scissors to cut it up.

Maple Room

We had a guest reader today, Pastor Dan read Mr. Griggs' work by Cynthia Rylant

We made letter bags at the art table today, and we had paint, paint brushes and paper at the easels.

The kids picked the songs today, plus we dd the February song.

We practiced writing letters on the white boards today and we mailed a letter home.

Oak room:

We read "I.Q. It's time" by Mary Ann Fraser


We made the first page of our number book- one-one correspondence. One dot in each square helps the children understand that each time you say a number it represents one item. We also made pictures using the bingo markers.

We had picture number puzzles, and board games out today.

We used rhythm sticks, and did 5 little bunnies - an ordinal number rhyme.

Activities for Thursday, February 4, 2010

Willow Room: T/Th class

"I like me" by Nancy Carlson was the book we read today.

We did finger painting on bubble wrap- it is a fun sensory experience to feel the paint on the poppy paper. We used red and white paint to make pink and we pressed a paper on top of the paint to make a print.

We had heart shapes stencils and paint at the easels.

We had our dress a person out at the table, stringing beads, lots of puzzles, and our post office fun today.

We were matching real mittens and hanging them on a clothes line.

We sang skinnamarink, love grows one by one and five little valentines for music time today.

We have shredded paper in our sensory table and the children were encouraged to tear the paper up.

Oak Room

We read "I.Q. Gets fit" by Mary Ann Fraser

We made covers for our number books. We used large foam number stampers dipped in paint to decorate them. We had heart shape stencils, pink and purple glitter paint and rollers and brushes at the easel.

We had some board games out, a puppet theatre, our library center, and some buttons to explore.

We sang the pirate song, pass the bean bag to music.

The children are enjoying the library center we have set up. We have cards for them to stamp with due dates for books, they each have their own "library card" and they also sort the books back on the shelf by matching the book to the right section.

Activities for Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Willow room- mwf class

We read "I'm gonna like me" by Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Cornell

Our question today was "Do you have the letter "G" in your name?

We finger painted with red and white paint on top of bubble wrap. then we made a print onto paper.

We had heart shape stencils and paint at the easels.

We had out our pink playdough, alphabet puzzles, dress a doll, and a Valentine puzzle shape match out today.

We sang Skinnamarink, love grows, and 5 little Valentines.

We have shredded paper and scissors in our sensory table.


Maple room:

We read Penguin Post by Debi Gliori

We did a cutting project for our bulletin board. We cut house shapes.

We also did a "design your own stamp" with paint at the easel.

We had a mailbox shape find game, and a letters in your name game. We are working on the letter "L".

We sang the February song, months of the year, pass the envelope, we used the tambourines to dance and play to "Fun to get fit"and "shake rattle and roll".

Oak room

We read "I.Q. goes to the library" by Mary Ann Fraser

We worked on "R" pictures on our journals and we continued to make books today. Our library

We sang the opposite song, and used rhythm sticks to do a syllable tap (we tap the stick for each syllable in a word) and we used them for wheels on the bus too.

We had a board game and dice out also today in the dramatic corner is very popular. We have books to sort on the shelves and our own library cards.

Activities for Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Willow room- t/th class

We read "A day with the mail carrier" by Jan Kottke
We are talking about the color pink. Our question today was "Have you ever visited the post office?"

We glued foam letters on envelopes to decorate our class bulletin board. We had magnetic shapes at the easel.

We had some dressing dolls out today, a number peg puzzle, and a heart shape matching game.

We sang "I like my hat" and "the fish song".

We had our new post office set up today and we have new pink playdough with some heart shape cookie cutters and rolling pins.

Oak Room:

We read a really cute story called "Library mouse" by Daniel Kirk
The children got very excited about writing their own stories and became authors and illustrators.

We also made post cards to mail home. The children drew pictures on one side and made a Valentine wish on the other. We then walked to the office to mail them.
We sang bean bag boogie and put your finger on.

We are talking about he letter R.

Activities for Monday, February 1, 2010

Willow Room: MWF class

We read A day with a mail carrier by Jan Kottke and asked the children if they have ever been to a post office.

We transformed our dramatic corner into a post office now. The children will be mail carriers and sort mail too.

We do the weather, days of the week and some counting activities at our second circle too.

For art today we glued foam letters onto envelopes to decorate our post office themed bulletin board.

We had magnetic shapes at the easel.

We had letter puzzles out for the letters F,G,H.
We had a sorting game out, a number puzzle and some letter beads for stringing.

We sang I like my hat (and used paper hats for the song), we also sang the fish song

Maple Room:

We read "Double Trouble Groundhog day" by Bethany Roberts

We did shadow painting to be like the ground hog seeing his shadow. We used heart shapes and the children put the shape on the paper and painted around it so when we took it up, it looked like a shadow.

We had brushes at the easel.

We sang months of the year", "the February song", and "do you know these letter sounds?"

We are talking about the letter "L" this week.

Our dramatic corner is now a post office, with sorting activities, scales for weighing packages, cash registers, and many post office items. The children were very busy in our post office today.

Oak Room:

We read "DW's library card" by Marc Brown

We cut out heart shapes today and then painted them by putting them in a box and rolling marbles over them that had been dipped in paint. We will use them to decorate our bulletin board.

We are talking about the letter "R" this week.

We changed our dramatic corner into a library. The children each have their own "Trinity Library card" and they will sort books and check them out. They really enjoyed this today.

We sang "Hello, my name is Joe", Put your finger on, and "Where is thumbkin?"

Activities for Friday, January 29,2010

Willow room- MWF class

Our question today was "Do yo have the letter F in your name?

We read "My five senses" by Aliki and we made a chart of words that start with the letter F.

We had a group art project today, a big pieces of paper, and we used rollers with red and blue paint- so we made purple.

We had scented paint at the easel- it smells yummy.

We had an alphabet picture book out, some shape puzzles, and our magnadoodle.

We had a fine motor and matching activity out today- mittens and clothespins. they had to find the matching pair and then clip them onto the clothesline.

We used rhythm sticks today and used them while we sang along to a nursery rhyme cd.

Maple Room:

We read "The mitten" by Jan Brett today.

We cut a mitten shape out for a class book we are making. We painted with ice cubes.

We sang Dino Rhymes, did the chicken dance, and did head shoulders, knees and toes.

We practiced writing out letters on our white boards today.

We played a game with the parachute pretending it was a giant mitten and we were all the animals from the story getting inside to keep warm.

Oak Room;

We had our Pajama party today. The children came in pajama's and we had extra fun with sleepytime activities all day. When the children arrived, 2 of the teachers were "still sleeping" on the floor and the children were greeted by the director who told them they needed to be extra quiet since everyone was still asleep. The children were not sure what to do....they walked round a bit, then played with the toys quietly so as not to wake their teachers. It was so cute. After about 6 or 7 minutes of this, I told the we needed to wake up the teachers....

Then class got started, they read "Corduroy Bear while the children cuddled with their stuffed animals.

For art, they cut overalls to glue on a bear shape to look like corduroy bear. They drew on a face and glued on buttons.

For music we acted out "10 in the bed" and "5 little monkeys jumping on the bed".

We all sat on a big blanket and watched "Arthur's first sleepover".

We had a fun special day.

Activities for Thursday, Januaary 28

Willow Room: T/TH class

We are talking about the color purple and we asked "Are you wearing anything purple today?"
We read the story "Harold and the Purple Crayon" by Crockett Johnson
We added purple items to our purple train.

We used red and blue glitter paint with eye droppers to creat purple pictures. We put the paint on mitten shape paper, then we folded them over and made blot pictures.

We had chalk at the easels.

We had out letter beads for stringing, letter puzzles, and a lock puzzle.

We sang Face the facts, and did a honey pots color guessing game.

We are finishing up our pizza shop and we had out a mitten matching game.


Oal Room:

We read "When it starts to snow" (it is about what will the animals do?) by Phyllis Gershator

We did icicle painting- we angled the painting surface and used eye droppers to drip colorful paint down the paper from the top (and watched it run down the paper tot the bottom) When we were all done, we sprinkled glitter on the paper. Some of the spent a long time doing this, they were fascinated by the colors running together and liked watching the paint run. we also had added soap to the paint and some of the time it made bubbles when they squeezed the eye droppers. This was a fun project.

We had out perfection- a shape matching game, and a dinosaur board game.

We sang some hibernation songs, and some sing a long songs.