Dinosaurs and dots

It's letter D week in preschool, so of course there have to be dinosaurs involved! In addition to plastic dinosaur toys, we've had dinosaur lacing...

 

... build a dinosaur...

 ... dinosaurs hats and puppets...

 ...and plenty of dinosaur math!

We sang the  D is for song, from Mrs. Jones Sing Along Songs, and acted it out by putting things that start with the letter D on a dish.  We even voted for our favorite d things to find on a dish, and made a graph with our whole bodies.  I was very surprised that more children voted for a ducky than a donut!

 We read The Dot by Peter Reynolds, and did a lot of dot painting - we even "made a dot by not making a dot" just like Vashti in the story!  To do that, I gave each child a circle cut out to place on their paper to keep that part free of paint.  I introduced the idea of "negative space," but what the kids took away from this lesson was that if you bang the dot paint hard on your paper, it makes splashes!  They really got into the pounding away, and laughed hysterically while making a huge mess.  One child told me we should do it all day, because it was the best!

We'll focus on ducks and dragons later this week, and there's even a cooking project.  Check back soon for an update!