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Saturday, September 20, 2014

Dotty for the letter D

Crafts, activities and ideas for teaching the letter Dd to preschool and kindergarten kiddos.
 One of our weekly routines is making a page for our abc photo albums.  The children decorate a page with stamps and stickers of things that start with the letter of the week, and then I print a photo of them doing one of our letter activities to face it.  They love to read their albums, to see what they made, and to look at photos of themselves and their friends having fun.  I love that they revisit their learning!
Crafts, activities and ideas for teaching the letter Dd to preschool and kindergarten kiddos.


 One of the boys noticed this amazing leaf bug crawling near the garage this week, so we moved it to a tree where we could see it, and be sure no-one would accidentally step on it.  The kiddos were amazed - they kept saying the bug was "made out of a leaf."  Of course, we talked a little about camouflage!
Crafts, activities and ideas for teaching the letter Dd to preschool and kindergarten kiddos.

Here's a couple of the handprint creations we made this week - these go in a second abc book for the children.  By the end of the school year they have an alphabet of hand and foot print art, and once again, they love to visit and revisit them.  If you'd like to see more of these, check out our class page on Artsonia!
Crafts, activities and ideas for teaching the letter Dd to preschool and kindergarten kiddos.

Crafts, activities and ideas for teaching the letter Dd to preschool and kindergarten kiddos.

Since we've been learning the letter D, and doing dinosaur activities, I used my die cut machine to make a dozen dinos for each child, and then had them sort them however they wanted.  They had lots of great ideas: sorting by color, by shape (or type of dino), and even by carnivores/herbivores!
Crafts, activities and ideas for teaching the letter Dd to preschool and kindergarten kiddos.

Crafts, activities and ideas for teaching the letter Dd to preschool and kindergarten kiddos.

 During outside time, one of the kiddos decided the pile of bones were from a dinosaur - not surprising!  I think we have a future paleontologist on our hands!
Crafts, activities and ideas for teaching the letter Dd to preschool and kindergarten kiddos.
 This one is looking for worms, insects, and roly pollies - a future entomologist.
Crafts, activities and ideas for teaching the letter Dd to preschool and kindergarten kiddos.

D is also for dog, and my dog, Patriot, is definitely part of our school family.  He doesn't realize that he is a D. O. G. - he thinks he's one of the kiddos.  When we line up, he lines up with us (but I have to admit he still cuts in line terribly), he has his own special spot to sit with us during story time, his own spot for nap time (on the couch, spoiled dog!), doesn't understand why he doesn't get a place of his own at lunch time (but patrols the floor hopefully), and loves to play with the children.

When the weather isn't too hot, he loves to play chase with the kids.  They usually start it, by running up to him and jumping into a play bow position like I've shown them, and then they're all off, racing around the yard yelling and having a fine old time.  Patriot is a lot quicker than the kids, so he'll slow down and look at them over his shoulder, wait until they almost catch up, and then bolt off again. It's a game they play over and over, kids and dog all getting worn out, and then collapsing happily to rest afterwards.
Crafts, activities and ideas for teaching the letter Dd to preschool and kindergarten kiddos.
 One of the mommies saw this game for the first time this week, and asked, "What does Patriot do on the weekend?"  He pouts.  He lays around the house looking miserable, missing his friends, and catching up on his sleep.  He'll be ready for friends to come play on Monday!
Crafts, activities and ideas for teaching the letter Dd to preschool and kindergarten kiddos.

This kiddo has an "ipad" - "See the button there, that's to turn it on."
Crafts, activities and ideas for teaching the letter Dd to preschool and kindergarten kiddos.

I haven't mentioned why I titled this post "Dotty for the letter D" yet.  Well, here it is.  We read The Dot earlier this week, and painted our own dots - I wrote about that in the previous post.  I finally got all 24 dot paintings up on the wall - they are so colorful in our lunch room!
Crafts, activities and ideas for teaching the letter Dd to preschool and kindergarten kiddos.
 We also decorated ducks one day this week, using torn paper to cover our ducks with feathers.  When I put them up on the wall, the kiddos informed me that there were 5 adults and 6 babies, so there were more babies than mommas.  We talk about math concepts like this often, so it's just a normal part of their day, to notice and comment on number, more/less - on almost anything they notice.
Crafts, activities and ideas for teaching the letter Dd to preschool and kindergarten kiddos.

 Finally, here's the craft project we did on Friday, when we talked about dragons.  I read the children some of my favorite poems from The Dragons Are Singing Tonight, by Jack Prelutsky.
I found this cute dragon craft on terrific2s.blogspot.ca and love that it uses bubble wrap printing to make the scales!  The children enjoyed painting, cutting out their dragons, and gluing on the details, and now our dragons are hanging over the table in our playroom, guarding us!

Crafts, activities and ideas for teaching the letter Dd to preschool and kindergarten kiddos.
Crafts, activities and ideas for teaching the letter Dd to preschool and kindergarten kiddos.
Thank you for stopping by to check out what we've been up to at Paula's Preschool and Kindergarten!  Please come back soon!

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