A simple recipe for amazing preschool success with your little ones

What does it take to make an outstanding recipe - whether the traditional kind for food, or a recipe for something much less tangible, like success?

I would argue that all recipes need ingredients, and better ingredients will usually yield better results. Of course, there has to be a method for putting those ingredients together, and surely almost every recipe needs to be carefully seasoned. 

 

My ingredients for preschool - beside the obvious preschoolers and adult carer - would have to start with books and music!  So it was this last week, when we focused on learning the letter J.

One of the wonderful things about children is their energy, and rather than fight it, I figured we'd expend some of it by dancing and singing. We exercised to 100 with Jack Hartman's Count to 100, and did the Tooty Ta with Dr. Jean - because no kid can resist sticking out their tongue and bottom while they dance (who can)?! We sang Hello My Name Is Joe, adding actions until we could barely stand, and worked on vocal modulation sang loudly and quietly with John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt while jingling our bells. Were the kids worn out? NO! Were the teachers? Yes, yes we were, but it was only 9:30 am so we kept going.

Do you see the huge pile of jewelry in the box shown above? We put it ALL on and JUMPED JOYFULLY in jewelry.  By the time we were done the kiddos were ready to sit down for a few books (and my exercise ring was closed for the day)! 

Jump Frog, Jump is a great book for an energetic group - the pages alternate between story line and exclaiming "Jump Frog, Jump!" We held our bodies still on the story pages, just waiting to explode our arms up into the air as we shouted at the frog to JUMP! (Little ones can't still for very long, but by alternating still and moving we're working on self control.)

After our stories were done we worked our fine motor muscles gluing jewels onto a letter j.  I had fine plans for making a jack-o-lantern uppercase J another day, but... some days you follow the recipe, and other days you improvise. It's all good!

This week we'll be focusing on letter K.  My music playlist includes Katalina Matalina, Old King Cole, Kookaburra, and Polly Put the Kettle On.  We'll be reading about kangaroos and koalas, making a letter K craft with a kangaroo and song, and crafting adorable koala headbands.

K is also for kittens, kisses and Kente Cloth, and we'll read about them all. We'll reach into my letter K box to find a king, keys, koala, KitKat and chocolate kisses. I have a karate outfit that the kiddos will take turns wearing, and we'll look for chocolate kisses hidden in the toy kitchen. In case that isn't enough, I'm super excited to have downloaded all the alphabet songs from HeidiSongs, so we'll be singing and dancing lots of letters!

If we go back to the recipe metaphor, I'll finish by adding a helping dollop of outside time and free play, and seasoning liberally with joy and love.  I'm pretty sure our recipe is going to be amazing!

Kicking it with Kk

 Yes, we're really kicking it with Kk! Karate kicking that is, because it's a memorable way to introduce the letter!

There are actually a surprising number of words starting with Kk that the kiddos can relate to, and that make a great starting point for learning.  Let's talk about some of them!

Kittens (and puppies) in a kennel.  I found an adorable pink fabric kennel at a yard sale, and of course we filled it with all the kittens and puppies we could find!

Kebabs - we made fruit kebabs, but if you're learning at home you could make a whole meal of it!  Yum!  Remember that we all learn best by doing, so try to find (safe) ways for your child to help.  Can they cut the fruit or veggies that are going on the kebab?  I used plastic drink stirrers for ours so the children could safely put food on and take it off.  Get creative!

Komodo dragons, kookaburras, koalas and kangaroos - can you take a field trip to the zoo to see any animals that start with K?  Can you visit a Japanese Garden with a koi pond?  Or head to a grocery store looking for kiwi fruit?

 

We found a koi pond at the zoo, and bought fish food so we could feed them.  There's something very calming about just watching them - and who couldn't use a few moments of calm?  

If you want to follow up by painting the koi, take some photos and also talk about the colors of the koi.  They're usually shades of yellow, orange, red, black, white and grey.  Talk about how their bodies curve, notice the fins sticking out, and the eyes you can just barely see on the sides of their heads - all the features your child will get to draw for themselves.  I used this wonderful step by step tutorial, and was amazed at the gorgeous art work even 3 and 4 year old children can create!

For some fun math learning,  I created this counting and addition resource full of koalas, kangaroos, kookaburras and lots of other Australian animals.  The count and clip cards are a sneaky way to get in some fine motor practice (opening the pegs), and the counting and addition mats support young math learners by making the math concrete (rather than just an abstract concept).  You can find it in my TeachersPayTeaches store if you'd like it!

 

Candy doesn't start with K, but KitKat and kisses do, and you KNOW those will get your child's attention!  I like to hide a mini KitKat or chocolate kiss in the toy kitchen for each child to find, and to keep the wrapper to go on our letter Kk pages.

Of course, you know we have to make hand or foot print art!  Here are our kingfishers and koalas!

To make the kingfisher you'll need to paint your child's foot half blue and half orange.  When it's dry they can add a torn paper branch, wiggle eyes, a skinny triangle beak, and little bird feet.

To make the koala have your child glue a paper tree along the side of the page, and a branch coming off it near the bottom of the page.  Paint their hand grey, and print it in the crook of the branch, with the fingers printing onto the tree to look like the koalas legs holding on.  They can add a head and ears, and when it's dry add features and torn paper "leaves" in the tree.  Too cute!

I have to admit, I'm really quite pleased with the letter Kk crafts that I came up with - they both have movable pieces!  

The joey kangaroo can be slipped in and out of the mother's pouch, which goes well with the song I made up to teach the kiddos about kangaroos (text below).  The lower case k is a king (it has a crown), knows karate (check out the belt) AND it kicks! Check it out in this quick video:

The Kangaroo Song by Paula Beckerman, 

(to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus)

The kangaroo hops up and down, up and down, up and down,

The kangaroo hops up and down, all around Australia.

The baby kangaroo is called a joey, called a joey, called a joey,

The baby kangaroo is called a joey all around Australia.

The joey kangaroo jumps in and out, in and out, in and out,

The joey kangaroo jumps in and out of its mummy's pouch.

 I've also created a cute koala song and headband craft...

...and for slightly older children, a koala book!  Here's a peak at some of the pages...

 ... and the adorable koala cover!

You may also enjoy the picture books you can see in this photo, they're another fun way to add some letter Kk fun to your days.

Of course the very best thing that starts with Kk is kisses! Remember to shower your little ones with lots of hugs and kisses, and have an awesome week! 

K is okay!

 We had a powerful start to the week with everyone karate kicking for Kk! We had to follow that up with a small Kit Kat bar - and we kept the wrappers to put on our K pages.

This week I added a kennel full of kittens (and puppies) to our play area, as well as several koalas and kangaroos.

We read a lot of books about kangaroos and koalas this week, and sang along with songs about them on youtube.com.  You probably already knew that baby kangaroos are called joeys, but did you know baby koalas are too?  I grew up in Australia, and didn't know that koalas make a grunting sound - we learned about that here, and heard a kookaburra laughing here.

Kookaburras are a kind of kingfisher, and are mostly brown.  Other kingfishers are more colorful, so when we chose our hand print art, we made either colorful kingfishers, or koalas.  The children tore and glued paper to make trees for their animals, then the teachers painted and placed their hand prints.  The kiddos painted on heads, and added all the details, making some beautiful hand print art.

My hand print alphabet has been inspired by many many blogs and pins, all of which I have posted on this pinterest board.  I try to take everything a step further, find ways for the children to do their project, rather than a teacher doing everything for the child.  A child's hand print is cute, but if the child is only a passive item to be painted and printed, it isn't art.  I try to ensure that our projects are child directed as much as possible, and that my role is to help as needed.

One way we are working on making things more child directed, is to have the kiddos cut out their letter crafts if possible.  You can see the lines on our K crafts are kid cut.  Some children were able to manage independently, while others sat in my lap and used scissors with finger holes for a child and adult to work together.

 Here's another Kk activity: fruit kabobs.  We tried papaya for the first time on our kabobs.  One child loved it and had lots more, several ate it and said it was okay, and lots just tasted it and decided it wasn't for them.  That's okay - we won't know if we like it unless we try it and find out, and children often need to be exposed to a food 10 times before they'll even try it. 

 Our big art project this week was to do a guided drawing of koi fish, then do a crayon resist and water color wash to complete it.  We've fed the koi at the zoo, so the children are familiar with them.  We looked at photos and noticed the coloring of koi, then used crayons in those colors for our fish.

 The water color wash was made using dried up old markers.  You can see how to make it here.

 I think these fish are gorgeous!  These young artists are 3, 4 or 5 years old.  I found the idea here.

There were also a lot of interesting things this week that had nothing to do with the letter Kk, but everything to do with learning.  Check out this Tersa Sphinx moth caterpillar Mark found and showed us!  It was eating our pentas, before burrowing underground to transform into a moth!

One of our friends broke his arm over the weekend, and he invited everyone to write on his cast.

We enjoyed mini pumpkins and pine cones in our fall sensory box...

... and tasted the first clementines of the season from our little orange tree.  Yum!

We continued learning math concepts with a variety of manipulatives, sorting, patterning and developing our fine motor skills along the way.

Some of the older kiddos worked on making hexagons with pattern blocks.  We have played with pattern blocks countless times, just exploring, making patterns, or matching the shapes to a template to make pictures, so this is a familiar manipulative.  This time I guided their play, encouraging them to make hexagons with each of the six available shapes.  The first four worked just fine as they have common angles, but the square and the narrow diamonds do not.  I wanted the kiddos to figure that out for themselves, so I gave them each shape in turn, without letting on that it was, I thought, an impossible task.

 Surprise!  I was wrong.  I have over 20 years experience teaching young kiddos, using math manipulatives including pattern blocks, and "knew" that the orange squares don't make a hexagon shape.  Why did I never think to make it in negative space, the hole left when squares form the outside of the hexagon instead of the inside?

Next, this same child took 6 narrow brown diamonds, and joined them together to create a hexagon.  We counted sides, and found it had 12!  That's a dodecahedron.  Together we reevaluated, and used three narrow brown diamonds.  Yes!  It's not the same hexagon, because the angles truly are different, but a six sided shape nonetheless.  Another child realized the negative space inside his diamonds made a star!

The kiddos made hexagons in negative space using triangles too, and then, returning to the problem, finally achieved a hexagon in negative space with the narrow brown diamonds!  When I tell you that I am both teacher and learner in my classroom, this is what I mean.  How cool to find there is another way, and to learn something new!  I love young children!