I like learning i

I'll start by admitting that the phrase "I like learning i" comes from one of the songs we've been listening to this week on youtube.com.  It's a Storybots song, and it is sooooo catchy - in fact, I woke up in the middle of the night with it going through my head a couple of nights ago! 

The children LOVE using our youtube.com playlists each morning, and learn so much by singing and dancing about learning concepts.  In addition to Storybots, I like to use a lot of HarryKindergarten and The Learning Station music videos.  Here's a link to this weeks' playlist.  By far the favorite song this week was Jack Hartman's Silly Pirate Song , especially the phrase, "Hey Dude, surf's up!" 

There aren't as many fun ways to learn about the letter Ii as there are for some letters, but we found some ways to learn and play all at once.  I've created an "ice cream" sensory play bin for the children, and it had lots of use this week.  In a shallow tub I put all the pompons I could find, several clean and empty ice cream boxes with their lids, some toy food ice creams and cones, empty containers from sprinkles, spoons and bowls.  The children scooped, poured, sorted, pretended, and worked on social skills like sharing and turn taking.  Stuffing small pompons in the tiny jars (from sprinkles) was the hit of the week - and worked on fine motor development, strengthening finger muscles in preparation for writing.  The children will tell you it was a fun way to play.

Our upper case I craft was decorated as an ice cream.  The children cut out their letters (more finger strengthening work as well as hand-eye coordination), then glued on cones, "ice cream" and sprinkles. 

 They looked delicious hanging on the wall, along with our "inchworm" lower case i crafts.

You won't be surprised to know that our ice cream taste test was also a happy and fun event for the children.  I bought 3 flavors of ice cream; chocolate, strawberry, and mint chocolate chip.  We were scientists, and predicted which flavor we would like the best, and graphed it (math and reading our names).

 The best part was definitely the tasting!  (I'm not talking about what the children liked now, I'm talking about Ms. Paula and Ms. Julie!  Yum!)  It was interesting to revisit the graph after we tasted, because several children discovered a new favorite flavor!

We also enjoyed playing instruments for the letter i.  I have an outside carpet that we put down, and the children play the instruments on the carpet, or have a marching band on the driveway.  Some of the boys got very excited about drumming this week, and spent hours of our outside play time using plastic bowling pins to drum on the tree trunks, the playground, and some empty crates.  They made a very satisfying sound, and the boys involved got some big body play out of the experience.

Our final letter i activity was to make an Itsy Bitsy Spider craft, to read an Isty Bitsy Spider book by Iza Trapani, and of course to do the finger play.  Have you met "The Great Big Hairy Spider?"  It's just like the itsy bitsy spider, but of course much louder, and with much bigger hand motions.  It's a hoot to see the kiddos act it out, and use their big, deep voices to say it!

The children decorate their "house" cut out, and we add a spider ring to a drinking straw "water spout".  (I think this idea originally came from Mailbox magazine.)

See, just like the Storybots sing, "I is incredible, I like learning Ii!"

Back to school week

The first week of school is always crazy, busy, and exciting - for the children AND the teachers.  Here's a peek at some of the things we've been doing...

We put injured animals in an "ambulance" and made /a/ sounds as we drove it around.

 We made uppercase letter A crafts, cutting out the shape, writing our names on it, and then adding a poem about alligators and an alligator paint stamp to it.  We also made lowercase a crafts that look like apples with ants crawling on them.

 We made new friends...

and played in the sand.

 We found new perspectives, new ways of looking at the world we're in.

 We tried out all the playground equipment, from swings...

 ... to the climbing gazebo...

 ... and of course the slides!

There were new things to try out, like pattern blocks...

                                                             ...dinosaurs...

                                                                                              ... and other math manipulatives.

We threw bread for the ducks that live in the pond behind my house...

 ... got messy

 ... and found quiet places to hang out with friends.

 We ran ourselves ragged - and my dog Patriot too!

 We took off our shoes and felt the sand squishy and soft between our toes...

 ... and played with colorful ice on a hot afternoon.

 That meant negotiating with friends for the toys, cooperating and sharing.

 We mixed, poured and dripped the melting purple ice water, fascinated with the cold, the color, and the process.

 We found yummy ways to cool off too!  We all know what it means when Ms. Paula starts singing her "Pop, pop, popsicle" song.

 We read about astronauts, and dressed up in an astronaut costume...

 ... made a page for our abc album with stamps and stickers of things that start with the letter A.

 We hunted for roly pollies, and collected them in a container so we could check them out.

 We dug with trucks in the dirt at the sensory table.  Did I mention we got dirty and messy?

 We each made a page for our class book, Up On Top, a variation of Dr. Seuss's Ten Apples Up On Top.  Class books are our favorites to read, because we helped to make them!

 We told which kind of apple we each like the best, and made a graph to show which we think is the yummiest flavor.  Several friends signed "equal," because red and yellow both had 4 votes!

 Next we had a blind taste test, trying out (peeled) pieces of green, yellow and red apple, and deciding which bowl of apples tasted best.

 When Ms. Paula revealed which flavors were in each bowl, we found out that many of us prefer different kinds of apples than what we thought we did.  We did some clever thinking, and decided that when Ms. Paula goes to the store, she should probably buy red apples the most often, because the most people like red ones the best.

We played in the water table, and of course, got completely soaked.   Good news!  It is very hot, and the water helped us to feel cool and comfortable outside.

 We enjoyed the sunshine, but most of all...

                                                                      WE HAD FUN!

By the way, as of this writing, it's only Thursday.  We still have to make and eat our applesauce tomorrow - but that's another post.

Denise Fleming books

Do you have favorite authors and illustrators?  Chances are, you do.  Me too!  One of the many children's book author/illustrators I love is Denise Fleming.  Her art is very distinctive, and her books are perfect for young children.  I decided to focus on some of her books this week, here are some of them:

We began the week with the book Lunch!  In the book, a little mouse enjoys a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables, and gets very messy in the process.  We used cotton swabs to paint our own little mice.

 I also created several other follow up activities for the children: a blind taste test, with graphs for predicting and charting the results, sorting which foods in the book are fruits/vegetables, and of course, a class book to write, inspired by the original.  There were enough activities in this pack to keep us busy for 2 days.  If you'd like, you can check it out on my TpT store here.

On Friday, I thought I'd try a lesson with the preschoolers that I've used successfully in the past with first graders: writing poetry in response to Where Once There Was A Wood.  I am so glad that I did!

We started by reading the book, of course!  Then we talked about the habitat in the book, and other places that animals live.  As you can see, the children came up with a lot of ideas about habitats!  We brainstormed 3-4 animals that might live in each habitat.  With older children, I would have had them describe each animal and the actions it might take, but these kiddos are young, and had really worked hard to think of all these ideas.

To follow up, I pulled each child individually to the computer, and we looked at the chart together.  Each child chose one habitat and three animals that belonged there.

 
The children thought about what their chosen animals might do, and as they dictated, I typed their words for them.  As you can see, we followed the structure of the book very closely, and Denise Fleming's beautiful imagery and repetition guided the children to make thoughtful observations.











What do you think?  I think these 4 and 5 year old kiddos wrote some lovely poetry.

Cake, A science experiment we can eat!

I am always trying to learn new things, particularly new ways to teach the kiddos, so I was very excited to find out about an online article called Helping Your Child Learn Science, by Nancy Paulu and  Margery Martin.  In the article they suggest many ways parents and other caregivers can help children learn about science, including over a dozen science experiments.  Today we did one called Cake!                                                                                                                                                             

First we had to decide what we might need, and I also wanted to find out if the children knew why we might need them.

Everything they suggested was possible, even vegetables, as we often make pumpkin muffins.  I can tell that cooking with the children every week has paid off, they know a lot about cooking!

Next we washed hands (always before cooking!) and gathered the ingredients for this particular recipe.

One of the ingredients we needed was an egg, so one of the kiddos cracked that for us. We measured and scooped and poured everything into the mixing bowl.

 Of course we all took turns mixing!

This activity called for making 4 batches of cake mix.  One batch included all the ingredients, and each of the other batches was missing one thing: eggs, oil, or baking powder.  I used different colored muffin liners so we could tell the batches apart.  It's hard to tell from this picture, but the cakes in the yellow and blue liners weren't as full and fluffy as the ones in white and pink liners.

 We observed all four versions of the cake, first by smelling...

 ...then by looking and feeling...

 ... and finally by tasting.  Yum!

There were some differences between the batches.  The cake without egg was crumblier, and the one without oil was a little chewy and dryer, but overall, they were all delicious.  If you decide to try this recipe at home, I strongly recommend tripling the recipe.  It is written to use 1/3 of an egg, but that was very challenging!  All the batches tasted wonderful, and we have eaten them all up, so you don't need to worry about wasting the "incorrect" versions.

So, you might wonder if there was a clear winner.  Yes, there was.  The children were very attached to the first batch they tried (yellow liners), even although they were the flat cakes, without baking soda included!  When we were tasting, they seemed to prefer the texture of the complete recipe (white liners), but they had started raving about how yummy the cake was when they ate the ones in yellow, so that's what most of the children decided they preferred.   Me?  I'm with Pete the Cat on this one, "It's all good!"