Letter K

Social Studies: King Tut (we saw a play on this last week) we're just going to talk a little more about him.

Crafts:

Make a Kings crown! Using construction paper, scissors, glue, pom-poms, sequins, ribbons, any other decorations.

Decorate paper kites. Cut a diamond out of construction paper, add stickers, and decorate with markers/crayons. Add a yarn tail. "Fly" your kites around the room.

Keys--trace an old key onto paper. Add glue and glitter to the outline. Draw a picture of what you think this key might go to!

Print out a Kangaroo and a joey, cut out a construction paper pouch. Glue the pouch on the kangaroo, and put the joey in the pouch.

Use squares to make a castle for the king. Use q-tips to paint on glue, and sprinkle with sand.

Cut out a basic Kitten head shape and glue on whiskers ripped from black paper (rip out the number of whiskers that matches the number you are working on). Count as you are gluing.

Fine Motor:
Puzzles
Play-Doh--rolling it out into snakes
Tracing a Kite shape.

Sensory:
Sand

Science:
Kangaroo's! Discuss how Kangaroo's carry their babies around in pouches and how Kangaroo's are different from other mammals.


Gross Motor Skills:
Kicking a ball
Hop like kangaroo's!
Make our bodies into K's and try to balance!

Math:
Counting: Make a counting book
Using construction paper, fold in half write the numeral on each half a sheet. Add one sticker to the one sheet. And so forth, depending on how many your child knows.

Make index cards with the numberals on them, add stickers to them. Have the child cover each sticker with a bean and count how many there are.

Shape: (still working on square)
Explore the shape of a square, using the square puzzle piece.
Trace a square.
Find squares in the home.

Nursery Rhyme/Song:
Three Little Kittens

Music:
This is a project we did a couple years ago and my big kids still like them. Now, gloves are on sale REALLY cheap in my area as it is the beginning of spring. So, now is a great time to make these....and it goes along with the nursery rhyme this week. You need gloves, buttons and either a needle and thread, or hot glue. Take the gloves, and add a button (large ones work best) to each fingertip using the needle and thread or simply hot glue them on. When they are dried/done, you slide your hands in the gloves, and tap your fingers together to make beautiful music. You can also tap them ON things to see how they sound different when tapped against different circumstances. I will be making 2 more pairs of these today as we don't have enough. :-)

Kitten Song (I'll make felt kittens to go along with this)
Five little kittens napping by the door
one woke up and then there were four;
Four little kittens napping next to me
one woke up and then there were three;
Three little kittens napping next to you
one woke up and then there were two;
Two little kittens napping in the sun
one woke up and then there was one;
One little kitten napping on a shelf
he(she) woke up and was all by himself!!!!!

Oh, I'm a Kangaroo!
(sung to the tune of the Farmer in the Dell)
Oh I'm a Kangaroo
I live at the zoo
I like to hop around a lot
How bout you??

Oh I'm a Kangaroo
I live at the zoo
I carry my baby in a pouch,
How bout you??


Snack:
Kabobs (fruit/cheese kabobs)

Toddler Time:
Life Skills: I'm sure there will be more rearranging.
Art: Coloring with triangle crayons.
Color: Bean bag pass, talking about the color of the beanbags (I may use the foam blocks again, unless I can find my beanbags!)
Vocabulary buidling: I have a set of vocab cards that is ever growing. I use them for classification with the preschooler, but for the toddler we just look at the pictures and talk about what the object is, what color/shape, etc. ; Comparisons: bigger/smaller, wet/dry
Fine Motor: Stacking blocks
Song: Row Row Row your boat!
Spanish: Listen to our spanish songs CD
Outside play: Watch things blowing in the wind (we've been having windy weather lately), pinwheels!
Sign Language: Thank You.
Gross Motor: Kicking and Hopping (like a Kangaroo)




Materials Needed:
construction paper
black paper
cat head outline
small stickers (for adding to the counting book, and index cards activity)
large beans
index cards
scissors
glue
glue stick
crayons
markers
bean bags
pom-poms
sequins
ribbons
any other decorations for the crown you have lying around

Toddler Time!

You might have been wondering why there weren't any new plans posted for last week. Or maybe you weren't, but I'm going to explain anyway. We had a period of almost 2 weeks where my kids were sick, I mean, 105 fever for DAYS sick. So...we didn't do any preschool as I was busy wiping down foreheads with cool cloths and dosing out medicine. When school finally did resume this past week, we used the U lesson plan that we hadn't had a chance to use yet, so I didn't do any new plans. I will be planning for the coming week today, and will post those *hopefully* this afternoon.

It has come to my attention that some of the moms from my birth board (a message board for people with babies born the same time my DS was) have been checking out this blog. I know some of them are coming and taking ideas for their preschool aged kids, and that is great! I'm very excited to be able to help jump start their own creative juices. I also wanted to tell you about a couple activities that my toddler has been VERY interested in lately.

The Umbrella Toss game that I talk about in the letter U lesson plan was a BIG hit. I ended up using foam alphabet blocks instead of bean bags (because somehow all my beanbags have disappeared...except for one red one), but that worked out well for my preschool student as I was able to find blocks with the letters he's already learned and have him identify the letter before he threw them. What I was suprised about was how much my almost 15 month old LOVED this activity. Sometimes he threw them, and sometimes he merely took the blocks from their container and moved them to the umbrella. He has asked to do this again!

In the spirit of moving things....his other favorite activity at the moment is rearranging things in the kitchen cabinets. Now, there are some things I don't want him to rearrange (you're all probably thinking that too) so what I did was moved my collection of empty glass jars (I have a good collection, of varying sizes, I recommend this sort of collection to you all!) to a cabinet and allowed him to rearrange them and move them from the cabinet where I put them into the lazy susan cabinet (which is his favorite one of course!). Honestly, this kept him occupied for quite some time.

He also really likes to rearrange the shoes! We have a shoe rack behind our front door, there are 5 of us, so we have lots of shoes. He likes to pull the shoe's off the rack and bring them into the living room/kitchen floors. Instead of trying to stop him from rearranging the shoes (although, honestly I wish he'd stop touching them so much...they're shoes afterall), I decided to let him at it. When he's over there, and he's pulling them all out into places where they don't belong, I simply go pull them ALL off the rack. Then he of course wants them all ON the rack! They aren't usually in order, with matching pairs or anything (but I'm sure that will come with time), but they all get put back and we're both happy (he gets to move the shoes still, but I don't have to pick them up from all the wrong places to put them back).

Have some fun with your little ones!

Ahhhh, Easter!

I meant to put this up earlier this week, my sincere apologies. My littlest one was sick in the first part of the week, and then time just slipped away with me. Be sure to check out the Egg-citing Science ideas on the other blog! It may be harder to read, but I don't have time right this second to edit it, I just copied and pasted from my word doc. Sorry about that, hopefully in the next day or so I'll come back and edit it so the formatting is better.


Draw an Easter egg. Mark the different sections on the egg with decorative lines, in these six sections of the egg put the numbers 1 to 6. Make a copy of the egg for each of the players. Get a dice. The children throw in turn. When they have thrown a number they can put a counter or mark on that section, obviously if they have already thrown the number 2 they do not want it again. The first player to cover their egg with a counter in each section is the winner.


Have an adult hold the basket, or place it on the floor. Give each child a few plastic eggs. Mark a line for each child to stand (don't make too difficult)....Each child will then try to throw eggs into basket.
Draw a rabbit outline (or print the one linked below) on paper, glue on cottonballs.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.shininghours.com/images/bunbig.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.shininghours.com/creating/bunny_outline.htm&h=870&w=706&sz=42&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=YV6FKPn9FEIIyM:&tbnh=145&tbnw=118&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbunny%2Boutline%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

Draw a large rabbit outline on poster board, use one of the LARGE cotton balls (or a BIG pom-pom) and play pin the tail on the bunny. (I love this idea, but I don't have everything we need for it on hand, but I'm sharing for others.)

Easter Bunny, Easter Bunny, Where's Your Egg?
Make a colorful Easter egg shape and covered it with contact paper. Then play "Easter Bunny, Easter Bunny, where's your egg?" It's played like the familiar game "Doggie, Doggie where's your bone?" The group sits in a circle and one child sits in the middle as the "bunny". The bunny hides their eyes as one person is chosen to sit on the egg picture. Then the group yells out "Easter bunny, Easter bunny, where's your egg? Somebody stole it from your home!" The Easter bunny then has three guesses to find the child who is sitting on it. That child then becomes the new bunny in the middle.

Easter Egg Matching Game:
Cut out egg shapes, all the same color paper, then decorate the fronts differently, making matching pairs. Turn them all face down and play like memory.

Use a recycled egg carton and place twelve plastic Easter eggs (the ones you can open in the middle) in it. I wrote the numbers 1-12 on the holes in the carton and wrote the numbers 1-12 on each egg--both parts. The children not only had to match the eggs to the number in the carton, but they had to put all of the plastic eggs back together first! (I'll be doing this as a 1/2 egg carton, as he's not ready for 1-12 yet.)

Bunny Hop! Play the music, and do the Bunny Hop!

This could be made easily into a File Folder game! Draw a picture of a chick, and a picture of a cracked open egg (or print the one I linked below, several times). Write a letter (or number) on each chick, and the same number on each cracked open egg. The child has to match up which egg the chick cracked out of. You could also do this with one lower case and one upper case letter, or sums and problems (which I will do for my big kids).

http://www.abcteach.com/directory/clip_art/animals/

Make a bunny ear headband. Use construction paper to make a band for around the childs head. Cut out ear shapes of cardstock (so they stand up better), and cut out a smaller ear shape from pink construction paper. Decorate the ears in any way you choose! Then staple the ears to the headband.

SONGS
5 Little Bunnies at Easter Time
Went to the carrot patch far away
Mummy bunny called them all right back.
But only 4 of her little baby bunnies came back.
Repeat to 3,2,1 bunny come back. Then sing the song again and all the bunnies come back.
Kids love this because they get to be able to take on a role in the song. Enjoy.

Bunny Baby bunny bounces high (jump high) Baby bunny bounces low; (jump low) Baby bunny blinks his eyes; (blink eyes) Baby bunny waves good-bye. (wave good-bye)

Letter U

Color: Blue

• Blue scavenger hunt for things around the house
  
• Wear blue!

Shape: Square

• Squares scavenger hunt
  
• Square collage--cut out various size square pictures, make a collage on blue construction paper.
  
• Square "Shape Shop" file folder game
  

Math:

• Use felt umbrella's with rain drops to count (1 raindrop on this umbrella, 2 raindrops on this umbrella, so on)
  

Nursery Rhyme:

• Rain Rain Go Away

Songs: (from www.preschooleducation.com)

Rain on my Umbrella added 8-7-97 Original Author Unknown
Sung to: "Frere Jacques"
Drip, drip, drop, drop,

Drip, drip, drop, drop,

Drip, drip, drop,Drip, drip, drop.

Rain on my Umbrella,Rain on my umbrella,

Never stops.

Drip, drip, drop.

Umbrellas Go Up and Down added 7-19-02 Original Author Unknown

Umbrellas go up,

Umbrellas go down, (Point up and down.)

When rain clouds are dark

All over the town.

One raindrop and two, (hold up on finger at a time)

Two raindrops and three,

My up and down umbrella

Is up over me. (fingertips touching over head.)

Four raindrops and five, (hold up one finger at a time)

Six raindrops and seven,

Raindrops are tumbling (raise arms and let fingers fall slowly)

Down from the heaven.

Drip, drip, drip, drip!

I am dry as can be,

My up and down umbrella

Is up over me (fingertips touching over head.)

Umbrellas Fingerplay added 3-23-00 Original Author Unknown--the song was incomplete as taken from the website, so I made up some of my own lyrics; (Use fingers or make umbrella puppets)

Five umbrellas stood by the back door,

The red one went outside, then there were four.

Four umbrellas pretty as can be,

The blue one went outside, then there were three.

Three umbrellas with nothing to do,

The green one went outside, then there was two.

Two umbrellas with no games to play,

The pink one went outside and shouted Hooray!

Just one umbrella alone in the hall,

The purple one went outside, and that was all!

Science:

• Water cycle: Rain comes down, sun heats it up, it goes back up into the clouds, cools down and falls again as rain (VERY simplified)
  

Craft:

• Making an umbrella. Take a paper towel and cut it into an umbrella shape. Then have the children paint by using water colors. ( food coloring and water works great for water colors) Then have a precut handle for the bottom of the umbrella and glue it on.
  
• Cut out umbrella's, have child paste on to a 9x12 blue construction paper. Have child brush on spots of glue around umbrella and give child some white rice to place of glue for rain
  

Social Studies:

• Unicorns (mythical one horned horses);
  
• Play pin the horn on the unicorn (drawn onto poster board with horns cut from paper).
  

Reading:

• A Great Day for Up by Dr.Seuss
  
• Uncle Rebus rhymes
  

Games:

• Open up a large umbrella and let the children throw in balls or bean bags.
  
• Caves (we have to do this again because he asks EVERY day, it doesn't have anything to do with U though...maybe our bears can encounter a Unicorn while they're forraging for berries lol). We're going to hunt berries, and be hibernating bears in caves. This one made a big impression, from what I hear he's even talked his granddaddy into playing this with him when they were visiting! Who knew!
  

Sensory:

• Water play (inside, in tubs on the kitchen floor...we're in a drought). If we weren't in a drought though....I'd do outside play (it's supposed to be pretty nice this week) with the hose and umbrella's.
  

Concept:

• Over/Under (try to get under things...like umbrella's!)
  

Snack:

• Blueberries;
• Square crackers with cheese;
• blue jello

Letter P

Lots of these ideas came from Perpetual Preschool

Color: Yellow (cheese, popcorn kernels)

Shape: Triangle (pizza slices)

Math:

• Counting pepperoni pieces on felt pizza's; Attempt putting them in order (1-6)
• discussion of fractions (1/2); Use large pizza shape (red paper plate) cut in half.

Nursery Rhyme:

• Pussycat, Pussycat, Where have you been?

Science:

• Cooking! What do you mix together for pizza crust? How does pizza dough rise?

Social Studies:

• Presidents! A general overview of what presidents do, and who chooses them.

Reading:


Snack:

• Ritz crackers pizza: Ritz crackers, shredded cheese, pepperoni, pizza sauce. Make a poster for sequencing of making this project. Cracker, sauce, pepperoni, cheese. Put in toaster oven until cheese melts. Yummy!
• Popcorn

Craft:

• The children take a round paper plate and color it red for sauce. Then they are free to create any type of pizza by adding shredded yellow and white paper for cheese, pink triangles for ham, yellow triangles for pineapple, red circles for pepperoni, brown circles for sausage, etc. It is a great time with glue and creating
  
• Popcorn Art- Cut out popcorn shapes from white paper. Give the children glop of yellow and white finger paint and let them have fun. Couldn't keep up with the requests to make another. When dried, hole punch and string around bulletin board, or hang in window.
  
• Make a paper bag puppet.
  

Field Trip:

• Visit a puppet show.
  

Fine Motor:

• Decorate a round piece of cardboard to look like a pizza with markers or construction paper. Cut the pizza into "slices", using irregular cutting lines to form a puzzle.
• Opposites Puzzles
• Lacing--Porpoise

Gross Motor:

• Pop like popcorn!!! to this chant, then have snack:
  Pop Goes The Popcorn (Sung to the tune: Davy Crocket)
  Pop goes the popcornCan't you see!It is jumping Just like me!I can't wait until it's doneThen I get to eat it, oh what fun!Popcorn, oh popcorn!You make my tummy hum!
  
• Pizza Sequence: outline a large piece of pizza on the floor, add pepperoni, cheese, mushrooms, peppers, onions (whatever you choose). Have child hop from one thing to another in a sequence: pepperoni, cheese, mushroom. pepper, pepperoni, onion. for example
  
• Pizza toss: Cut out shapes of pizza toppings from magazines or print from your computer. Then glue onto cardboard. Optional to last longer laminate them (clear contact paper works for laminating if a machine is not available). Place a pizza pan onto the floor and have the children stand a ways away from the pan. have them try to throw the pizza shapes onto the pan to make a pizza. It is also neat if you cover the pan in orange paper to act as the sauce/cheese. Once topping made it you covered the pizza. It may be a little challenging, but it is also very fun for them.
  

Music:

• To the tune of "BINGO"
  There is a pizza that I like, and it is very yummy. P-I-Z-Z-A, P-I-Z-Z-A, etc.
  On my pizza I like _____________ and it is very yummy. P-I-Z-Z-A, etc.
• I have a fun pizza song and flannel board activity. There is a flannel board song about a Donut Shop, I changed it to Pizza Shop. I made slices of pizza with pepperoni on top. Use different numbers of pepperoni and you also have a counting activity,
  "Down around the corner in the pizza shop" "There were lots of pieces of pizza with pepperoni on top" "Along came (insert child's name) all aloneHe/she bought one that had (how many pepperoni there are on that slice) pepperoni" "And took it home"
  Repeat until all slices of pizza are gone.

Concept:

• Please and Thank You!

Games:

• parachute play with yellow/white paper balled up like popcorn; pop all the popcorn out

Sensory:

• popcorn kernels;

Toddler:

I'll let him paint his tray with pizza sauce!

St. Patricks Day

Some St. Patricks Day crafts:


Build a Leprechaun trap

http://www.dltk-holidays.com/patrick/index.html

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/stpatrick/

http://www.makingfriends.com/stpats.htm

Oriental Trading craft kits and decorations

St. Patricks Day songs