Things That Go: Week 4- Letter D, Number 4, and TRAINS!!!

We had lots of fun at preschool this week!  

Gathering- coloring sheet 
      At the very beginning we colored a picture of a train with the letter "D" on it. After they were all done I had each boy stand up individually and tell about their picture, like what colors they used or what part of the train they colored. After they were all done telling about their picture everybody clapped for that child and told them good job. I think they really liked this part. They were all excited to do that after finishing a paper. It was fun to hear what each of them would say about their work. 
 

      Jobs-Song, Pledge of Allegiance, Prayer, Weather

     After that we did the jobs for the day. That was fun. They all seemed to really like having their special job and participating. 

Introduce letter D
     Next, we talked about what sound the letter "D" makes. We then discussed what words start with the letter "D". They had fun thinking of words. I was surprised with some of the answers I got. One of the boys came up with dolphin! 
     We then used the Letter Factory Fridge Magnet thing (I believe that is the official name of it ;)) and sang the Letter "D" song (“’D’ says d and ‘D’ says d every letter makes a sound ‘D’ says d.”). They liked that a lot. We passed the little toy around twice and they were each able to press the button each time and then we would sing the song. 
     After that my baby got hungry so I passed out the "D" coloring sheet and had them work on that while I got him some food. They finished that and we talked about their pictures again. They finished before I was done finding my little guys so we moved into the kitchen for some music time. We talked about how drumming starts with "D" and I had them drum on mixing bowls with mixing spoons while singing the Letter "D" song. They really liked that. After we sang the "D" song a few times we moved on to some other songs. We talked about fast and slow and loud and quiet. We sang Happy Birthday really loud and Lullaby and Goodnight really soft and slow. It was fun.

     After I was done feeding my baby I went and put him in his crib. While I was doing that I had the boys sit on their rugs and look at library books. Then I came down and read "Officer Buckle and Gloria"- Peggy Rathmann which is about a policeman and his dog. We talked about how dog starts with "D" and we also talked about how they saw a police man last week.

Introduce theme
     We then talked about trains for a while. We talked about how they go and carry things even in the dark. We talked about how darkness starts with "D". I got all the boys flash lights and we went on a quest to find darkness. We had our flash lights on and searched around the house to find darkness. We went up into our play room and found it there (it is a media room with out any windows). We all went in there and had our flash lights on. We then talked about dark and light. We sat down and I read "Green Eggs and Ham"- Dr. Suess to them while they all shined their flashlights at the book so I could see. It was lots of fun. They really enjoyed holding the flash lights :) Then we ran around in a circle taking turns holding this Leapfrog music wand thing that lights up and plays music.They seemed to enjoyed that :)

Story Time
     We went down stairs and read some more books. We read "Good Morning Engines"- Thomas and Friends and "Ride Along with Thomas"- Thomas and Friends. Both of those books have the buttons that you press to make noise. I had each boy come up one at a time and take a turn pressing all the buttons for the page. They liked to do that. We also read  "Go, Dog, Go!"- P. D. Eastman and "Watch Me Go"- Young/Glitschka

Activity
     After that we did a craft. It was  a black piece of paper that had a white capital and lower case "D" on it and it said "Dots in the Dark". I put drops of glitter glue on the "D"s and had the boys press down each dot with their fingers to spread it out.  

Introduce number 4
     We counted to the number four and then colored a paper that had the number 4 on it. 

Free Play
    By that point they were all very excited to go back up into the play room to play with the toys. They played for about 25 mins then we cleaned up.

Lunch
     To finish it off they ate lunch. That was probably one of my favorite times. It was so fun to see them sit down and talk to each other and try to be funny. They are all so cute and fun to be with. I will sure miss not being able to do this with you guys. It has been a fun month! :)

Review of Week #1: Things that Go! "Construction Trucks" / the Letter "A"

Okay, I realize that this is WAY late for posting but I'm doing it!!!  I can't figure out how to amend the post that Laura already did with my outline, we'll try and get that worked out for next time.  But I thought i'd share a few pictures of the activities I've worked up...

Coloring sheets and puzzles with the theme....

 

Reinforcing the letter of the day...It's a "road" made out of an A that they were to trace with a construction vehicle.  in the end it wasn't a hit but I thought it was cute nonetheless....

 

Then for a little bit of Math and Color reinforcement, we were going to use blocks to "fill up" these shapes.  This kept them busy for awhile and they really seemed to enjoy this....

 

When we moved outside we had a couple activities that I honestly thought would go better.  One was to follow a path drawn with chalk that counted to 10 by driving little construction trucks.  Only like one boy did this, not so fun.

 

Then this I was sure would be a huge hit, but it was such a hit that it was too tempting and hard to wait for a turn.  I had taped bubble wrap to the driveway that they could run a tonka truck over to make it pop.  In the end the boys just ran over the bubbles making my whole street echo with the noise, I'm sure my neighbors someone was shooting off b-b guns but they LOVED this and it was over in about a minute....oh well.

 

Then one of the most popular playtime activities were these magna tiles that are an AWESOME toy.  The tiles are in shapes of triangles and scquarers and all along the perimeter of each tile are magnets so they all stick together and you can build stuff.

Seasons! Week 8- Letter H

Seasons! Week 7- Letter G

I have the season Summer!

Gathering Time

Jobs: Opening Prayer, Pledge of Allegiance, Weather Report

Letter of the Day: 

• Letter G

Story Time: 

Number/Shapes/Colors: 

Mom's Choice:

The Wrap Up: Clean up current 

Seasons! Week 6- Letter F

Seasons! Week 5- Letter E

Hello!  So week 5 was busy.  The first of our unit on Seasons I got to do WINTER.  This was great for me as there are some wonderful BOOKS that have winter themes that lent themselves to some fun interactive activities.

Gathering Time: went really well, puzzles, coloring and other hands on things had everyone really engaged and happy so I let this go a little longer because we can be that flexible.  I find you'll often know when "it's time" to move on.

When we did it was time for the jobs and the "letter of the day".  Here is 2 ways we incorporated it:

And we tried to play "hot and cold" with the hidden E item, that didn't go over so well but it was fun to try.

Then we did an observation about ice.  I froze some polar bears in a block of ice and we would keep coming back to observe what happened to water as it melted.

Then we read our first BOOK: "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats.

We read the book once through.  Then I handed out shapes on Popsicle sticks and we went page by page of the book each child looking for their shapes.  That went really really well!

Then we talked about how Peter in the book would have to be dressed to go out into the snow....

Then we tried to do a cut and paste activity where they matched clothing with the right season.  This was above most of them and it didn't go as well as I'd hoped.  Oh well, onto the next book.

The Mitten by Jan Brett.

I had made a large mitten out of construction paper first and then I had baggies for each of them with each of the animals we'd meet in the book and as I read the book each boy could find their animal and put it into the mitten.  This really kept their attention and was a great way to read this book.

I had more activities to do with this book but at this point they just wanted to play and so we did for about 30 minutes.

Then to calm them down we read another book with no words called "The Snowman" by Raymond Briggs.  This is an absolute favorite of my kids, it tells a story about a boy who builds a snowman and it comes to life and they have a great adventure together one night.....

Then we ate lunch and as we ate I had found a cute book about Penguins that was a book on CD and I had it on and flipped the pages while they ate.

I really had more activities and this time it went much faster than last time! 

Things that GO! Week 4- Letter D

Things that GO! Week 3- Letter C

I have Emergency Vehicles.  We had the blessing of moving this month into a new house and I actually get a school area so I will post pictures of that later, when it is set up better.

Gathering Time

Jobs: Opening Prayer, Pledge of Allegiance, Weather Report, Song

Letter of the Day: 

• Letter C: Play the Letter “C” song from ABC Mouse, talk about what words start with C do the letter bucket. Then have the boys do the Do-a Dot letter C sheet using circle stickers (the kind you generally use for garage sales). 

 Story Time: the first 3 books are mainly to look at and point to cool parts of the different vehicles the last 3 are stories for them.

1. What does it do? Ambulance By Josh Gregory
2. Fire Trucks on the Move by Judith Jango-Cohen
3. Police car by Chris Oxlade
4. Fire Truck by Peter Sis
5. Even Firefighters Hug Their Moms by Christine Kole MacLean
6. Preschool to the Rescue by Judy Sierra

Number/Shapes/Colors:

• Number 3:
• Make groups of 3 using marbles, blocks, cars etc...
• Color the Emergency Vehicles Picture I have with 3 different emergency vehicles on it, talk about what those emergency people/vehicles do. 

Mother's Choice:

• Paper Ambulance, fold and make these and then play with them for a bit and put them in our cubby to take home. 
• I am TRYING to arrange a police man to come by the house during the 3 hour block to let the boys see his car and hear the sirens etc...
• Obstacle course in my back yard pretending they are firefighters saving different things from dangers in the back yard. 
• Practicing Stop/Drop/Roll
• Play Red Light/Green Light with me as the "Police Officer"

The Wrap Up: Clean up current activity, wash hands, and Eat Lunch.

Mom's pick Up around 12:30!

Things that GO! Week 2- Letter B

Things that GO! Week 1- Letter A

Construction Trucks Preschool Outline

September 2

Gathering Time (9:30-9:45): Coloring Sheets (construction trucks), puzzles, magna tiles

Jobs (9:45-10:00): Opening Prayer, Pledge of Allegiance, Weather Report

Letter of the Day: (10:00-10:15)

            Letter A: Trace with Cars, talk about things that start with A (Ant, Apple, Airplane), Matthew does Letter Bucket

STORY TIME: (3 books) (10:15-10:30)

1.      Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker and Tom Lichtenheld

2.     Roadwork by Sally Sutton

3.     Digger Man by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha

Number/Shapes/Colors: (10:30-10:45)

            Blocks:

Make a letter A

Painters tape of shapes: have them use the blocks to fill in the shape

Count the blocks in a tower

What color are the blocks

Block city for the cars to drive in

                        How many blocks can our dump truck hold? 

Song time:

            Johnny Had One Hammer

(Make up and down motion with one hand in a fist as if pounding a nail)

Johnny had one hammer, one hammer, one hammer,
Johnny had one hammer then he had 2.
(Make same motion using both fists as if pounding two nails)

Johnny had 2 hammers, 2 hammers, 2 hammers,
Johnny had 2 hammers then he had 3.
(Make same motion using both fists and one leg as if pounding three nails)
Johnny had 3 hammers, 3 hammers, 3 hammers,
Johnny had 3 hammers then he had 4.
(Make same motion using both fists and both legs as if pounding four nails)
Johnny had 4 hammers, 4 hammers, 4 hammers,
Johnny had 4 hammers then he had 5.
(Make same motion using both fist, both legs, and up and down head motion as if pounding five nails)
Johnny had 5 hammers, 5 hammers, 5 hammers,
Johnny had 5 hammers, then he went to sleep.
(Pretend to lay head on a pillow and go to sleep)

Did You Ever See A Bulldozer? (adapted from Did You Ever See a Lassie?)
Did you ever see a bulldozer,
a bulldozer, a bulldozer,
Did you ever see a bulldozer,
Go this way and that?
Go this way and that way,
Go this way and that way,
Did you ever see a bulldozer
Go this way and that?

MOM’s CHOICE: (11:00-11:45)

            DRIVING CARS OUTSIDE:

Bubble Wrap and roll dump trucks on it

            Chalk a maze with numbers on it and have them count through the numbers with cars

            Sandbox play with trucks in sandbox

11:45--Pick up, wash hands & Read: Mike Mullgan and his Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton

12:00 Lunch time (prayer over food)

About the Moms

Mom 1-
Mom 2-
Mom 3-
Mom 4- I organized the co-op and recruited moms of boys that my son seemed to talk about on Sundays after church. My son is the youngest boy in the group and he is also my first child and I wanted something more structured for me as a mom and for him because he really needs to be engaged and active. I have an almost 2 year-old daughter and a baby due in November. I thought a co-op would be the best way for my son to get what he needs and also get a bit of a break during the week and spend some 1-on-1 with my daughter before she becomes an older sibling.

Overview of Our Co-Op

The four of us all attend the same church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our boys attend a Sunday Nursery together and we decided to do an all boys co-op for the 2013-2014 school year. Each month has a theme and each week has a letter. We will all follow the same general schedule within our theme/letter but other than that we have organized it in a way that gives each mother/teacher the ability to bring out what she does best in ways that she feels are best.

We are doing our co-op every Tuesday for 3 hours.

            Schedule of the Day

1)  Gathering Time while kids arrive (10-15 Minutes)

2)  Jobs (15ish minutes)

3)  Introduce the Letter

i)      Tracing/ Sounding it out/ Capital and Lowercase etc…

4)  Connect the letter to the theme in a fun way

5)  Letter Bucket and Story Time- Read a story/stories about the theme or the letter.

6)  Number Time/Shape/Color

i)      If we are on the number trace number count etc… If it is shape or color come up with a fun way to learn about that thing.

7)  Mix of Mom’s Choice-mom of the week can choose from the following activity categories and make them apply to the theme, letter or number as she wants.

i)      Music Time

ii)     Show and Tell (if the mom plans on doing this she needs to let the other moms know)

iii)    Experiment

iv)   Physical Activity

v)    Color and Shape activities

vi)   Craft

vii)  Free Play/ Other

8)  Lunch Time Starts around 12:00- The Lunch Prayer child says prayer and the kids eat and then are picked up!

  Monthly Theme!

September- Things that GO!	February- Animals
October- Seasons- Each mom takes one	March- Bugs
November- Space/Planets	April- Ocean
December- Group Party only	May- Plants
January- Dinosaurs	Summer Time!!!!