Easter is almost here! It was time to get started on our Easter hats. The children painted and embellished them. We are all set for our Easter Parade on Wednesday before Spring Break. Below, the children used pipettes to drip paint on one side of their paper. Then they folded the paper over and smoothed out all the paint to create a beautiful, symmetrical design! This was a good fine motor exercise which forced them to use their pincer grasp. We have been printing of the numbers 3 and 4 this week. The cleaning crew must not have liked me this week. We were a bit messy, but we had fun! Before Teddy Bear Day, I had the children tear brown paper for pretend leaves. They were going to be used to make dens for our bears. This was another great activity for building our fine motor muscles. They really enjoyed playing in the leaves and the box to store our leaves. 😀 Teddy Bear Day! After watching a video of a bear pulling in leaves for his den, we built our own dens. Thanks for getting me your child's birth weight and length measurements. Did you know a newborn black bear cub only weighs about 10.5 ounces and is about 9 inches long? Polar bear cubs are a little larger. They can be about 17.5 to 28 ounces in weight and measure 12 inches long. We were much larger than that when we were born! (Not fair...right moms?) I had one pound bags of dirt and the children put them in a crate to feel the weight of how heavy they were when they were a newborn. Then they held the bag of dirt to feel the weight of a newborn cub. We also lined up one inch blocks to show our length when we were born and the length of a newborn black bear and polar bear. During Teddy Bear Day we sang, "Ten In the Bed" and acted it out with our teddy bears. I also took photos of each child with their bear for our Position Words book. Be on the lookout for that book to come to your house soon! This is day two of our science experiment. We put Gummy Bears in a cup of Oil, Sprite, Vinegar and Water. Can't wait to see how they look on Tuesday!
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This was a Grid Game. The children would roll a die and put that many bears on the grid. This helped them with one-to-one correspondence and subitizing dots on dice. Roll-n-Write: They rolled a number cube and then printed that number on their paper. We worked on the numbers 2 and 3.
This game is called, "Beat the Clock." Look for the game to come home with your child soon. They had to race against the clock to win all the teddy bears from the middle of the game board. This game helped with subitizing dots on dice and moving their game piece around a board. I read both these books and we talked about real and make believe. Real bears live in dens, don't talk like we do and they don't use dishes and beds like the imaginary bears did. They also noted that the picture of the bears are different. One looks like a picture was taken with a camera and the other looks like it was colored. Tracing our names. For "School Walkout Day" our class prayed for peace and sang the Hail Mary. We also went to church on Thursday with our Third Grade Friends. Preschool Fun! We had a busy Friday watching the Trinity Dancers and eating at the St. Joseph's Feast. We cut out 10 numbered bears and glued them in sequential order. We also traced our name. This activity had us unscramble lettered clothespins to spell our names. This is great for strengthening our pincer grasp. The Rainbow Name Game: They rolled a lettered cube to see which letter they should move up on their chart. Which ever letter makes it to the top first is the WINNER!
The children made their own bear puppets to act out a rhyme, "Two Little Teddy Bears." The biggest challenge was using the tape dispenser. After they made their puppets they were able to put on their own puppet show. To help build our math skills and subitizing, we played a game with dotted chips that are similar to dice. They pulled a chip out of the box and dotted paint on the bear or shamrock with the corresponding number. I am trying to get them used to seeing the dots and recognize what number it represents rather than counting all the dots each time. Painting Teddy Bears We took advantage of the nice weather and played in the playground!! Our dinosaur bones are almost out!! Boxes are so much fun to play with!
The children were busy being little paleontologists this week. They have to chisel the rock down to find the hidden dinosaur bones. Some of the children could sit there forever! This dinosaur game helped with subitizing. I am trying to get them to be able to look at the dice and know how many dots are on there without counting them. We measured how big an Apatosaurus is. We went from the end or our hall to the outside doors! It took 36 of our shoes to fit inside the footprint of an Apatosaurus! The children made their own fossils and footprints in clay with our plastic dinosaurs. We talked about how carnivores have sharp teeth to eat meat and herbivores like to eat plants. Then we cut out foods to for each type of dinosaur. Our indoor obstacle course! Sprout Pediatric Dentistry came to visit us and talk about dental health. Thank you Dr. Kuttab! 😀SMILE!😀
The children have been learning how to use the QR Reader app on the iPad. First they had to put conversation hearts on the pictures of a ten frame. They counted them and then circled the correct-corresponding number. Then they had to check their answer using the QR Reader app on the iPad. Some thought it was fun to circle the incorrect answer just so they could erase and check their answer again and again! 😁 Listening for Directions Whole Group Activity Valentine's Day Fun! Fr. George came by to give us a blessing and ashes for the beginning of Lent. This is DJ Dino. I found this game at Goodwill unopened for $2! It was well worth every penny and then some! They put an egg in the dinosaur's mouth, push the button to start the music and he spins and spits out an egg. The egg pops open to reveal the colored bone. This is how long a Tyrannosaurus Rex is! They are taller than our entire class from head to toe. It would take 17 of our shoes to fill one of their footprints. A stegosaurus is as long as our classroom, from the toy shelf to the lockers. That is just inconceivable to me.
It's Dinosaur month in preschool! We talked about what it means to be extinct or an endangered species. It is a hard concept to grasp. I can't even believe that such large creatures really roamed this earth. We then roller painted dinosaurs and unscrambled triangle-letters to spell our names to look like a stegosaurus. I have some toy dinosaurs that move when you squeeze a lever or push a button. (Some even make a cool noise.) While one person handles a dinosaur, the rest of us move like that dinosaur as we sing, "All Around the Swamp." Below they are getting a fine motor workout counting dinosaurs on the cards and attaching the correct numbered clothespin. Since last week was Groundhog Day, I talked about shadows, read a book about it and then we made shadows on an overhead projector. For religion we discussed choices. We need to try our best to make good choices. We read the bible story, "The Good Samaritan." There were some men that walked right by a man in need of help. They made a poor choice by ignoring him. But the good Samaritan stopped and helped him. He made a good choice. We talked about some good choices and poor choices in our classroom. Good choices help us get ready to learn and keep our bodies and feelings safe. (ex. walking in class, listening, putting away the toys when we are done, etc.) Poor choices get in the way of learning and can hurt our bodies and feelings. (ex. running in the classroom, yelling out answers, being mean to others, etc.) We each made a "Good Choices/Poor Choices" chart by cutting out pictures and gluing them under the appropriate column. Our water table became a SNOW TABLE! The children have been making up directions or a written map of things. They had fun writing down the directions to show me how to find one of their classmates. (I had to have a little help reading the map. They were more than happy to talk me through the step by step directions.)
Catholic Schools Week has come to an end. It was a busy week, but we had fun. "Jesus Is My Rock" was our theme. We painted prayer rocks to remind us at home to pray/talk to God each night when we go to bed and in the morning when we start our day.We helped bag lunches for the less fortunate. (Uncle Pete's Ministry) Learning our shapes and colors...We played "I Have, Who Has?" game. We decorated place mats for a local nursing home with our Third Grade Buddies The Rock-n-Roll Sock Hop was a big hit. They danced their hearts out. The full day children fell asleep at nap time very quickly.
The children completed their first eBook, "Talking Numbers." Each child had to pick up a number card and then search for that number in the classroom. Using the ChatterKid app on the iPad, they took a picture of the number and then recorded their voice to make the number talk. They had fun making the book and love watching the book play.Have you ever thought about how tall a penguin really is? I looked up the size of an emperor penguin and I was shocked! I often think of them as "knee-high" creatures. Not four feet tall! I asked the children how tall they thought they were and they showed me. They were much closer than my guess.After learning a little about the penguins, we tried to balance a baby egg (orange, lemon or pear) on our feat like the daddy penguins do. That is really difficult to do. We were better off squeezing the egg between our ankles.On Wednesday, when I brought the children back from music class, I stopped at the door and told them to pretend like they are hungry birds. "What do birds eat?" "Worms!" I told them there were lots of worms on the rug (colorful pieces of thread). They had to find as many as they could in 1 minute and bring them to me. They scurried about finding lots of white, and a few blue and red worms. I told them they missed many more worms on the rug. The blue and red worms are camouflaged on the blue and red parts of the rug. Then they went back and found more worms. That is how animals survive. They blend in to their surroundings to sneak up on their prey or to hide from their enemies. We also read a book and watched two videos of a robin building a nest and some beavers building a dam. Animals are quite fascinating.The children then painted their own pet rock and made a cozy habitat for their creature. They loved doing this activity! Some of them gave their pet rock and name. (Sun, Fiona and Chip were a few I remembered.) Below, the children are making habitats for their pet rocks. They took this very seriously. While I was working with a couple of students on their habitats, I noticed six of them gathered on the rug building with the blocks. Look at them! They are a great group.Making hearts to decorate our door for Open House.This week we worked on ABC patterns. I was thrilled to see another class had their artwork displayed in the hall and they had ABC patterns! We made ABC patterns using three different colored blocks ,with stickers, and we painted striped patterns. We decorated our bags for Uncle Pete's Ministry for the less fortunate. Don't forget to bring in 9 eight oz. bottles of water for the sack lunches by January 26th. We worked on writing our names. It is important to get in the habit of printing your name with only the first letter being a capital letter. I am also trying to get them to form each letter correctly by starting at the top. We played the Roll-n-Dot game with the numbers 1-3 to see which number will win. They love this game! Our Religion story was about faith. That is a hard word for a three year old to comprehend. It is hard to believe in something you cannot see. Sometimes we need to see it to believe it. One of our Bible stories was about people who had faith in Jesus to heal their friend who couldn't walk. They felt that if they could get Jesus to look at him, he'd be healed. But it was very difficult to get their friend to Jesus because crowds of people were in and around the house that Jesus was visiting. They ended up carrying their friend to the roof and lowered him down through a hole in the roof. Their faith and persistence healed their friend. I then did a little activity about faith before snack. I told the children they had to walk up and down the stairs before they could wash their hands for snack. However, they had to do it with their eyes closed and holding my hand. They had to trust me and have faith in me that I would take care of them. Some kept their eyes closed and some peeked through their fingers. Sometimes it is hard for us to have faith in God. At time, our faith gets a little shaken. But we are only human. We need to remember that God will take care of us. Follow His plan and have a little faith. (Sorry the picture is not so good....it was hard to hold their hand and take the picture at the same time.) 🙂 Our indoor obstacle course had the children walk up and down stairs (putting only one foot on a step), slide a beanbag across a table and into a basket, walk on a balance beam, and crawl or slide under a table.
"Make an S and close it up great, this is how you make an 8." "Around and down just fine, this is how you make a 9." This week we focused on the numbers 8 and 9. They practiced tracing the numbers, doing a number search and counting that many and sticking on the correct number of stickers. Patterns are all around us. We noticed that some of us had patterns on our socks and/or shirts this week. The children made a patterned necklace using Froot Loops cereal. (The best part was eating the remaining pieces of cereal.) We also made patterned towers using linking cubes and blocks. We painted snowmen and unscrambled white-lettered circles to make snowmen names. To help with graphing and reading readiness, we started using our "Question of the Day" chart. Each day a new question will be posted on the chart and the children answer the question by putting their name under their answer. Then we look at the graph and determine which answer/choice has more or less. Fr. John came in the classroom to visit when we were doing this. He even had the chance to answer our Question of the Day. 🙂 Below is our Ramp Table. The children had to knock down snowmen cups using a ramp, some blocks and balls. I moved the clay table near the kitchen area and the children loved cooking up food for each other and for Coach Bear, Cookie and Luvie. This week we wrapped up our Christmas stories. We talked about when God put a bright star in the sky to guide the shepherds and wise men to where the new born King was. God sent angels down to warn the wise men, not to tell King Herod where baby Jesus was because he was jealous of this new King and he wanted to hurt him. We also read a story about when Jesus was lost. He was at the Temple talking about God. It's hard to believe that Jesus was once like us. He did chores around the house and played with his friends when he was little. I wrapped up our week with the Bible story, "John Baptizes Jesus." Then we talked a little bit about baptism. More Preschool Fun!
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Mrs. McKermitt's PreschoolHere is a quick look at what we did each week. Archives
September 2018
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