Bring your Parents to Preschool Day!

We've been continuing on our monthly theme of "the alphabet" and making more fun letters each day during art. The students are really doing amazing things. Eden can read so many words, Sam can hear a word and tell me what letter is starts with, and Ayaa is making swift progress everywhere from cutting to reciting sounds.

Ostrich O

Penguin P

Quail Q, Rabbit R

Snail S, Tractor T

We also had our first ever Bring your Parent to Preschool Day. It was a lot of fun! Our parents had to chance to see what we do during our morning preschool routine. We also frosted some yummy cookies, decorated foam frames, and gave a special performance to show off all of the songs we have learned in preschool!

Putting together puzzles

The Bri's Bees performance

Making our frames

Alphabet Fun

Because this month's theme is the alphabet we have been having a lot of fun with our letters! We focus on 2 or 3 new letters a day. After our morning routine, during the lesson I show them how to write the new letters on our large whiteboard and we practice the sounds over and over. Then students practice writing those letters on their own mini whiteboards.

Next we choose an activity to do with those letters. One of their favorite letter activities is drawing a picture out of a mason jar (with their eyes closed of course) showing the picture to the group, and telling us what letter that picture starts with.

During our creativity time we make an animal with the letters we learned that day. They have turned out SO CUTE so far! Take a look:

Alligator A, Bee B, Crab C

Dinosaur D, Elephant E, Fox F

Goat G, House H

Iguana I, Jaguar J

Kangaroo K, Lion L

We did this one today. I loved it! Mouse M

And Nest N. Didn't this one turn out great? Eden did a great job!

So they aren't ALL animals but close (it's easier to make a house with the letter H than a hippo for sure). The students all work hard and we have a good time together. They are pretty funny.

I love watching Ayaa cut things out. It takes up 120% of her focus. Cutting things out is serious stuff.

We drank green milk with our toast the Friday before St. Patricks Day. Mm

Busy bees!

Preschool Party and a Happy Birthday!

Our three lessons this week were:

Monday: Phone numbers- practiced memorizing and writing our phone numbers

Wednesday: Patterns- identified patterns in sequences of shapes and letters

......

And Friday: We had our first ever Preschool Party! Each day at preschool the students work to earn pom poms to put in our large jar. They earn them by sharing, working hard, following directions, and answering questions correctly during the lesson. Once they fill the jar we get to have a Preschool Party!

After going through our morning routine (calendar, weather, alphabet letter names and sounds, numbers, and shapes) we started our party off by singing Happy Birthday to Ayaa and having cupcakes and ice cream.

Next we started our activites:

First we played "Hot or Cold." I hid the first clue to our next activity in a small box and explained that if you were close to finding it we would tell you that you were "hot." If you moved far away from it you would get colder, etc. (You know how to play..)

Next we had a treasure hunt! After finding the box the students used the clue to find the rest of the hidden clues. Which of course led them to the treasure! (They loved this one!)

After the hunt we put our treasure in our back packs and went fishing for letters! I used a bobby pin for the worm, cut out card stock fish, wrote a letter on each of them, and stuck a small adhesive magnet to each. They really like this game too. Once they caught a fish they had to tell me the letter, the sound it made, and a word that started with that letter (if they could think of one!).

Then we played a bean bag toss. I made bean bags the day before by first, putting about of cup of pinto beans in a ziploc bag. I cut up one of my daughter's old receiving blankets (we have tons) and sewed two squares inside out, put the beans in the middle, then sewed the rest together. They turned out great. Then I just cut some shapes out of a piece of poster board and taped it to two chairs. The kids loved keeping track of their "points" on this one.

Lastly, our little Sam requested that we play a few minutes of Wii Sports at our first Preschool Party. He was pretty excited about it too!