Happy Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful thanksgiving celebration.  Students brought in treats to share.  My pre-k class dressed as the Pilgrims, and the other class dressed as the Native Americans.  We each performed a song for the other group and then sat down to our meals.  Each student had the place mat shown below.  A good time was had by all.  Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving.  I know the time with family has been priceless.

Letter Practice

To practice writing letters this week in Pre-K we used shaving cream.  The kids loved it and the task of writing, which can sometimes be met with groans and sighs, was met with smiles and laughs.  All you do is get the cheapest shaving cream you can find and have the kids smear it on the table and then use their pointer finger to write their letters.  It is a big hit with nearly all 4-5 year olds.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

This week we read Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  We read two different versions and compared them during story time.  Then during small group time students retold the story using pieces, and sorted and compared items by size.  To wrap up the day we sang a song about the 3 bears, below are the lyrics and you sing it to the tune of 3 blind mice.

3 brown bears, 3 brown bears
See all the beds
See all the chairs
The momma cooked porridge in a big black pot
The papa's porridge was way too hot
The baby bear cried an awful lot
3 brown bears

To help students sing the song I used the following visual....

 

This is an excellent pre-reading skill.  Using symbols to recall the song is a connection to reading.

Insects and Bugs

Today we read Bugs, Bugs, Bugs.  We talked about all the bugs, the colors they are, shapes we saw.  At the end of the book is a chart that goes over if each bug flies or not, how many legs it has, where it lives, and if it stings.  The students made predictions and we made comparisons.  Finally I explained that insects have 3 body parts and 6 legs.  Next in small groups students made insects with 3 body parts and 6 legs.  Meanwhile the other group worked together to make a graph about how we felt about insects.  They wrote their name (or first letter of their name) on the post-it note and then put it under the emotion they felt about bugs.  We talked about why they had those feelings, counted how many people felt each way, and then compared each category to one another and decided which had more, and which had less.  Attached is a photo of a display of the students' work.