The Gingerbread Man

One of the special activities we did this week before winter break was a gingerbread day.  We read multiple versions of The Gingerbread Man and compared them.  Sometimes the wolf caught the gingerbread man, sometimes he did not and there were lots of different animals and people who chased the gingerbread man.  The kids really enjoyed joining in to read "Run, run as fast as you can.  You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man."  At the end of the last book I read was a clue left by a gingerbread man, it said "Walk, walk as best you can.  You can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man." and then it had a clue.  The kids were great about walking from place to place, when we got the last clue to go to the classroom my students were thrilled to find they had catch the gingerbread man in the classroom.  Then during centers we counted buttons on gingerbread men and matched them to the correct number and we wrote about what might be chasing the gingerbread man.  Below are some neat examples of what the students wrote about.

Pre-K Winter Holiday Activities

As we learn about the winter holidays in pre-k we have done some fun and valuable activities.  One of them is making a stocking.  Students had to copy the shape of a stocking and then cut it out the first day.  This helped them to practice fine motor skills.  Then that night I used a hole puncher to punch the edge of the stockings and students laced the stockings the next day.  We used them to decorate some doorways in our classrooms.

We are also making gifts for parents.  They will be ornaments when they are completed, or simply something cute to hang up at home.  They put a hand print on paper and then there is a poem below the hand print.  I pasted a picture of the student in the middle of the palm and then laminated them.  I cut the hand out to look like a mitten and put a hole punch in the top which I laced pipe cleaner through.  They look really nice finished, but because it has a picture of my students I can not show the finished product, but this will give you an idea of what it will look like.  

Seasons and Weather

Recently we have been learning about season and the weather.  We have read books on different weather types and the season and done several seasons related activities.  Below are some season activities we completed with a description of the activity.

These bulletin boards show the seasons display we created.  We took 4 days to explore each season.  We read about the season, did shared writing projects on the season, a journal writing and created a symbol for the season.  Students made squirrels for fall, snowmen for winter, flowers for spring, and popsicle for summer.  The fine arts activity helped them to practice their fine motor skills in the form of drawing shapes and cutting, as well as shape recognition, and we talked about colors as we worked as well.  The students are very proud of their work, as am I.

Below is an activity we did with the book It Looked Like Spilt Milk.  There is another post that goes into detail about this activity.

We also learned about weather.  After reading about the seasons we talked about all the types of weather that we have during the seasons and students created weather charts.  They picked 4 types of weather and then students pointed the pointer at the weather they liked the best.

Clouds

We are learning about weather.  We read about clouds today, both fiction and nonfiction.  The fiction book we read was It Looked Like Spilt Milk and the nonfiction book was Clouds!.  We talked about how we lay on the ground and look at the sky and sometimes the clouds look like something else.  Then during small group rotation time one of the groups made ink blots using white paint on blue paper.  Next students told me what it looked like and I wrote for them.  Then they communicated their ideas by drawing what it looked like.  Below is one of my favorites.  This activity is always interesting to me.  Some students shock and surprise me with their creativity. 

Squirrels in Fall (and other seasons too)

Today, as we learned about the seasons, we read the book Squirrels All Year Long.  The kids really enjoyed the photographs and information about the squirrels.  We also read a book simply titled Squirrels.  We compared the information in each book.  We focused in on fall today and revisited the parts of the book that talked about squirrels in the fall.  When we were done we talked about what squirrels looked like, what shapes their bodies were made up of.  Then students used this information and their creativity to create squirrels.  I think they did a great job, how about you?