If you Teach a Child to Learn

Open House

2009-01-18T20:43:00.000-08:00

I found the inspiration online for the type of open house that I like to do for my class. This is my second year to do this project, and it is really worth the time and energy.

This year, I did full body outlines and my little friends colored in their person and tried to draw a face on it. Last year, I only did from the torso up, that seemed to work MUCH better as it was less time consuming to cut out, and the "legs" didn't curl up on me while I tried to cut them out. This is truly a shimmy shimmy project because it is only for impact when you walk in the door, clearly no one is saving this for an heirloom.

Anyway, tape the "friend" to the chair, and tape the arms to the table. I used rolled up construction paper to make the head stand up. I taped the roll to the back of the head and down the back of the neck.

I place each friend where they are assigned to sit in class. I also have sitting in front of them, their work to show off!

The other thing that I like to do is have a slide show going during open house. Forget the music, it is too loud to hear!

Our school also provides us with out of this world Kristy Cookies for the parents to munch on!

Trees

2009-01-18T20:18:00.000-08:00

This year, I decided to do a special project that would take several weeks to finish. I found inspiration from my friend, the Urban Hen. When she taught preschool, the children did a special little book and used the poem Trees, by Joyce Kilmer, for inspiration.

I did the same sorta thing...just bigger. These are the highlights of this project. The orange tree was for fall, the kids painted their hands and arm to make the tree then dotted the tree with fall leaves for the fall. I am a little bummed I didn't get a photo of these...nor did I photo a birds nest that we made:(

Science/nature: the study of trees, types, what they provide for us, parts of a tree, seasons
Language/prereading: poetry, rhyming
craft/art: nature collage, rolled balls of model magic to form eggs, then painted them with light blue water color to make little robins eggs. We made a nest using the bottom half of a paper lunch sack. roll down the edges to make a small little nest, line with shredded paper, glue in robin eggs. The white tree, is well, white...we glued Epson salt and clear glitter onto the paper. The red tree labels the parts of a tree, the roots are twin taped on the back.

We also had been talking about God's creation when I taught this lesson.

These made grand examples of our hard work when we had our open house

Sand paper rubbings

2008-11-11T19:19:00.000-08:00

This is an idea that a co-worker shared with me this year. You cut out sandpaper in any shape you'd like and then children can do a rubbing over it.

Pumpkin Time

2008-11-10T18:01:00.000-08:00

Pumpkin Time went well this year. We made our usual pumpkins out of paper bags. They were okay...got to come up with something else next year. The fun thing about these bags is that my little friends enjoy tearing up magazines to stuff the bags. We paint them and then I add a little sparkle to the initials on the leaves.

Every year I also have a parent come in a carve a pumpkin while I read The Pumpkin Patch Parable. Great book. This year I had a dad volunteer, and as luck would have it, his parents were in town so they came and assisted too! It was fun to have someone else do all the messy work and have the children get to experience pumpkin fun in safe way. How would I carve a pumpkin and read at the same time?

10 Little Pumpkins by Katie Jo

2008-10-27T19:58:00.000-07:00

10 Little Pumpkins growing on a vine, 1 got picked and now there are 9.

9 Little Pumpkins in a row so straight, a bird ate 1 up & now there are 8.

8 Little Pumpkins growing up to heaven, 1 fell down and now there are 7.

7 Little Pumpkins lying on some sticks, 1 got stomped and now there are 6.

6 Little Pumpkins going for a drive, 1 drove away and now there are 5.

5 Little Pumpkins growing near the door, 1 said, “ding dong” & now there are 4.

4 Little Pumpkins growing round a tree, 1 got dizzy and now there are 3.

3 Little Pumpkins playing peek-a-boo, 1 got grumpy and now there are 2.

2 Little Pumpkins basking in the sun, 1 got burnt and now there’s just 1.

1 Little Pumpkin sitting all alone, I put him in a basket and took him home!

Apples

2008-09-30T19:40:00.000-07:00

Apples are by far one of my favorite themes to use with preschoolers. What child does not like apples.
So, what do I do with them? A LOT...however, I only have these little friends for a few hours two times a week, so, I don't get to do as much as I would like to.

This year, I read various apple books that have the life cycle of an apple tree. My friends literally screamed when the flower became an apple. I seriously have little scientists this year. We did an apple rubbing using a sand paper cut out apple. A teacher in our school shared this idea with me. The children really liked feeling of the sand paper and learning that it felt "rough" and compared it to other items in the room.

My favorite thing to do is to make a "10 Apples Up On Top" book. Very simple book, and I am sure I am borrowing this idea from someone else. Each child takes turns lying on their back and I take one apple and place it "on" their head (really, it is above their head but looks sorta like on in the picture). You just keep building until the last person has Ten on top.

We graphed our apples and weighed them. This was crazy funny! I got out our balance scales and they predicted which apple would weigh the most, least, and the same. They were out of control with excitement over how the apples would fair. When one side would go down they would scream all at the exact same time. Mass hysteria or group enthusiasm?

I feel like I am on candid camera. I have never had a group of children so absolutely nutty about circle time. I can just begin to sing "Time to clean up" and they are scurrying around like squirrels under an Oak tree that just sneezed.

Squirrels are next week!

Down on the Farm

2008-09-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

Read Click, Clack, Moo and In a Barn in the Country

Have feed in a bin for children to play in and Little People barn yard set.

Let children milk a cow. I use a rubber glove with pin holes in the fingertips. I bring in powdered milk, mix it up and pour it into the glove, then tie it up. It is helpful to have a little stool for children to sit on and a it's fun to have a little metal bucket for them to "milk" into.

For positional words, make a giant barn on the floor with masking tape. Red tape would be fun, but we only had regular tape and that worked out just fine. I have enough animal cutouts glued onto Popsicle sticks for each child to have one. Then we sing "The farmer and the dell" but change the words to "The cow is in the barn" and proceed until every animal is in the barn, then switch to " Out of the barn". You could easily say beside or on top of the barn.

Arguing and Complaining

2008-09-11T18:50:00.001-07:00

Do everything with out complaining or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure children of God. Philippians's 2:14

The other day during circle time, my friends went to get their "dots" to sit on. You see, we have three different colored dots and my friends generally fight over who gets which one. This day however, the Lord quickly brought to mind this scripture. Gratefully, I know a song for this scripture and began singing it to the children while I did hand over hand teaching gentleness with one another. I love the cd that I learned this song from and I promise to share lots of great things to do with these sometimes corny sounding songs. Children LOVE them and they do relate the Word of God to little ears. If you know any scripture, use it!

Swimmy

2008-09-11T18:23:00.000-07:00

Swimmy is one of my favorite read aloud books for children. It is a wonderful Leo Lionni book that is full of the author's unique artwork. The story is about a black fish named Swimmy who looses all of his red brothers and sister fish to a fierce and strong tuna fish. He is lonely and sad but discovers other marvels in the sea like a jelly fish, eel and mysterious fish pulled along by an invisible thread. Eventually Swimmy discovers some more fish, just like his family he lost and comes up with a plan to help them not be afraid of getting eaten up. He tells them we have to THINK of something. Swimmy teaches them to all swim together and form a big fish. Once they have done this, since he is black, he becomes the eye. Now they are free to go out and play and they run off all of the big fish. A story of loss, friendship, different emotions, and many deeper elements to pull out along the way.

Last year I had each child do a hand print in red ink and form a giant fish, then I programmed black fish with each child's name on one to get to be the "eye" of the fish each day. I haven't done that this year, but it was a cute idea that I might do again one year.

This year, I decided to work on making a painting that looked like some of the artwork in Leo's book. I used drops of blue and green Biocolor paint and had the children mix it with shaving cream on the table. I pressed a white sheet of paper down and then used a plastic scraper to run across the paper to take off excess shaving cream. The color was left that sorta looks like watercolor. The children thought it looked exactly like the book.

Maintaining Order

2008-09-06T20:04:00.000-07:00

Last year a teacher recommended that I have the children have assigned places in line. This was very successful last year and I have repeated this year. I have younger children this year and they learned their places without any problems. Wonderful! I also have assigned seats at the table and will ultimately have assigned spots during circle time (I am waiting to see where they land naturally and who I should separate). One thing new this year is a "Special Place" in the room. A veteran teacher suggested it to me and I LOVE it. I asked the children on the first day of school to go and find their special place in the room, away from other children. This place is where they go to read a book during bathroom breaks, for a quiet time in the afternoon or if the room is getting out of hand I can turn the lights off and ask the children to go to their special places. These are things that I wish someone would have told me about years ago!
*Note, the children will get a chance to be line leader, so the last child in line isn't always the caboose, nor is the first person always in the lead.

First Day

2008-09-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful beginning. I have 8 sweet 3/4's this year. This is a little younger than last year, but they are pretty sharp 3-year-olds.

Here's what worked:

Having some play dough out was a welcoming site for them.

Playing Spot the Dot was VERY effective. They really really paid attention to the centers and counted the cut outs that tell how many children should be in each center. They moved from center to center without complaining.

VERY short attention span, so I got out my preschool trick of Pass the Bean Bag.

This is a must for all preschool classrooms. Little toddlers love it and so do pre-k wiggle worms.

They loved my little hand stamps that I gave out for incentives. (note to self, give at end of day so that it doesn't wash off with all the hand washing.)

My favorite thing that we do at our school is give the children a parting gift as they leave on the first day. All of my friends were so surprised and loved the little toy our director picked out. It really ended the day on a positive note for them all.

Kool-Aid Play Dough Recipe

2008-08-30T10:43:00.000-07:00

3 Cups Flour
1/2 cup salt
1 T alum
2 pkgs of unsweetened Kool-Aid (no grape)
3 T Veg. Oil
Do not use a metal bowl.

In a bowl
Add 2 cups boiling water and then slowly add all ingredients.
Mix well.
Knead until smooth

Store in air tight container.

Teaching a child to Cut

2008-08-30T06:09:00.001-07:00

To begin the year, children will work through learning appropriate placement of their hands. To help them with this, I will draw little marks on their thumb and middle finger. Effective Teaching of Scissor Skills by Mary Benbow, MS, OTR is my primary resource for beginning this essential skill of a preschooler. Children will begin by cutting up straws. (of course they can attempt to string them and get even more hand/eye coordination plus fine motor skills, perhaps even patterning practice) Children will have numerous opportunities to cut appropriate items such as playing cards and magazine inserts. The thinking is that something sorta stiff is easier to handle than something flimsy like paper that the child will have to lift up with the free hand.

Sometime during our second semester I am going to introduce cutting worksheets. I have used a few of these before, but I am going to see if using a different one each week will be successful. I am using the book by Kumon My First Book of Cutting.

Welcome Friends Week 1

2008-08-29T19:09:00.000-07:00

*At our preschool we always take pictures with their parents on the first day of school.
*Have new play dough on the tables as a welcoming craft. (note to self, make new play dough)
*Have stamp pads ready for hand prints for the Kissing Hand projects.
*Read The Kissing Hand
*Spot the Dot
*Bible Story, "Creation"

This week we will go light on all skills being covered. We will instead focus on classroom management, rules, lining up, walking down the hall and the most dreaded (just kidding) bathroom breaks and hand washing.

Week 1 Bible Story "Creation"

2008-08-29T18:38:00.000-07:00

Using a scissors and paper is a great way to tell bible stories, or I suppose any story. I often make it up, but I did get the original idea from a book by Karen Henly called Snip and Tell.

Memory Verse
Genesis 1:1
In the Beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.

Hook:
Take a yellow piece of construction paper and fold in half, begin cutting out a sun while the children are getting settled into their places.

I begin by having my "grown up" bible in my lap showing my friends the bible and stating that it contains God's Word. I explain to them that God's word is true. I hold out the bible and allow each child to gaze at the pages and see the word of God for themselves. I will do this portion of the bible lesson every time we open God's Word.
Then we pray asking the Lord to be with us as we learn what His Word says.

Begin teaching the lesson. If there's time, continue cutting while telling the story. Example, a cloud, water, tree, etc.

God's Top 10

2008-08-29T18:22:00.000-07:00

This is the CD that I have used for years to help children learn the ten commandments.

It is a fun CD that has original sounding songs that are great to sing and dance to. I have created hand motions and dances to almost every song. For this age group, I go into some detail, not every detail of what each commandment means. For instance, it can get tricky teaching other peoples children about things such as adultery and murder in the preschool setting. The song about adultery is called "Be True to Your Mate, Mate" and sounds Australian. The song about murder is called "Love life, and let life live". It just opens the door to the bible and lets children ask questions at their own pace and hopefully allows to great dialogue at home with their parents.

For our first week of school we will begin with Commandment Number One, "God is Number One".

Jesus Loves Me Bible Storybook

2008-08-29T18:13:00.001-07:00

This bible is my favorite children's bible. It is a HUGE children's bible that is geared specifically for preschool children. I will be using it this year for our bible circle time. I am going to do something new this year with my friends. Usually I start with the 10 Commandments, but, I have decided to keep that plan, but add to it. I am going to do a "survey" of the Old Testament while they work through learning the 10 Commandments.

Folders keep it all together

2008-08-27T20:16:00.000-07:00

Each of my friends has their own plastic folder with pockets in it for the school year. I have their name on it and other than that it starts the year blank. Every so often I will award my friends with a sticker for a special achievement or just for a fun memory of a unit we are learning about.

I have learned that a standard sized dish drainer holds my folders in the up position and has 12 slots which is perfect for our pre-k rooms.

Spot the Dot

2008-08-27T20:10:00.000-07:00

Sharon introduced Dot to me and I have loved him ever since. I don't think my husband minds!

You take a "Dot" and hold it up wherever you'd like for the children to spot it. It is great for teaching positional words. For example, hold the Dot over your head and the children tell you where it is located. Then you move it all over the place and give them the words that are correct for it's placement, over, under, beside, in between etc.

I am going to use Dot to introduce my friends to our classroom. Dot will "appear" in different centers while the children have their backs turned and eyes closed. When they turn around they try to find him. We all walk (or run!)over to where he is and I will explain the rules for that particular center. I am thinking I will have special "dot" stickers to place on their folders at the end of the school day.

The Kissing Hand

2008-08-27T19:42:00.001-07:00

Everyone uses this sweet story to help children start off the new school year with as little separation anxiety as possible.

Here's what I hope to do:

The Virtual Vine suggest a great idea for a classroom book. I think this will be a great way for my 3's to make a special beginning of the year project for our classroom. I plan on using paper plates and attaching a ring to the top to secure it and form a book. I will add a picture when the project is finished. One big thought is that the children are usually all dresses up on the first day, so this means making sure they use a good smock.

I also plan on doing a ink handprint, or a paint handprint (haven't decided yet, probably ink so that it will dry quickly and can get laminated to send home the same day) that includes this little poem taken from this link.

It's my first day of school
And "The Kissing Hand" is what we read.
It's about a raccoon
Who did just as his parents said.

Like the raccoon's first day at school
I was scared and a little shy.
But because of what you said
I was brave and I got by.

All through the year
I'll make more things for you.
So as I change and as I learn
You can see my growth, too!

I would like to do a little more, but I know I should plan on making sure all the kids have gone potty rather than making lots of activities and have children screaming LOL.

August Beginngs

2008-08-27T19:29:00.001-07:00

Two days a week just isn't enough time to do all I want to do to teach little ones about the world around them. I'm gonna try though.
This blog is to help me help them. We'll see how it goes!