Week 12 with the 4's: Thankfulness...

 

This week the 4's spent a LOT of time talking about what they are thankful for. We read the story of Jesus healing 10 lepers, but only one thanked Jesus. The kids helped tell the story using the felt board.

 

Next we talked about the letter Y and said the poem to help us remember how to form the letters. Then we used out tactile letters to trace the shape while we said the poem...

 

And we made Y's with popsicle sticks.

 

To work on our numbers, we tried a dot-to-dot...there was MAJOR improvement here since the last time we tried one of these. Way to go kids!

 

 

 

For our math activity today, I gave each kid a set of math rods. First, I asked them to find the longest one...you can see the boys holding up the blue ones, and Addison with the orange...

 

She put hers in order first to figure out which was longest and which was shortest...

 

The boys soon followed suit, but it was a little tricky.

 

Then they had some time to play with the rods on their own.

 

Next we did a little art project. I've always loved the look of Tibetan prayer flags. And then I saw this post on how to make GRATITUDE prayer flags...so I decided to put my own twist on the idea for 4 year-olds and this is what happened...

 

Each student got a few squares of linen fabric (leftover from another project). And they chose some colors of acrylic paint and foam stamps or brushes. The room was SILENT as they worked...

 

I also gave them some cut apples to stamp...

The first day, all we did was decorate the flags...the second phase had to wait till the paint was dry.

 

To wrap up the day, we played letter bean-bag toss. I put some letters on the floor (I chose ones that I've noticed the kids have trouble recognizing...) and I called out letters and they had to throw the bean bag to the letter and say a word that starts with that sound. They struggled with a couple but overall it was pretty successful.

 

 

Day 2 we decided to revisit the 7 Days of the Week song...and everyone had a turn being the "conductor"...

 

And the kids told the Bible story on their own using the felt pieces.

 

Next, I gave each child some strips of paper and we went around the circle each saying one thing we are thankful for. I wrote their thoughts on the strips.

 

Then we turned the strips into a chain. This was some GOOD motor skill practice!

 

The kids took the chains home and are going to add a link each day until Thanksgiving. Then on Thanksgiving Day, they can read all the things they are thankful for.

 

Next we read our book of the week...

 

And headed outside to play with the diggers for a bit!

 

After our break, it was time to get back to work...

 

We practiced writing Y's...tricky business!

 

And we did some mazes in our wipe-clean books...

 

Lastly, we put the final touches on our gratitude flags. The kids chose a couple things they were thankful for to write on their flags, and then came the hard part...they sewed a piece of yarn through the top to attach them all together! This was HARD...but each kiddo managed to stitch one flag each. I finished the rest for them real quick and then tied them all together. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the work in progress...it was a little chaotic :)

 

The idea is to hang these outside somewhere so they will eventually break down and become part of nature :) I think it makes a lovely addition to our garden!

 

Week 11 with the 2's

Our activities this week were a very loose representation of "school". It was mostly just a semi-organized free play session, but the kids did great! We started with some play dough (blue and purple were the colors of the week so we stuck to those colors).

Next we made squares out of marshmallows and pretzel sticks. The eating was more fun than the construction.

 

 

 Then the trash truck drove through the neighborhood, so all things school-related came to a halt as the kids flew to the door. Our trash men are the best...the honk and wave every time they go by.

Then we colored our boy/girl puzzle and glued the pieces to construction paper.

Day 2 was a little less structured. The kids got soaked in the water table within the first few minutes, so the shirts came off. For snack we had graham cracker squares with Nutella.

And we spent some quality time playing in the dirt in the garden...

And hiding in the playhouse...

 

And hiding in a fort under the kitchen table...with Minnie and Mickey :)

And we read some stories...

 

And that was pretty much it! Over all, a great week with the 2's!

4's and Week 10: Falloween

Happy Falloween. In preparation for Halloween, we did a lot of fun activities. We spent a lot of time counting the October calendar and working on recognizing numbers 20-30. During calendar time, we also talked about their home address and created a song to sing, so they can remember where they live. We also made Halloween biscuits where the kids got to select their own shape and roll out the dough. I forgot to take a picture of the final project, but they were yummy. 

Noah and Jack picked pumpkins, bats, and moons for their shapes. 

 The Book of the week is the famous: The Cat in the Hat, which we read....a lot. We worked on trying to juggle a bunch of objects, but mainly the boys just enjoyed throwing things around. We also talked about patterns and rhyming as well, so they painted their own pattern on the hat.

Look at Jack and the concentration on his face. 

We also worked with foam letters. This was great, but challenging for them. I handed them three- four letters and said a word, then they had to sound out the letters and try and spell the words. Jack did a great job sounding out the letters. For example cat and ball. 

Great job Jack and Noah with your patters! 

 So the curriculum for this week was letting the kids help carve the pumpkins. Talking about the differences on the inside and outside and letting them feel different textures. Little did I know, that I would be the one having to carve the pumpkins out, ugh. They had fun watching me and telling me what to do! They all helped as much as they could.

We also made pumpkin muffins and of course they all had to help lick the spoons. That is the best part, right?!

We worked on the letters again since Addison joined us, and they did a little better. I gave them 4 letters this time, and just said the words once. They had to see if they could put the letters in the correct order.  I had to help a bit more with that. But then I had them search for the letters in their name, and they recognized the order of those letters right away!

Lastly we read one of our favorite Halloween books, Spookley the Square Pumpkin. It is a great book that teaches about being different. 

The final project.....they turned out, ok. Happy Halloween!