Letter E Week

Letter E Week

I don't know about the rest of you, but time is sure flying around here.  We learned all about the letter "E" this week and  how to recognize it, write it and make its sound.  We incorporated Elephants into our letter "E" theme.  So we made Elephant toothpaste for our science experiment. The kids loved it, so here is the link if you want to try it at home. http://www.funathomewithkids.com/2013/08/fun-science-experiment-for-kids.html.  I found the 6% hydrogen peroxide at Peerless Beauty Supply in Centerville for $1.87. 

Then we sang Elephant songs and poems like:

One Elephant Went Out to Play

One elephant went out to play
Upon a spider’s web one day.
He had such enormous fun,
He called for another elephant to come… “Oh, ELEPHANT!”
Two elephants…
Three elephants…
Four elephants…
Five elephants went out to play
Upon a spider’s web one day.
The web went creak, the web went crack.
And all of the elephants went KERSPLAT!

We made Elephant Ear scones from this recipe:http://www.kitchme.com/recipes/elephant-ears.  To say that the kids love having food experiences is an understatement.  The kids cannot wait to get whatever we make in their mouths.  One of the kids ate their dough almost all gone before they could even flatten it to be fried. 

We read Elephant stories about "Elmer the Elephant".  

We practiced reading, sounding out and playing games with our word family "an".

We played outside in the gorgeous sunny fall weather.

We practiced sorting shapes.

We had delicious snacks like; mummy cheese quesadillas, string cheese with ritz crackers, juice boxes and graham crackers with grapes.  I love the variety and exposure the children get to new things.  You all think of such great snack---thank you!

Well, it was a enormously successful week (I think) and this week is our big Halloween Party.  We will play games, make crafts, eat scary snacks, dance, take pictures have a costume parade, read stories and generally have a good time.  Can't Wait!!

Till next time, 

Miss Heidi

Letter D Week

Letter D Week

D if for Dinosaurs!

In an effort to be more interesting, I will be sharing some thoughts with you about our Dinosaur Week, instead of making a top ten list.  We will get all of the "knowns" out of the way.  Of course, we had awesome snacks, we always have awesome snacks.  And we made our famous alphabet page, this week being Letter D...and D is for Dinosaurs.  We sang songs about letter D, we were detectives and found uppercase and lowercase letter D's. We practiced our letter D handwriting.  We also made our letter animal (a Dinosaur).  We read stories about Dinosaurs. Pretty normal and a little boring..right? 

Well the exciting stuff would be making our awesome salt dough Dinosaur Fossil and letting them dry and then painting them.  While the kids made their fossils, I made a salt dough volcano.  We let the volcano dry and then we made it erupt for our science experiment.  You know the good old vinegar and baking soda kinda of way.  And we had to add red food coloring to make it look like lava.  We also played some games this week...one being a Dinosaur Shape Stomp.

"Stomp, stomp, stomp to a Dinosaur beat.

Stomp on a ______________ (teacher names a shape) with your feet.

We practiced with ovals, circles, squares, triangles, diamonds, rectangles, hearts and stars. 

We also learned a new word family, the "an"family (an, ban, can, Dan, fan, man, Nan, pan, ran, tan, van).  We are getting really good at sounding out three letter words. 

The most exciting thing we did this week if you ask the kids would be making chocolate pudding Dinosaur dirt cups. We used clear plastic cups, made instant chocolate pudding, put crunched up Oreo dirt on top with a plastic Dinosaur.  Dino-licious!

I hope everyone had a great week learning about the letter D and Dinosaurs. I know I did!

Till next time, 

Miss Heidi

Letter C Week

Letter C Week

Top Ten Highlights from Letter C Week

1. Making our Animal Letter.  C is for Cat.

2. Painting and making Spiders for our Halloween bulletin boards.

3. Playing Detective and finding big C and little c.

4. Singing songs about Cats. "I'm Scat the Cat a really cool cat...if you don't like my color then you change it like that". Ask your child to sing it for you!

5. Making out Alphabet page letter C with the cutest cat stickers that you ever did see. 

6. Practicing our handwriting of big C and little c.

7.  Eating the bestest, yummiest letter c snacks ever...carrots, crackers, cheese, capri suns and chocolate chip cookies.  Thank you, thank you for our snacks!

8.  Making cat cupcakes for our Friday food experience.  Found here: http://www.bhg.com/halloween/recipes/17-frightfully-good-halloween-cupcakes/

9.  Reading stories about cats..1 Hondo & Fabian. 2.  If you give a cat a cupcake. 3.  Splat the Cat.

10.  Saying goodbye to September and Hello to October.  The kids loved when the Halloween decorations came out and the calendar changed.  We have started learning Halloween songs and October songs. We talk about what we are going to be for Halloween.  It's very exciting!

I can't believe we have finished up a month of preschool already.  October is here, the first of the month is always crazy.  However, it was a good week. I think we can start getting a little bit more done each day.  More math, we are learning the pledge of allegiance during circle time.  The kids are really getting the hang of things (how to hold pencils, how to put on shoes, our schedule, sitting during story time..etc).  So we can start to pick up the pace a little.  Next week is Dinosaur week for letter D.  Its also Fire Safety Week.  We will touch on this a little bit.  As always, I love what I do and I love your children.  We sure have fun learning together!

Till next time, 

Miss Heidi