Letter H Week

Letter H Week

Letter H Week included all the normal stuff.

1. Make letter of the week into an animal ( H is for Horse)...check

2. Science Experiment=Hot and Cold air.  We all had balloons on top of water bottles.  We then put our bottles in cold water or hot water and watched what happened.  The cold water sucked the balloon inside of the water bottle.  The hot water needed more space and began to fill the balloon up with warm air.  We learned hot air needs more space and cold air doesn't...check

3. We played detectives and found all of the uppercase and lowercase H's...check

4. We had yummy snacks like:cookies/juice, ice cream cone cornucopia's filled with candy corn, nuts, pretzels and crackers. Plus oreo's with fruit snacks...check and thank you!

5. We made our alphabet book page.  Letter H is for hearts. We practiced our handwriting of letter H, both uppercase and lowercase...check

6. We read stories and talked about what we are thankful for. We are thankful for preschool, our families, friends, toys, food and healthy bodies!...check

7.  Our food experience was making pretzel/rolo turkeys with candy corn feathers.  This was fun and tricky. But, boy they were yummy!..check favorite thing we do every week!

8.  We had inside recess-sometimes we dance with rhythm sticks to music, sometimes we watch a 10 minute show on Netflix that has to do with the letter of the week, and sometimes we play games like duck..duck..goose.  I try to let the children choose.  They mostly choose watching tv....so I try to make it as educational as possible...check

It was another successful week.  I feel like if we get all our work done we are being successful.  Every week we review our word family and the letters we have learned. We sing songs, we eat, we learn, we play and have fun together! I enjoy your children so much and love spending time with them.  Thanks for all your help with snack, getting them here on time, encouraging them to practice things at home.  Your children are super smart, super cute and super happy! They talk my ear off all the time about all the fun things going on at their houses.  I know they come from wonderful families.  I am so grateful this time of year for your children and for you! Thank you again for all your support! 

Till next time, 

Miss Heidi

Letter G Week

Letter G Week

If you all haven't figured out yet, I am a little behind in blogging. So in an attempt to catch up this is going to be short and sweet.  Above are the pictures from letter G week.  

On Monday, we learned the letter of the week and turned it into an animal (G is for Giraffe). We sang songs, gave friends with G's in their names a cheer, practiced its sound and found its place in the alphabet.  We also had a fun science experiment called, "Dancing Colors".  The story we read was "Giraffe's Can't Dance", so our science experiment went along with it.  To read more about our science experiment check it out here: http://www.sciencebob.com/experiments/colorsymphony.php

On Wednesday, we were detectives and worked hard on finding letter G's uppercase and lowercase.  We sang some Giraffe songs and worked on our shape book.  We are a little behind on our shape book, so we are working hard on it everyday to finish it up. We also played a game to practice our "it" family words.

Friday, is fun day.  We made our alphabet page for our alphabet book.  G is for Glitter and glue.  We practiced our handwriting uppercase and lowercase. Worked on our shape book and squeezed in a fun food experiment.  We made a giraffe cake with a white batter design and then baking the chocolate over the top of it.  We spread the frosting in the middle and rolled it up.  I will be honest, it did not come home looking good at all.  Thankfully, it tasted better than it looked.  The picture above looks pretty awesome though.  So that finishes up our letter G week.  Onto letter H!

Till next time, 

Miss Heidi

Letter F Week

Letter F Week

This week is a little foggy in my mind because I have waited so long to post about it.  I remember starting out the week reading, "We're Going on a Leaf Hunt". Then we went on a leaf hunt, we gathered acorns and other things along the way.  Since then the weather has turned way too cold to go outside for any sort of recess...so we are being creative indoors.  

We learned all of the normal things like the letter F, its sound, uppercase and lowercase recognition.  We made our letter F "Frog", we practiced our letter F handwriting, we made our letter F alphabet page, we sang letter F songs and frog songs, and we made Oreo cookie frogs for our Fun Friday Food experience.  We have also been working on our "it" family words all months by doing various activities and lots of sounding out and blending words.  It might seem too hard...but the kids really can start to blend and sound out letters to make words. 

Of course, we had yummy snacks like; animal crackers, fruit kabobs (for Mr. E's Birthday) and string cheese.  We always have the best snacks and such a variety. We love it!

This week a lot of things changed in our classroom.  It was time to say goodbye to October and hello to November.  So we decorated leaves for our new November bulletin boards. Plus, we have been learning new Thanksgiving songs and November songs. 

We are starting to see signs of sickness in our classroom,,,so a huge thank you for keeping your child home when they are not feeling well.  It really helps all of us to keep feeling well!

Thanks, for another awesome week!

 Till next time, Miss Heidi

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

Letter B Week

Letter B Week

Top 10 Highlights from Letter B Week

1. Introducing Letter B and turning it into a Bear.

2.  Eating yummy snacks like; Pumpkin Muffins, Banana Bread, Capri Suns and Oreos. (Always a big THANK YOU for wonderful snacks!)

3. Our science experiment was making our own bubble mixture and playing with bubbles! FUN!

4. Singing Letter B songs and Bears songs. (Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear turn around & 10 Little Bears Sleeping in the Bed).

5. Making letters with Play-dough.

6.  Making our Alphabet page, B is for Buttons and practicing our handwriting Uppercase and Lowercase.

7.  Reading stories all about Bears!

8.  For our food experience we made Bear Toast.  I found the idea here:http://www.craftymorning.com/teddy-bear-toast-healthy-kids-breakfast/

9.  Having circle time, roll call, counting the days, singing days of the week, singing our September songs, checking the weather and having Show-and-Tell.

10.  Celebrating Mr. G's birthday! We love Birthdays!

It was a super fabulous week full of fun.  We are really having a great time playing together and learning together.  I am so lucky to get to spend time with your children.  Your children are simply beautiful! Next week is the letter C, cats, and the beginning of a new month.

Till next time, 

Miss Heidi