St. Patrick's Day and review

This week, our butterflies emerged from their cocoons!  On Monday, two emerged.  On Wednesday, the last two emerged.  On Thursday, the Tuesday/Thursday class released two of the butterflies.  They didn't want to fly out, so I carefully lifted them and set them on a rose in my rose garden.  I wanted the M/W/F group to release the other two on Friday, but one of our members was absent.  We'll release them on Monday.  Hopefully it won't rain.

The lepricans were mischievous!! They mixed up our letter cards and our attendance picture cards. Some were upside down. On the first day, we set up a trap for the mischievous leprican. If we caught one, we could demand that they tell us where the pot of gold is hidden. Alas, we did not catch one.

For art, we painted with food. I cut an apple and a green bell pepper in half. Each child used a half. The bell pepper dipped in green paint makes a three leaf clover and the apple core dipped in paint makes a star stamp. We used a thin stick to paint the stems. On the second day we experimented with different kinds of brushes dipped in white or green paint.

For centers, the children chose between hammering pegs into the board, dressing plates (zipping, snapping, buttoning), or lacing plates (animals that you pull laces through).  They also played a matching number game.  When they finished their number writing practice, they got to choose between several games: two different number matching games and a word building game.

For last week's theme (rainbows and this week's theme), after singing some songs that matched the theme, I went to You Tube to find songs that match. This week, I showed a Muppets video of The Chef, Animal, and Beeker singing "Danny Boy". We cracked up! We also listened to a traditional song about St. Patrick's Day. The children really get in to the theme when they see and hear songs about it. I'll post them on Facebook.

At the end of the day, I played traditional Irish music from Pandora and we danced around to the music. I tried doing an Irish jig, even though I have no idea what I'm doing. The children got a kick out of the music and the dancing.

Enjoy this week's photos!

Shamrocks and stars

Our first butterfly emerges!

Our second butterfly emerges!

The children were very excited!

Our green bell pepper shamrock stampers and apple core star stampers in green paint.

Our dressing plates

Centers

beautiful butterfly trying to go in the light

The butterflies gravitate to the light.  They open up their wings when they are in the sunlight as if they are sunning themselves.  When I move them in partial shade, they go to the sunny side of their enclosure.

number matching games

Tracing numbers

Experimenting with different painting tools in green paint

Looking at the new butterflies with magnifying glasses!

The lepricans messed up my cards!

We tried to release two of the butterflies on Wednesday, but they wouldn't fly out

friends playing together

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Rr is for rainbows

This week our letter focus was the letter Rr as in rainbows.  This theme fits in nicely between wind, umbrellas, caterpillars (colorful butterflies), and St. Patrick's Day.

The children really enjoyed dropping paint onto a paper in the shape of the butterfly, folding it over, and then seeing the "ink blot" effect.  For the second art project, I changed it to a stain glass window rainbow.  Each child stuck the colors of the rainbow onto contact paper.  Hang them in a window with a lot of light.  The light shines through and it's really pretty.  The children either tried to imitate a rainbow or stuck colors all over the contact paper, which resulted in their own special rainbow.

I was worried about the tangram center, but the children really enjoyed creating with the different shapes.  The other centers were to finish cutting and to practice writing their name.  I'm going to send home the master copies of the name writing pages that I created, so that you can make copies for them to do at home when you are looking for things for them to do.  I'll also send home the papers that are not finished so they can finish them up at home.

On Facebook, I posted that I was frustrated with the information that's out there regarding pencil grip.  Thanks to a mom in this group, she found an article that is research based that showed that children tend to hold a crayon with the three finger hold better than a pencil.  For the children who are holding a pencil with a fist grip, I gave them a crayon and was amazed at the results.

I posted some pictures of some of the materials I use to teach your children.  Please read the caption to understand each one.

Enjoy this week's photos:

Rr is for rainbow

Her person :)

It's fun to hear what their structures are

Folding the paper over and smoothing out the paint, so that it spreads and mixes

Dropping paint

Silly, crazy fun!!

ink blot butterflies

His grip is usually fist grip.  Look at how he's holding the crayon!  The chunky pencil with the triangle grip is the same width, however, the crayon feels heavier and not so top heavy.  It seems to have a better center of gravity.

Stain glass rainbow

adding clouds

For each letter, I have a puppet friend.  For the letter Rr, I have Ralph the Rooster.  I also have objects that the children can touch and pass around that start with the letter of the week.  The objects for the letter Rr are a rainbow, robot, rat, rose, radio, ring, and the upper and lower case letters.

I use an old set of Open Court cards and the paragraph that goes with them.  I used these cards in elementary classes, because the district didn't have enough money to buy me a new set.  Every classroom was required to have the cards up.  These cards have been very useful to me when it came to teaching and reviewing phonics!

These are all of the letters we've learned so far.  As you see, the first two rows are just the lower case.  Those are the oldest letters.  Since lower case is used more than upper case, when we review theses letters (almost every day), they review the lower case.  We have actions that go along with the sounds.

When I teach phonics on Monday and Tuesday, I use flash cards to show pictures of things that begin with the letter of the week.

I read at least two books that match the theme of the week.  The theme matches the letter of the week.  The children discuss and are exposed to many life science themes.

Cc is for caterpillar

I have been so excited about this theme, because of our live caterpillars.  They are going to turn in to butterflies right in our classroom!!  A week after our spring break, we can also join each other at the San Diego Safari Park to see the butterfly exhibit, which is an extension on our lesson.

Our Centers were: to continue cutting and practicing writing the letters in our name.  Also, the children learned how to use a magnifying glass to look at the caterpillars.

Art/Craft: 1) Draw a caterpillar, cocoon, and butterfly life cycle and color.  2)  Color and cut out circles that glue together to form a caterpillar in the shape of the letter C.  The circles will be put in numerical order.  I'm the type of person who likes paint smeared across a page, so these art ideas I got from the curriculum weren't my favorite.  The children seemed to enjoy drawing the pictures of the life cycle.  The cutting of the circles were difficult for some children :(, but practice makes perfect.


I did have a bit of a crisis with my caterpillars this week.  Two of the caterpillars turned into a chrysalis, a third one was beginning to turn into a chrysalis, but was knocked down by two other caterpillars who started eating the paper that the caterpillars were supposed to attach to!  The caterpillar that got knocked down didn't have a chance to finish changing, so he died :(.  I wasn't supposed to open the container until they were all in the chrysalis stage, but I needed to separate the caterpillars that were destroying the paper.  So far, I've made the right choice.  Let's hope we get four butterflies to release!

Our letter puppet friend is Carlos the Cow and our number this week is 17!!  We are almost up to 20!

For this month, our color is green and our shape is a star (to get ready for St. Patrick's Day).

Enjoy this week's photos and videos:

observing the caterpillars

The children put the numbers in order to form the caterpillar's body.

Ironically, it was rainy this week.  It would have been perfect to do the umbrella theme.

The children are getting better at cutting!

The life cycle drawings

Forming the letters Cc with wikki stix

They cut out the circles with numbers, put them in numerical order, and colored it. 

A team effort to make the wall colorful

The children love to put water on the wall.

Friday's group got to paint at the easels.  It was a gorgeous day!  They shared their pictures with each other and explained their choices.

We learn how letters fit together to make words.

Not all children are holding the pencils with the pincher fingers.  I can't tell you how many websites and books I've read where it says that as a preschool teacher, we should teach proper hand placement.  In a kindergarten orientation, the teacher said that the way a child holds a pencil is set when they are 6.  Recently, I went with the advice from an occupational therapist to allow a child to go through the stages of hand grip and to not push.  One child wasn't ready to use the pincher grasp, so I told him to hold the pencil with a closed fist.  He has better control.  I will work with him so that he can go through the stages of pencil grasp before being pushed to hold it with the pincher fingers.  It makes me want to cry when so many resources say the same thing and no one has a source to back up what they claim as true.

Look at that large hole!  That's what the other two caterpillars did!!  Those stinkers!

These are the two caterpillars that destroyed the paper disc.  I put sticks in the cup, since I removed the paper disc that they are supposed to attach to.  I hope they will turn into a chrysalis.