Aa is for All About Me

This week we learned the sound of the letter Aa.  Since I review letters and sounds all year, I will be doing the vowels first, since there is a vowel in each word.

The theme, "All About Me", allowed us to read books that talked about what we can do, our feelings, and liking ourselves.  We sang songs about being silly, having feelings, our body parts, and being unique.

Speaking of body parts - when we did art, we finished mixing finger paints to make secondary colors by mixing the colors with one finger.  The children used their finger to mix the paint in a cup and to pull the paint out of the cup instead of mixing and painting directly on the paper. The two colors we used were red and blue, which makes purple. **Please come inside and see our art wall.  Your child's three secondary color paintings are on their art mat with their picture in the corner.  When I'm ready to display a new piece.  I'll take those down and send them home.

mixing blue and red paint to make purple

What is wrong with my flash?  I think it picks up the outside window light.  Sorry about this dark photo.

This week we started with our writing lesson.  We practiced writing in straight vertical lines.  We did many hands on activities to demonstrate the lower case letters "l" and "i".  Those activities are: tracing sandpaper cards, building the letters with wiki sticks, using magnetic letter builders, using wooden letter builders, tracing it in salt, and using playdo to build the letters on the playdo mats.  These were a lot and I plan on toning it down as the letters become more complicated.  After all of the practice making the letters and drawing straight lines on the worksheets, they practiced tracing, and trying to write the letters on their own.  Below, are pictures of me holding the pencil in the different way children develop.  I will not push them to hold the pencil the way adults do, because they need to develop through different stages of pencil holding.  It starts with a closed fist and gradually ends up with the pincher grip.  Not every child is ready to write.  They need to gain strength in their fingers and wrist and gain coordination.  Many of the center activities help your children in that development.

Using the wiki sticks for the letter "i"

playdo on the letter playdo mats, magnetic letter builder, and tracing in salt mats

There are different levels of development when it comes to writing.  I see varying levels.  Here are some examples:

This one is my daughters.  She was never interested in scribbling with a writing/coloring tool, so she never developed in this area.  Now that she sees other children handling a pencil, she is interested.  She'll go from this stage to the above examples.

Here are different examples of the stages of pencil holding that a child needs to go through.  Don't push them if they are not ready for the next step.  Provide opportunities to gain control and strength in their fingers, hand, and wrist.  Eventually they'll get to the "right" way.:

Fist grip

several fingers on the top of the pencil

The pincher grip where the thumb and pointer finger pinch the pencil, the other fingers are tucked behind, and the pencil rests on the side of the hand.

For centers, the children stacked small wooden blocks up as high as they could on day one.  On day two, they used the small blocks and the large wooden blocks to build structures or whatever they wanted. 

Building their towers

 

Look at how this child stacked these!  I have never been able to think this way - to find clever ways to stack blocks.  I'm often blown away when children can do things like this.

I love that smile!

He built that!

 

On day three (Friday), the children celebrated a birthday party and we didn't have a chance to do centers.  Instead we played outside together for an extended period, because there was a lot of social bonding going on that is VERY important in their development and I did not want to take that moment away from them:

I love my yard.  There's so much room to run around.

Yes, my windows are dirty, but look at him play!  You can see the ball he just hit - suspended in the air.

This week we went outside for the first time.  The children used the new water toys at the water table on day one.  On day two, they got to play in the sandbox under the umbrellas.  On day three, the water table and sand box were available for play.

It's hot out, but they're in the shade playing with water toys.

 

I love my new umbrellas.  They block out the

They are playing zombies...I think.

In two of our classes, we had birthday celebrations.  Both children were celebrating their 4th birthday!!!  It was a lot of fun and I would like to thank the parents again for making the celebration special.

Our first birthday boy in this class.

Passing out juice pouches to his friends.

He blew out the candle.

This year, the children choose a wrapped present from a box of presents.

Ripping paper is a great fine motor activity!

Wind up toys are great toys to strengthen the fingers and help the child with the pincher grasp.

Two friends were missing this day.

Sillies!!

Second birthday boy:

Another birthday boy in another class passing out the plates.

First try

Second try

Third try's a charm

Rip it!!

One side of our birthday wall, where I put pictures of the birthday child.  The other side of the window are cupcakes representing each month and the candles on the cupcake represent the children's name.

I love the shots when I say, "Okay, now make a silly face!"

During the last two weeks, I have been showing them the calendar and talking about the days of the week, months of the year, the day that is "today", "yesterday", and "tomorrow".  We are also going over the color (red), shape (circle), number (0), weather, and a rhyme (bug/rug).

The Friday class does a special lesson every week like science, math, compare/contrast...  Last week we tasted and smelled foods and talked about our sense of smell and taste.  This week we talked about our sense of sight and were blind-folded to know what it's like not to have that sense.

Friday's lesson on the sense of sight... or lack of.  They are blind-folded and led around the room by a partner.

Next week, our phonetic letter is Ee, our theme is "Eric Carle Books", our writing practice is horizontal lines, and our letter writing practice is "L" and "T".

Have a great weekend!