Hh is for Hats

This week, we read books that focused on hats.  Some students wore hats and I'm kicking myself, because I didn't get pictures :(.  They got to talk about their hats.

In some classes, the children acted out different scenarios regarding hats.  One scenario is to balance bean bags on their heads like the character in Caps for Sale who balanced caps on his head:

My new assistant helping out!

 

The phonetic letter that we focused on was the letter Hh.  The letters we practiced writing were "A" and "Y".  For "Y", I said, "Go down the slide, up the ladder, and add a Popsicle stick"  This imagery helps them when they have to write the letter.

Since we are all comfortable with each other, a lot more talking has been taking place.  It's great that the children want to talk.  I'm going to be paring down my lessons, since we can't get to other areas, with the extra talking.

The art lesson was on how to care for markers and how to use them.  Even though most children have markers at home, they need to learn how to use them in the classroom.  I taught them to put the cap on the end and when they're done, to push the marker into the cap until they hear a "click" sound.  The children colored a styrofoam cup.  I put the cups in an oven set at 300 degrees.  It took less than 3 minutes for the colored cups to shrink into miniature hats :).

Here's a before and after: cup verses elf/doll hat

Here are some more pictures:

This is what library time looks like.

Ss is for Sports

Ss is for sports.  We looked at pictures (seen on our Facebook page) of different kinds of sports.  It was a great launching pad for discussions.  We read some books on sports and sang the song: "Take Me Out to the Ballgame". 

The children tend to have free play when playing outside, but this week, they learned how to hit a ball off the tee with a bat, throw a football, kick a soccer ball, and play catch. 

For art, I dribbled red, yellow, and blue paint on white paper.  The children rolled a ping-pong ball through the paper by rocking their tray back and forth.  Since the ball is so light, it would get stuck in the paint.  They had to nudge the ball when it would get stuck.  It caused the ball to pick up the paint and leave a trail.  Since I used primary colors, it allowed the mixing of paint to create secondary and tertiary colors.

Here's how the art started - I dribbled paint on the paper.

For writing, they worked on zig-zags and "Z" and "X".

Here are some additional pictures of your children:

Nn...is for necklace, no, noodle...

This week was supposed to be "Nn is for North America".  I followed the curriculum's suggestions like the books to buy and the music.  I discovered that the books are not meant for preschoolers. They are meant for 3rd graders who have some learned history under their belt.  I ended up finding pictures of beautiful locations around North America, posting them on Facebook, and sharing them with some of my classes.  What I did to change the plan was to show them some pennies, talk about the memorial and Lincoln on the pennies, show them how they spin and roll, showed them pictures of President Lincoln, built a log cabin with Lincoln Logs, and had the children make a one dimensional picture of a log cabin with craft sticks and glue.  This week should have been "Ll is for Lincoln".  Let's just say that when I have to do the year two curriculum, I will be changing everything about the letter Nn theme, so that I don't have another lesson fail.

Here are the pictures for this week:

Our new friend - I wish I did better on the focus.  I'll have to take this again.

It rained this week and was too wet to go outside.

Snack time with friends.

This is what fall looks like in Southern California in October.

Here's another example of fall or autumn - my Fuji apples are getting their red color.

My roses are blooming, so I thought this would be a good photo.

Here's another one.

Watering my tree.

Nn is for newspaper.

Nn is for nose.

They LOVED acting for me!

Nn is also for notebook...

...and nest

Having fun spinning pennies.

Making a colorful "log cabin" with paper, glue, and craft sticks.

Our writing letters were N and M.  Here they are building the letter M with Wikki sticks.