In circle we have been reading lots of dinosaur books. Our favorites are 10 Terrible Dinosaurs by Paul Stickland (which includes the kids doing all the actions that the dinos do), and How Do Dinosaurs Say Good-Night? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague. I also introduced our "Story Mystery Box" which has question cards inside. The questions include things like, Who is the author of this book?, What do you think will happen next?, Where is the title of the book? etc. After each book we read, the kids choose one or two questions from the box to answer about the book. It's helping them pay more attention to the books we read. Also, understanding different things about literature in general (title, author, etc.), and types of literature (poem, story, etc.) are both kindergarten standards.
Lots of fine motor activities this week! We played with pop-tubes, practiced cutting out big and small pieces of paper along printed lines, glueing, coloring small areas with colored pencils, breaking our snacks into as many pieces as we could (and then counting them), and playing with Color-Clix. Busy busy busy! Pop-tubes are used by occupational therapists to help strengthen kids hands, fingers, and wrists by having them PLAY, perfect! Having strong muscles in there will help with their writing and legibility too. They are simple and fun. stretch them out long, bend them into things, push them back together. The kids loved it.
Cutting out the missing dinosaurs and putting them into line in the right place, glueing them down, then coloring. Fun table time activity. I love their little hands working so hard to complete the task. They take all their "work" very seriously.
Another fun fine motor activity was this animal hospital toy. The keys un-lock and lock the doors, plus the kids had a nice dialogue going too about which animal might be dangerous and had to be locked away from the others, and which animal was tired so they needed to go to their room... Animals might be the natural progression when they are finished with dinosaurs.
Color-Clix are a magical toy. They are interlocking pieces in a variety of shapes and sizes and colors. We sorted them one day, and talked about all the different ways we could do it (size? shape? size AND shape? color? how many categories?). It was a good thinking lesson. Then we built with them. Some kids continued with making patterns, some simple A B patterns, and some more complex. They also created things from real life, like bikes and airplanes, and then they started making things from their imaginations. It was fun to watch.
Table time project. We made dinosaurs out of the letter "D". The kids had fun experimenting with the bingo daubers.
We also made drums. Half of a balloon stretched over the top of a plastic cup and a stick makes a really good drum! They were harder to make than I thought they would be and I had to help each kid, but they were a fun addition to our music and movement time during circle this week. If they break at home, just cut off the small tip to another balloon, stretch over the cup and voila, new drum! :)
File folder games are a good activity to slow the kids down. They love to run and play outside and be silly inside with each other, but sometimes they need some quiet time to sit and do something independently.
Making a home for his dinosaurs. I like when they mix materials like this. Blocks and toy dinosaurs together for a very creative experience.
Practicing their writing all together at the table. Write and wipe activities are favorites of mine, because it saves all the billions of papers that we would be using up, just as practice.
We read a dinosaur book about opposites, and the kids got to choose if they would be a good or bad dinosaur for the day. They all chose good. Thank goodness, because I didn't have anything fun for bad dinosaurs. :)
More letter practicing. I have been taking handwriting samples and am interested to see the improvement by the end of the year.
Patterning with more complex patterns together in circle time. They are getting pretty good!
Although our snack is always something different, the rules are the same; 1. Use nice preschool manners (ask them what they are) 2. Try each food (smell, lick, then taste - if it looks yucky) Easy to remember, right? They are all good eaters.
Outside time this week was touch and go with the weather again. The time we did get outside was filled with bubbles, water table, and KING of the fortress!
Numbers are tricky. They aren't practiced as much as letters usually, but they are very useful and necessary in life. I made up the world's simplest game, and they loved it. Each kid got a giant die, a piece of paper and a pencil/pen. They would roll the die, count the number they got, and write it down. Eventually they were able to look at the cluster of dots and know how many it was without pointing to each one and counting. That is an emerging skill and another kindergarten standard to work toward. These kids will be so ahead of the game!
Waiting for moms to come we pulled the marble track out for the last 10 minutes of the day. It was a hit! They worked separately and realized they couldn't make very big tracks, then, independently, they figured that out and worked together to build some amazing and BIG tracks! Smart kids!
