Using the "Story Mystery Box" I am able to reinforce a few new kindergarten standards that we have been working on. We talk about characters, setting, plot, who the author is, what an author does, who the illustrator is, and what they do, different parts of the book (spine, title page, etc.) and things like that. They are little sponges and love learning new words and ideas! All the preschoolers went home with a new book this week too. They loved reading this silly book!
The preschoolers love to exercise! So before we went out in the backyard, we went for a tiny nature walk and then did some exercises in the big empty cul-de-sac. They loved these Exercise ABC's!
After a lot of imaginative talking about outer space last week, it continued on this week too. Luckily I had a few space activities ready for them! We played the "What's Missing?" game and they laughed and laughed!
For table time, the preschoolers worked on their one-to-one correspondence by counting the space things and then used their numeral recognition skills to find that number and circle it. It was a very quick circle time, but they liked it, and it got them talking about space again, which carried over into their play.
Another table time activity was this heart counting activity. They got to choose however many hearts they wanted on their papers, then they glued them on. After they were finished gluing, then they got to write the number of hearts. Some preschoolers wanted to get to play time and just glued on 1, while others went to town making heart pictures.
On Friday, we talked about the Lunar New Year and read about dragons being good luck. So they made their own dragon puppets for circle time.
I brought out the marble tracks (both the plastic ones and the wooden ones) for the kids to play with. They seriously love these! So much fun!
I got a few new ball cars after finding out last week that they were a favorite. These boys especially seemed really excited about getting some new ones.
The Lego mini figures were still very exciting and they got pulled apart and rebuilt at least one hundred times.
The Color Clix are always fun. I love to see what they can create!
I brought out the pink castle for some of the princesses and the kids loved setting it up as a house.
Outside time was spent being as silly as possible. I am forever amazed at how many toys are strewn all over the yard by the end of play time. I think we spend at least 10 minutes just cleaning it all back up! :)
The letters we worked on were 'L', 'M', and 'N'. They are getting really good with their phonics! Encourage it at home too!
After our closing circle on Friday, I pulled up the Chinese dragon and lion dances videos for the preschoolers to dance along to while we waited for the parents to come. Happy Lunar New Year!
