Week 17 (Jan. 14, 15, 16)

Playing with salt dough is a favorite sensory activity for this class, especially when they get to create something that they can KEEP and bring home. They take a lot longer creating and building when they know it's going to be a special take home thing. We have been talking lots about animals that live in winter all the time, like penguins, and polar bears, but they really just wanted to build snowmen. They used plastic knives to cut their pieces just right.

The next day, after I baked them all, to turn them rock hard, they colored them. The details are adorable. Stick arms, and carrot noses.

These guys have been doing lots of WORK at preschool too, and showing lots of interest in words, letter sounds, and reading. I am ever impressed with them. I have lots of opportunities set up for them to practice their sight words. Here are some that we are working on. The game is to turn the card backward once they have said it. Simple, but I catch them choosing this game a lot of the time for free play, instead of a toy.  Usually they will get stuck on a few of the words and call a friend over for help. It turns into a great team building activity. (Also, Ryan is kneeling in the pictures, this is hung low enough to be reached easily as long as you're standing, FYI)

The kids watched an online art class. It was SO perfect. The artist, and his son, talked us through how to paint a penguin. We set it up for small group time and the kids LOVED it! We will certainly be doing this again.

I did not help one bit, and these turned out SO SO GOOD! Really, I think they are gorgeous! What amazing little artists! I tried to find frames after realizing they were going to be keepers, but the paper was an odd size, so I'll leave the hunting to you.  Really though, look at these masterpieces!

We have been talking about "word families", which is different than sight words. Sight words don't always follow the rules when you try to sound them out, like 'as', that word should be spelled "az" if you spelled it the way it sounded.  Word family words are ones that are related in some way. The "at family" are words that all end in 'at', like 'cat', 'bat', etc. You get the picture. Those words are easy to sound out when you know what to do. Everyone loves when we do a new word family during circle time.

This hungry penguin likes to eat word fish. I drew a billion little fish with words on them and the kids feed the penguin the fish after saying the word. These kids are SO smart, and going to be ahead of the game in kindergarten for sure.

Of course, a lot of our time is still spent playing and having fun. Dress up and puzzles were their favorites this week, sometimes at the same time.

Our schoolroom is now rearranged too. The kids were surprised when they came on Friday to see the transformation. There have been even more changes since then, so Wednesday will be an interesting day to see if the new layout is as good as the old one.

For those of you who are interested, here are a list of some sight words that we are working on. Not all have been introduced yet. Some can be sounded out, lots are just to be memorized. There are almost 200 of them and are comprised of some of the most common words used in the English language, along with a few that we have seen commonly in the books we have read in class. Several, we have expanded on, for example, when we sounded out 'not' and everyone got it, then we made a word family for 'ot' and figured out lots more words that way. I added them all below without commas, in case you were going to copy and paste them.

a about after again all all

and any are as at be

been before boy but by can

also am because best 

another better away back ball big black

book both box bring call came color

could dear each ear end far

find first five found four friend

come day did do down eat

for from get give go good

girl got hand high home house

into kind last leave left let

live look made may men more

morning most mother

must name near never next night only

own people play please

had has have he her here him his how

I if in it is just know like little long

make man many me much

my new no not of old

on one or other our out put 

said see she so some

ran read red right say school seem 

stand such sure tell thing think too tree

upon use want way open over present

pretty run saw should soon

than these under until where while

take that the their them then there

they this three to two too up us

very was we were what when which who

will with work would you your zoo

Week 16 (Jan. 7, 8, 9)

The kids had been showing an interest in learning about unusual shapes after I read a book with the word hexagon in it. So we listened to a hexagon song/video (thank you Youtube!). Each preschooler had their own hexagon and they counted the sides, and angles, and then we folded them up and cut out snowflakes! Perfect winter activity, even if we never see real snow here in Texas! 

Since we had to be inside for recess (because of the rain and bitter cold), we got out all the Mega Blocks. The boys build garages, and castles, and were completely into it. Thank goodness we have so many! 

We did lots of team building activities this week, after a few weeks off, we needed it. There were several times we had to talk about nice preschool manners this week. It was hard to get back to sharing, and taking turns, and waiting, but they did it. These are the sweetest kids ever and they love each other so much. It's great to see them get back to the solid group they were before.

Rescue Bots and baby dolls don't usually have a whole lot in common, unless you're in preschool. Then they go perfectly together. First the Rescue Bots were saving the baby dolls from one disaster or another, then they were the dads and the dolls were the moms, and they kept on going.

Our new classroom workbench has become a new favorite toy. The boys have been building and fixing and creating things all week! I love when playtime tricks them into doing really intricate fine motor skills.

Busy busy busy at the Playdoh table. They are such HARD workers. I love watching them talk and barter for turns with favored items. They are good negotiators!

I call this, the "Hot Cocoa Game". I made it up, as you could probably guess. At the bottom of each cup was a piece of brown paper (the cocoa) with a number on it. That's how many marshmallows each cup needed. They counted and filled up the cups and then got to choose one cup (after completing all of them) and eat the marshmallows from the cup. Of course, everyone chose the #6 cup. :)

Another team activity was this snowman game. Each team had a pile of hats with different numbers on them and they had to dress their snowman with the coordinating number of counters. That one-to-one correspondence is understood here as they see that the number is the same as the amount of objects. Once their pile of hats were finished, they were allowed to have more free play time, but both groups just wanted to repeat the game a few more times. Fine by me!

The addition of the trampoline was QUITE the exciting thing for the preschoolers. There is a net surrounding it, and the kids may only jump alone or with one other friend. I monitor closely too. Everyone is safe. There were piles of leaves on it when we decided to jump (it was too cold and rainy the other days), but the kids didn't mind. They were extra sleepy at the end of preschool, and I think you can guess why, check out these action shots!