Welcome Back!

What a wonderful and crazy start to the school year.  I think it is this way every year! I can't believe 14 days have passed already. Sorry, I haven't posted in awhile. Life has been very crazy in preschool land. Moving classrooms, sharing a classroom and an aide! Ahhh!! Finally getting settled into my routine (that is what I keep telling myself anyway.)

Well I had tons of fun on pinterest this summer finding new things for my classroom! The first week we made a version of time capsules that I found at pinterest. I made sheets for the kiddos to use. Each kiddo wrote their name, age and told a few things about themselves. Then each one drew a self portrait. Last, I measured each kiddo with string and put it in an envelope. I marked the envelope "__________ height on (date)." I put all the papers in a folder and stapled it shut. I marked "Do not open till June 2013!" and let the kiddos decorate it.  I don't have a picture, sorry. Will update when I get a chance to upload the pages I created. The big plan is to do the same activity in June! Here's hoping I remember (I hung the folders on my board in plain sight so hopefully this will help).
The link to my pinterest board for this activity can be found here

We also made "All About Me" bags. The kiddos colored the people and glued the finished people on a lunch bag. Each kiddo took theirs  home to fill with a few important items to share with the class. I found this on pinterest as well :) The link to the website can be found here

Well that is just a few of the fun things we did to kick off the year! I will start up the language lessons for the year with the next unit we do, which will be APPLES! I so love fall and can't wait to start this one!!

Well summer is finally here! I will return in the fall with more themes and ideas. I will try to post a few of the fun, crazy things I do with my own kiddos during the summer. Enjoy your summer time!

preposition: review of "inside"

Who is inside the sleeping bag?

To review the preposition "inside" we used the sleeping bag today.

Language Goals
Expressive Language: preposition "inside" conjunction "and"
Receptive Language: Who/What questions

To start everyone made a large circle on the carpet area. I selected one student to go in the hall with my aide. Then I put one student inside the sleeping bag, all the way! Nothing can be showing. Call the student in the hall back in the classroom to try to guess who is inside the sleeping bag.

T: Who is inside the sleeping bag?
S: Hamoody is inside the sleeping bag!
(the student who was inside the sleeping bag now goes in the hallway.)
Once everyone has had a turn inside the sleeping bag, I hid camping items inside the sleeping bag. Sometimes I hid one item or sometimes I hid two items (hoping to get the "and" conjunction!)

T: What is inside the sleeping bag?
S: The tent and the pots are inside the sleeping bag.

CENTERS
Sleeping bags-the kiddos made sleeping bags from construction paper and yarn. I cut large strips of white construction paper and folded the bottom up about 3//4 of the way to the top.  Then I punched holes along the edges and tied a string for the kiddos to lace. Once the kiddos laced the sleeping bag, they got to decorate it however they wanted. I also took pictures of the kiddos laying down on the ground and let them cut out the pictures to put inside the  sleeping bag. Super cute!

here is the finished product minus the picture of the kiddos.



preposition: inside

Tent Day!

I love camping so much and I am super excited to share this experience with my kiddos at school!
Today was tent day. I brought  a small tent (borrowed from my kiddos at home) and we pitched a tent. I don't think my kiddos at school have every paid so close attention to what I was doing! They were all intrigued.

Language Goals
Expressive Language: inside, and (review pronouns I, he/she)
Receptive Language: Where and Who questions

Once the tent has been pitched, take turns going inside the tent.
T: Andrew, go inside the tent. Where are you?
S: I am inside the tent!
T: (ask another student) Where is Andrew?
S: He is inside the tent.
Give each child a chance to be in the tent alone. Then call on 2 or more students to go inside the tent.
T: Yousef and Symone go inside the tent. Where are you?
S: Yousef and I are inside the tent (Or We are inside the tent)
Then put everyone inside the tent!

CENTERS
Make a tent-I searched all over the Internet for a tent craft and everything was so detailed that the kiddos wouldn't get to do much. So, I created my own. Using 5 toothpicks, clay, paper, crayons/markers and hot glue gun (adult use) we made a tent. Roll the clay into 6 small balls. Stick the toothpicks in the clay to form the tent shape.

Then give each child a precut rectangle to decorate. This will be the "tent" top. The adult will hot glue the tent top on the toothpicks. We set the tent on dark green construction paper rectangle.

Wash mess kit- at the water table, the kiddos washed the mess kits. I brought in  some washcloths and filled the tub with soap and water. What a messy fun time they had, but hey my floors got clean!

Tent play- I left the tent from the morning set up and let the kiddos play inside. I added a sleeping bag, flashlight and cooler for a fun dramatic play center.

Writing Center-The kiddos cut and glued a tent shape onto green paper. Then they wrote "I am inside the tent" on the paper. Some kiddos traced and some wrote on their  own. Then the kiddos glued pictures I had taken early inside the tent (each kiddo laid on the ground with head in hands for the pictures. Super cute!)

future tense: I will

Camping!

We started our finally unit of the school year!! Hard to believe so much time has passed already. For the final unit, we are going camping! To start the unit off we reviewed camp vocabulary words and watched a video through Discovery Streaming. Your school needs to be a member to access the videos. If your school has a membership here is the link to the video we watched.

The next day, I brought in some camping items from home (a tent, sleeping bag, backpack, mess kit, cooler, and flashlight.) I set these out and some non-camping items. The kiddos had to decided what to bring on the camping trip!

Language Goals
Expressive language: Future tense (I will bring)
Receptive Language: What questions

Name and review all of the items to start.
Teacher should model the first item.
T: I will bring the tent camping. Who will bring the tent?
S: Sloan will bring the tent!
Let each child pick an item to bring. We sang a song after each item.
"I will bring the tent, I will bring the tent, heigh-ho off we go, I will bring the tent." (sung to Farmer and the Dell).
Here are the vocabulary pictures I used for this unit. 

 

CENTERS
Writing Center- I had a writing prompt made for the kids "I will bring the ______________." I set our the vocabulary pictures and the kiddos had to pick one item to bring. They wrote the word on the line (with the help of the classroom para) and drew a picture to match. 

Verb drink

Milk tasting! Yum. We first talked about where milk comes from. We looked at pictures in a book and talked about milking cows. Then on to tasting. We tasted white milk, chocolate milk and strawberry milk.

Language Goals
Expressive language: verb drink (will drink, drinking, drank), he/she pronoun review and spontaneous language
Receptive Language: Who questions

To make each kind of milk, I had the students give me the directions and I did EXACTLY what they told me to do!! What fun. If they told me to turn the milk, I turned the whole jug!! At one point, one of the students said "Just open!" What a great use of the word "just!

After each kind of milk was made everyone drank the milk.
T: Who drank the white milk?
S: Everyone drank the white milk.
Can do each student individually
T: Andrew, what did Hamoody drink?
S: He drank the white milk.

Make a chart, have the students come up after each milk and write if they liked it or didn't like it.

We made rainbow milk in the afternoon. We discussed what we thought would happen once we added the food coloring to the milk. Will the color stay together, spread out or get smaller? Nothing really happened! Now, what will happen if I did my cotton swab in dish soap? Will the color stay together, spread out or get smaller??? Watch the fun happen! I did on first to demonstrate for the students. Then I gave each student their own plate of milk. I found this activity on Pinterest. Step by step directions can be found here The milk MUST be 2% or higher. You only need a small drop of dish soap. If you dip the cotton swab again in the soap, it will spread again.

Preposition Review

The kiddos kept calling a barn a farm, so off on another lesson we went! Today we focused on the word "barn." We did a listening activity to review prepositions next to, bottom, top and middle.
First, my favorite aide cut the barns out for us and cut the pictures out as well. Each kiddo got an envelope and a barn. Most of the kiddos loved digging in their envelope for the picture I called out. For the ones that were struggling, I spread out their pictures on the table for easier success!

This was a listening activity to review animal names and prepositions. It could easily be make into expressive language as well by having the kiddos answer questions either during or after the activity.

Language Goals
Expressive language: prepositions, animal names, everyone
Receptive language: following directions

T: What is this? (hold up the barn)
S: It's a barn!
T: Right, who needs a barn?
S: Everyone needs a barn!
T: First we need to draw doors on the barn. (model for the students. We also drew a window at the top for hay). Pass out the animals.
T: Find the pigs. Who has pigs?
S: Everyone has pigs!
T: Glue the pigs on the bottom of the barn.
T: Where did everyone glue the pigs?
S: On the bottom of the barn.
Repeat with all the animals, place the animals wherever you like. We glued the farmer and his wife on the front next to the doors and put the tractor on the back.

The pictures are from a scholastic e-book about farms. Directions for the barn can be found here  as well as other fun farm printables!! The barn is quite easy. Take a large piece of red construction paper, fold the sides so they meet in the middle. Trim the corners off with a rounded cut to make the barn!

CENTERS
Roll to  make a barn. Directions and printables can be found here

Milk Carton barn. This craft turned out super cute! We glued washed out milk cartons to a cardboard square (I cut the flaps off a box and cut those in half). The kiddos painted the milk cartons red and painted empty toilet paper tubes red. Then painted the cardboard green for grass. After the paint had dried, I hot glued the toilet paper tube to the cardboard and hot glued a mini muffin wrapper on top. This made the silo! Had a bit of trouble getting the paint to stick. Might want to use paper and glue instead.