Monday, October 8, 2012

Mom & Me Book Club: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We started hosting a Mom & Me book club after discovering this Mommy & Me Book Club website. They have such great ideas! We meet every other week for our book club and we follow the same general pattern of circle-time, crafts, and activities as they do on the website. For this weeks Mom & Me Book club we picked the book, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. unfortunately, I was not good about getting a lot of pictures this time. whoops.

Gathering Activity:  
For a gathering activity we let the kids play with pattern blocks and make caterpillars, while waiting for everyone else to arrive.

Show & Tell: 
Each child brought an item related to the book  for show and tell. They stood up in front of everyone, said their name, showed everyone what they brought and told the group about it. 

Circle Time: 
During circle time we sang, "here we are together at Mommy & Me" and we sang through every child's name in attendance. Then we sang the "ABC's." Next we counted from 1-10 and back again from 10-1. We then sang the "Days of the week" song.  Then we read the book, "The Very hungry Caterpillar."

Activity:

After reading the book we did a sequencing activity. We passed out different props and toys of the different foods from the book to each child and let them try to line up in order of the book. 

Craft:  
For our craft we made caterpillar/butterfly life cycles. The kids got to make the 4 different sections. First they drew a leaf and glued a button on for the egg.  For the caterpillar we used craft pom pom balls of different colors, googly eyes and pipe cleaner antennas. They drew the cocoon, and for the butterfly we used colored tissue paper and miniature clothes pins.
 



Activity:
For our activity we played a game, sort of a mix between musical chairs and a cake walk. We printed out different food from the book and placed them in a circle on the floor. We played music and let the kids walk around in a circle, stopped the music, called out a food and figured out who was on that one, they were then out of the game and we continued from there.

Snacks:
For treats and snacks we tried to have all the foods from the book. Apples, pears, oranges, plums, chocolate cake, cheese, salami, cherry pie, caterpillar cupcakes and so on. 

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Preschool: All About Me/My body Theme

Preschool Week #1:
Theme: All About Me/My Body 
Letter for the week: F
Number for the week: 1

The theme for the week is divided up between 2 different days. Although some of the things here are repeated for both days, most of it is divided up between the 2 days.

Centers/intro activity #1: I gave each kid an envelope with cut out letters of their name inside. Their name was also written on the outside of the envelope. They got to practice spelling their name/putting it in order. The kids who had short names got 2 envelopes, one with their first name and one with their last.

Centers/intro activity #2: Skeleton puzzles. I found this print out here. I pre-cut out and laminated the skeleton pieces. 1 set for each child. They got to put the skeleton together like a puzzle.
Circle time: During circle time we always start with a few welcome songs. Songs like, "Good Morning Good Morning," "Here we are together at circle time," and "Have a Happy day." Following the welcome songs, once a week we do show and tell which the kids can choose to bring something that starts with the letter for the week or something that has to do with the theme. Then we read stories, sing songs and talk about the theme of the week. Here are several books/songs on the theme of All About Me and My body.

Books: 
I'm Growing
Thank You for Me!
The Foot Book
I Like Me
My Body
The Body
All By Myself
The Skeleton Inside You

Songs:
Head Shoulders Knees and Toes
If you're happy and you know it
Do your ears hang low?
Parts that bend
I have ten little fingers

Theme Craft #1: We made "All About Me" books. The kids colored pages like, "my favorites,"
"My hands", colored in a self-portrait and helped fill out details all about themselves.

Theme Craft #2: Using large butcher paper. We traced around each child and let them color in a full size body of themselves.
Math: Looking at a calender we discussed the days of the week. sang the days of the week song. Looked at the date for the day. Talked about the month, day of the week. We also discussed what the weather was like for the day and drew a picture on the day to go with the type of weather. We then used pattern blocks. Let the kids explore with building things and then practiced making different patterns with them. Last we talked about the number for the week. Counted to the number for the week, went on a hunt around the house for things items that correlated with that number. We also had each child write the number and put as many stickers as there were for that number in their note book.

Snack #1: Fruit vegetable faces.

Snack #2: Cheese and Cracker Bodies.

Reading/Writing/Spelling: We first introduced the letter for the week, then talked about the sound it makes, and what things started with the letter. We sang the ABC's to figure out where the letter for the week was within the song. We searched around the house for words that started with the letter of the week. We practiced writing the letter. We cut out pictures in magazines that started with the letter. We did worksheets with the letter as well.