J is for Jesus- preschool style

This week was Jj week. I had Jj math day.  We had already done some things the day before with candy canes and the letter Jj, so I just kept it Christmas related and I'm needing to keep things really easy with all the Christmas song practice.  Flexible and easy.

Here was the craft.  The kiddos used a wooden block to stamp red stripes on a J shaped candy cane piece of poster board.  Then they glued a star and baby Jesus in a little paper manger.  Jesus is a little wooden spoon (pre) wrapped in fabric. 

I read this book, The Christmas Star by Marcus Pfister.  It was a good book, but the wordage was a little advanced for the kids.  It's a 4.3 AR level.  I used it over other Christmas books because it used the words Lord or Lords and King of Kings and Prince of Peace, which are all words from one of the songs we are singing for our parents.

I printed and laminated these number cards which I printed from a mystery source.  I either didn't pin it or I accidental pinned it in a random category and don't see it.  I am sure I'll come across it again someday and will be sure to cite it.  Anyway, I velcroed them onto a poster board.   I showed the kids this poster and we counted with them, we talked about how 1 was at the top left and 20 at the bottom right.  I pointed out how, just like our calendar, when one line was done, we started the next row at the left again and counted to the right.

Then I took them all off and passed them out randomly. I told the kiddos I wanted to see if they could work together with as little help from me as possible. They came up and added their piece when it was their turn.  They did do it pretty much on their own, which was neat. They helped each other and called out the next number when someone didn't step right up.  We have had most of these kids for 2 years now so there is so much growth to be seen.

After we were all reassembled, we counted again to check our work.  Then we paid attention to the pattern.  I took some off and we decided what numbers were missing and what shape the piece was.

Later in the day I had them work with partners.  I passed out the number cards and asked them to make towers as tall as the number on their card with the unifex blocks.  When they had it right, I switched cards with them and they worked on another one. This was the end of the day, so several boys ended up using their blocks to make some type of 'shooter' -something we clearly discourage.  

We also retold the Christmas story using the advent pieces that I assembled.  I used it as a counting activity as well.  I kids did seem to like it and noticed that it was sort of like the resurrection eggs, but with the birth of Jesus.   I'll share this activity tomorrow.