L craft- lobster

I found this stay photo hanging around on my camera.  It's from Ocean day at preschool.  Love this lobster!  Crafts with the kiddos hands and feet are always cute, but time consuming.  The little girls are always wearing tights on the days we need their feet too. 

This reminds me of the ocean animals quilt from Bee's class fundraiser last year.

Ll ladybug day part 2 (songs mostly)

We had our ladybug day at preschool.  I used last years materials, but added two songs that I wanted to share. 

We sang this one after I passed out the ladybug pieces for the rhyming activity.  You'll have to click here to see more about that. 

I'm a Little Ladybug
Sung to: "I'm a little Teapot"
 
I'm a little ladybug on the go,
Landing on an arm, now an elbow.
See me fly around and around your hand,
Now watch as on your thumb I land.
I'm a little ladybug searching for some toes,
But watch me quickly land on your nose.
Now I look around and head for your hair,
I muss it up a bit, then pat it down with care.
I'm a little ladybug looking for a knee,
I'm just so happy you're not bugged by me.
Now you see me heading for your chest,
This little ladybug needs some rest.

Then we sang this one with a few of the ladybug pieces on the felt board.  I didn't make anything new this year, which is really great sometimes. most of the time.

Five Little Ladybugs
Five little ladybugs climbing up a door
One flew away then there were four
Four little ladybugs sitting on a tree
One flew away then there were three
Three Little ladybugs landed on a shoe
One flew away then there were two
Two little ladybugs looking for some fun
One flew away and then there was one
One little ladybug sitting in the sun
She flew away and then there were none

preschool journals

I got behind on sharing our journal pages to go with each letter.  Then our internet with out for a week and a half and I got behind on everything.  You can click on the tag name "Journals" on the side (or click here to see the beginning of the year and the A-F journal pages).  Here's a post about the journals and how we're using them.

Sorry these aren't printable as some of the past ones are... I can't seem to get it all figured out.

Here's G:  Watch me grow.   I'll measure them again at the end of the year.

H:  draw hat and hair  (this person outline is from: Inchmark)

   -crazy hair

      -sweet piggy tails

   -egg head?

   -Indian hat? 

I:  My insect
  

J: What gift would you bring baby Jesus:   (Lalaloopsy dolls were popular for Jesus)

k:  What is in the kangaroo's pouch?   (Here's our kangaroo day Part 1 Part 2)

 

 L:   I love _____

M:  My mom...

  -This poor mom isn't 38!  I'm not sure she'd want us thinking she is.

  -But neither is this mom 14.  

A lot of the kids like to free draw in their journals too.  Here on of my little friends practiced her number 8s.

This poor little friend has a house fire on Christmas Eve and drew about it almost everyday for two weeks. 

If they tell me something to write by the picture, I do.  They all seem to want this narration now. 

If you knew this friend, you'd understand! 

a few leaf - fall preschool ideas

My co-teacher taught on leaf day and she had several really neat things I asked her if I could share.  

First, our craft for the day was a new one for us. I love it.  I think it's just so sweet and a nice fall piece to hang up at home.  

The kids hands were painted with reds, oranges, and greens.  They rubbed their hands together and then stamped them. They turned out so sweet. 

We use a white flat sheet as a  parachute in the classroom.  We bounce around all kinds of things.  Here we are bouncing (silk) fall leaves.

We sang:  (to the tune of London bridges)  

Autumn Leaves are falling down, falling down, falling down.  Autumn leaves are falling down, red, yellow, orange and brown.   Then we shook it hard and the leaves went everywhere.  The kids love to clean up after this, so it works out great.

Another song we snag was with these paper leaves.  Each child got an orange, a yellow, a brown, and a red.  We held two at a time in the air and sang:  (to the tune of wheels on the bus)

The leaves on the tree are red and brown, red and brown, red and brown.  The leaves on the trees are red and brown., all around the town.  

Other verses can the added like more color combinations, the leaves could wiggle and fall or they could float in the air.

Here are a few things on the tables this week:

This is tonging activity.  The yellow plastic acorns as from target.  They are advertised as table scatter.

This is from last year.  They are just cards I made up with fall words.  

Here's the sensory table for the first part of fall. 

We also were talking about forest animals this week in the younger class, so I brought in some plastic forest animals.  Apparently, we are a little sparse on the forest animals. 

Also, we set out this real leaf matching game.  I went on a walk last weekend with my mom and sister and picked up all sorts of leaves.  I pressed them for a few days and then laminated them.  There are two of each for some matching potential.  

I brought these fun toys from home.  I loved this set, but Lou and Bee hardly ever play with them.  I gave them to the kids for last Christmas, and was bummed out when they were indifferent to them. 

My job share partner set out this forest foot prints booklet.  She made it and used animal pictures, their foot prints and their name. 

We have a little friend that likes to count acorns.  He will really like this activity.  

Here's another one from two years ago.  This leaf matching activity is from  File Folder  Fun.

Here are a few things from last year or the year before.

leaf people

At the library this week, the kids made 'leaf men' to go along with the story, Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert.

Bee's cracks me up because her leaf lady looks like she has a saggy chest.  Those are her legs she says.

Lou's looks like a little leaf devil hiding behind a bush.  Silly me, he says those are feathers.  That's a leaf eagle hiding from a cheetah.

L ladybug day -preschool style

I had not planned on teaching ladybug day, but traded last minute and ended up teaching it with pretty short notice.  I felt only so-so about my materials, but we had a great day and the kids were really good listeners, so I guess they worked out.   I only ended up with one good book at the library, Ladybugs: Red Firey, and Bright by Mia Posada.  I used my ladybug life-cycle models with the book.  I think I got them in a set in the 'educational/science' section at Toys R Us.

This was the kids favorite page.  They loved the larva!  They were pretty gross.

The book was a rhyming one so I went with a rhyming activities.  We haven't done much with rhyming.  I said the picture on the lead as I laid them out in the center of our circle rug.  Then as we took turns, I passed out the lady bugs.  The kiddos matched them up.  

My sweet hubby helped me do a lot of cutting and gluing to get these gals ready.  

 The pictures I used on the leaves and bugs are from The best of Mailbox learning centers preschool/kindergarten 1996, the same place the first letter pictures came from with the kangaroos.

The ladybugs made up pretty quickly.  They are just little black circles (heads) glued on a larger black circle (body).  Then a red circle the same size as the black body is cut in half and glued on for wings.

I used some thick black string for the antennas.  They stuck in place when I laminated them. 

We snuck in this eye-spy page during this little 8-10ish minute pocket in the day.  I made the pictures a little bit bigger than an Hh page I had used several weeks ago and the kids did find it easier.  I also added the words so that perhaps my sister would find some use for it in her 1st grade room.   (I can't share this document with a link since I don't own the copyright for the pictures, but I'd be happy to email you a copy if you'd like to see it better.  Just leave me a note in the comments section.)

Here's Lou's craft.  the construction was pretty much the same as my smaller ones.  The kids stamped the dots on with a round sponge stick stamper thing. 

I had this activity ready just in case we had time and we did end up needing it.  We've done this before with colored rugs and a little bug and a rhyme that says, "Little bug, little bug, are you under the ___red___ rug?"   That was last year when they were 3 and 4.

For this day, we used the rhyme, "Ladybug ladybug, are you under the _____ rug?"  The kids took turns naming a letter and flipping the letter.  It's funny, sometimes the kids enjoy such a simple activity.  You never know.

I've been sending home each week the little letter booklets from Musing of Me.  I don't know if her printables are available right now or not, she had some trouble with copyright issues with the images lately and had to pull her printable.  Sad day, but I think she's got the trouble resolved now.