preschool mitten- part 2

Mitten day was my co-teachers day.  Here's my last years plans.

She used the same song that I've used in the past, but added a fun twist to it.  We used a 

The kids were given an animal face card. 

During the song, when their animal came along, they crawled into a mitten (under a sheet).  When the bear sneezed, they all crawled out.  We played several times so all the friends could get a turn.  even our parent helper took a turn!

Here's the song:

The Mitten in the Snow Song
 
 Tune: The Farmer in the Dell

(This is the order of the animals in Jan Brett's version of the book:
A mole is the first to discover the mitten and crawls inside, followed by
a snowshoe rabbit, a hedgehog, an owl, a badger, a fox, a bear and, finally a mouse.
The mouse causes the bear to sneeze; the mitten and all its occupants go flying.)
The mitten in the snow
The mitten in the snow
Help us please so we won't freeze!
The mitten in the snow.
A mole squeezes in
A mole squeezes in
Help us please so we won't freeze!
The mitten in the snow.
A rabbit squeezes in
A rabbit squeezes in
Help us please so we won't freeze!
The mitten in the snow.
A hedgehog squeezes in
A hedgehog squeezes in
Help us please so we won't freeze!
The mitten in the snow.
An owl squeezes in
An owl squeezes in
Help us please so we won't freeze!
The mitten in the snow.
A badger squeezes in
A badger squeezes in
Help us please so we won't freeze!
The mitten in the snow.
A fox squeezes in
A fox squeezes in
Help us please so we won't freeze!
The mitten in the snow.
A bear squeezes in
A bear squeezes in
Help us please so we won't freeze!
The mitten in the snow.
A mouse squeezes in
A mouse squeezes in
Help us please so we won't freeze!
The mitten in the snow.
"A-choo"
The bear says, "A-choo!"
The bear says, "A-choo!"
All the animals fly out of
The mitten in the snow!

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! 

mouse day- really it's picture day

It didn’t start out as mouse day.  It’s was really just picture day at school and I needed a fun little book, and activities that I could either be brief with or expand upon.   Picture day is a lesson in flexibility at our school, we never know when our class will get called and what activities we will miss.   

First, I introduced my special friend that had come to school.  I really took my time getting him out of the box.  I scurried my fingers around in the box.  The kids were pretty convinced it was alive, whatever it was.  Then I peeked his little eyes out of the box and ducked them back down again.  They watched that box so closely waiting to see him.  Then he came out and everybody got a good look.   This is just one of Bee and Lou’s toys. I think he’s from IKEA. I would guess he was @ $1.00.  I’m a big spender like that. 

I tell the kids this book is about an adventure my mouse friend had at school.   I have used this book before and I just love it.  It’s called Mouse Views.  It’s written by Bruce McMillian.   

It a simple book with few words.   The mouse gets out at school and goes on a little adventure.  

 He sees things in the classroom, but they are big to him.  The picture on the left shows the item he sees in an up close mouse view and the following page shows what it was he saw. 

 After reading, I had the kids name the things he climbed over.  I had these items (or similar) behind a table.  When they named one, I brought out the item and had my little mousey climb over them.   

He did silly things like try to nibble on the erasers, typed his mom an email on the keyboard and played three blind mice on the piano. 

 We played this popular song/game, Little Mouse, Little Mouse a few times so that everyone got a turn to guess.  I just googled a house clip art and a little mouse clipart to make my set.  My pieces are laminated, but they wouldn’t have to be.   The kids said the full rhyme at their turn,  “Little mouse, little mouse, are you under the ___(name a color)__ house?”  

 Then I flipped it over and we checked. 

We've played several versions of this in the past.  It's a fun one, the kids enjoy it.

I showed these three 'new to me' books.  My sister just brought them to me two days before.  The timing was perfect.  These books are darling.  They have no words, so the kids have to really really watch closely. All three are just too cute and are by Monique Felix.  

They are called The Colors, The Wind, and The House.  The one about colors was a nice follow up to the book Mouse Paint, which my co-teacher read a week ago to the friends. 

 We sang this fun little song about a cat and a mouse.  I show the kids a motion (hissing, claw sort of cat motion) for the cat and a few little motions for the mouse (creeping, sleeping, running, etc).  I made them up on the fly and can’t even really remember them exactly.  You can add verses or change it however you want.  This is about how I sang it that day.  It’s one of those that different each time!

The little mouse is creeping, creeping, creeping.  The little mouse is creeping, in the house.

The little mouse is sleeping, sleeping, sleeping.  The little mouse is sleeping, in the house.

The old grey cat is creeping, creeping, creeping.  The old grey cat is creeping in the house.

The little mouse is running, running, running.  The little mouse is running, in the house.

-Then we decided that the mouse should run outside and sang a verse like that.  Then we thought the mouse should be sleeping again, in his own house and made something up for that.  

 

The kids wanted a chance to touch the mouse, so they sat in their spots and mousey and I walked the inside of the circle and got a little pet and many kisses from the kiddos. 

It was a laid back, flexible day and went really well.  I love days like that!

marble mazes for little hands

These marble mazes are super easy to make up and can be tweaked for different levels of maze navigators.  I'm sure I saw them somewhere, but I can't even say if it was in a catalog or online.  Wherever I saw it, I didn't make it up.

These four are pretty simple, I'm taking them into preschool.  

Bee and Lou are avid maze solvers.  They've always loved mazes and been surprisingly good at them. This maze gets sewn with a marble in between two layers of felt.  I used a piece of chalk to plan out the maze and then just sewed the paths.

They came together super quick.  I think each one probably took 10 minutes and that was with some planning time.  I sewed the two pieces of felt together first, with the marble inside the new pocket.  Then I drew on a maze leaving a good wide path for the marble.  Then I sewed the lines to create the walls and dead ends, etc.

I went back and added different colored thread a the start and finish of the maze to make those points.

magnets- preschool style

I've been sorely neglecting my blog lately. I'm on day four of a massive pool cleanup project and the garden has been more work this spring since we increased the size and capacity.  I'm not sure if those are the things that have been keeping me busier, but I do feel busier than normal.  School is out for me in a few days and Bee has only 7 more, so I'm sure things will slow down a bit here really soon.

This lesson is a few weeks old, but we did some magnet work.  I had brought in these two stuffed dogs that have little magnets in their noses and sort of kissy faced each other.  I can't remember what lesson I used them with but the kids loved them and I knew I wanted to do magnets when given the chance.   -I just found it:  I used the dogs in a valentines day hot potato game.

Anyway, I found these great magnets at Blick art store and used some birthday money and some 40% off coupons to get them.  They are nice and strong and had the right 'look' to them.  I was able to get one magnet per friend.

This was a shorert lesson since we had graduation practice this day.  I walked the kids through a chart with items to test for their magnetic-ness (spell check says that's not a word- seriously?).  We made predictions and checked our guess.  The one we all guessed wrong about was the pop can. 

After I felt pretty sure they understood the process,  I gave them a partner, one sheet per friend and a bag of things to test.  They worked spread out around the room testing the items in their bags and recording their answers.

I had tried to make sure that each group had at least one student in it that I felt could figure this activity out and record it properly.  A few groups had it just right, but there were groups marking every box and groups marking nothing.  

When the kids were mostly done, I called them back to the circle and we went over the answers.  I had a large sheet just like their individual sheet.  We don't have a lot of technology... ok, any technology at our preschool.  I could have just had it loaded up on the smart-board, but we'll probably never have one of those.  We're old school- crank pencil sharpeners, chalkboards, and we even ring a hand bell to get their attention.

I finally got Lou to let me bring in our magnet building pieces.  I bought these when I was pregnant with Bee and saved them for years before letting her play with them.  Lou has taken them as his own now. 

I have a magnet book in a box in storage somewhere, and didn't get to the library to find one.  Instead, I read this Pledge of Allegiance book.  We are saying the Pledge of Allegiance at the graduation program and our class has not been saying it all year.  We needed to hear the words more clearly and do a little practice.

When my parents came for pick up time, one of the moms asked her son if he had given me what was in his cubby.  It was a magnet book- a really good one that would have made for a great read aloud today. We all had a good laugh about it.  Oh well, next year.

Mm math day -marshmallows and M&Ms- preschool style

Oh what a fun day we had. M&Ms and marshmallow math day.  How could you go wrong with such yummy treats?

I had a book, but we didn't get time to read it at school.  The kids and I read it at home and it's cute, just doesn't really happen to go with my activities.   This is Marshmallow by Clare Newberry. 

First, we looked at how much space M&Ms, mini marshmallows, and regular marshmallows take up.  I asked lot of questions about these jars and we made predictions.   We counted each and asked more questions and made more predictions.  

The kids were pretty good at guessing the marshmallows, we were all way off on the M&Ms.   We recorded our information and reread our results.   This information was useful in making predictions on our second activity.

Next, we weighed marshmallows and M&Ms.  The kids LOVED  using the balance scale.  I placed a certain number in one side and we made predictions about what it would take to balance it.   I also had a few examples written out and we made predictions and then tested to see which was actually heavier.

Then the kids wanted to just pour all of the items in the sides and see what happened. We did.  I left the balance scale out when we had some extra time and the kids flocked to it.  I will have to find other opportunities to use it. 

I did end up making this balance scale.  It wasn't hard and cost about $6 in materials.  I had the baskets from an old scale.  I think that you  could use pie pans or some other container in place if needed. 

Here's a side view.  The main vertical piece is three pieces of thin wood glued together with a space for the arm. The arm is a touch thinner than one of the stem pieces. 

My favorite activity was this marshmallow measuring activity.   I had several sheets prepared like this one.  We did one as a group.  I showed how to lay the marshmallows on the line and how to count those up and record it on the appropriate line.

  I divided the kids into partners and sent them somewhere in the room to work on their sheet.  They worked so well together today.  I think we're getting there!  Some groups finished early and got to measure the line with M&Ms too. 

After the groups were done, we came back to our circle and shared our results.  I think this was the most valuable part of this activity, to share the results.  This is the first time we've done something like this where the kids discussed their work orally after the activity.  

This was our end of the day activity.  The kids each had a sheet and a handful of marshmallows. We rolled the dice as a group and we worked on covering the numbers. 

Here was the craft today.  It is a mountain M to go with all the other letters we've been doing each week.  

For our snack, our leader brought monkey cupcakes.  Too cute!

I sent a M&M graphing activity home. It wouldn't have been fair to do all of these fun things with treats and not get to eat any.   The sheet attached just gives the parents some ideas about what questions to ask as they work on this activity with their child.  One of my parents emailed me a picture of their child working on the chart.  So, I know at least one family did it.

This is something that we display each day at dismissal time on a clipboard by the door.  I don't think I've ever shared it before.   Lou's classroom does this too.  They have a sign that says 'car talk.'  I though it was such a good idea, so my class does it too now.  It gives the parents some information about what we did in class and helps them guide the conversation in the car or at home.  It often says the book we read, a game we played, a song we worked on, something special the leader brought, etc. 

I ate more M&Ms this day than a person probably should.  Good thing I don't like marshmallows.