Kk kangaroo day -preschool style

Kangaroo day was such a fun day!  I searched hard for a great book and found two.  I squeezed them both in and the kids agreed that they were both really good ones.  

We talked about some things that begin with the letter Kk and ended up talking about kangaroos.  We looked at pictures of them and talked about how the mama kangaroos carry their baby verse how people mama's carry their babies.  We talked about this picture:  We talked about what this kangaroo is doing, why he is resting, where he has been jumping.  The kids had some good ideas.

I read Katy No-Pockets by Emmy Payne.  It's a long one so I paraphrased it mostly.  The kids thought it was funny.  Poor Katy has no pocket to carry her joey in and ends up getting an apron with lots of pockets. 

I passed out these little fabric pockets that I sewed up in about 20 minutes the night before.  They are rough, no finished edges, mostly uneven, but the kids didn't notice.  We stuck in a laminated joey so we could carry our baby kangaroo just like Katy did.  

Before getting to any work, we jumped around the room to this song:

I have a little Joey (tune:  Have you ever seen a lassie)

I have a little Joey, a Joey, a Joey

I have a little Joey, he lives in my pouch.

I jump up and jump down,

he bounces up and bounces down.

I have a little Joey who lives in my pouch. 

(repeat with:  I jump right, I jump left, he bounces right, he bounces left)

and we jumped those little joeys all around.  

Then we took out our Joeys and put them to bed.  Each Joey had a picture of an item that started with a letter a-k. 

The kids put their Joeys in the right bed.  They were so tired after all that bouncing. They did surprisingly well.  If anyone got stuck, I reminded them of the  sound from our phonics song.  The kangaroo outlines are from Mailbox magazine preschool August/September 1997.  The item pictures are from The best of Mailbox learning centers preschool/kindergarten 1996.  (It's probably not surprising that I have saved such random copies of papers I might someday use.)  I drew the beds by looking off a clipart I found online.

After our time in 'the big room' (which is our room with all the play areas -blocks, doll house, kitchen, office, baby area, etc) We stopped in the hall and did some jumping.  A grown kangaroo can jump 30 feet on average.  I measured out 30 feet in the hall as well as 1 foot increments from the start to about 6 feet. 

As the kids jumped I recorded their distance on a page that will go in a class book about how far we jumped.  The kiddos love the books that we've made together.  They choose them before others in the classroom.  

Here was our craft.  The kids cut out the pieces and assembled.   Our crafts are not exactly 'process over product' but they are always cute. 

After our time playing in the gym, as parents arrived, I squeezed in the other book, Baa! Moo! What Will We Do?  by A.H. Benkamin.  This is a great one if you like to read with voices.  The animals hear a kangaroo is coming to the farm and each is worried that the kangaroo will be able to do his farm job.  The kangaroo of course doesn't want their jobs, she actually is a babysitter. 

Here is something Lou brought home this same day.  I thought it was cute and will save it for another time for myself.   The kids were given little baggies with kisses and letter k cut outs in them with this little saying:  

I found this on my bed after school, Lou had helped me make my bed this morning, so he left me the K treat.  

snow- review day -preschool style

The first day back at school was a 'review' day.  I wanted to do something wintery, since most of our days are themed, and don't involve snow.   I missed my little friends and was ready to get back to school.  

We read S is for Snowman: God's Wintertime Alphabet by Kathy-Jo Wargin.   It's a cute book that I bought last year right after winter, so this was the first time I have read it to a class. 

As I read it, I put cards with uppercase letters on them on the board.  I only did this up through Jj, which was our last letter to work on before break.   After the story, I laid out some laminated snowflakes (here are directions to making 6 pointed snowflakes).   The kids took turns matching the snowflakes with the uppercase letters. 

Each snowflake had a lowercase letter on the backside of the snowflake.  I didn't want to ruin the appearance of the front of my flakes.  I might use them for something else someday.  

I was good to get back to our class.  The kids seem to have mellowed out a bit over break.  What a happy surprise.

Christmas games -preschool style

Clearly this post is dated.  I've been meaning to get to it, but just haven't.  Here's a Christmas lesson that we worked on the week before the holidays. It's mostly a mash of random Christmas activities, some from last year, but the kids didn't mind repeating them.  I have about 80% the same kids as last year.

We read Night Tree by Eve Bunting.  It's a sweet sweet story about a family going to visit the tree they decorate each Christmas as a gift to the animals.  I asked bunches of questions as we read.  Its one of those stories that some of my 4 year olds needed a little guiding through in order to understand the whole story.

We played some Christmas bingo.  I had a felt tree and pieces and from last year that we used again. 

The kids each had a sheet with the pictures.  They were to watch as I decorated the tree.  No one said the item, they just watched and then covered the item on their own sheet.  It was so quiet, which makes me laugh to see them all so serious.

The meat of the lesson this day was this math activity.  It looks like there are a lot of pieces on here, goodness.  The big wreath and big berries are the items I used to demonstrate and let the kids look to if they needed help.  The little paper wreaths and little cup of berries are the ones each child used. 

We rolled one dice with red numbers and added that many red berries to our wreath, then we rolled the dice with green numbers and added that many green berries to the wreath.  Then we made the number sentence.  Red berries + green berries.  I tried using the sheet of paper that has the green and red berries taped down.  It was easier without. 

The kids really liked the sensory tub this season.  This isn't a good picture of it.  In addition to the regular dried beans, there were red, green and white pom poms, plastic candy canes, little wrapped present decorations, little wooden manger pieces, jingle bells, Christmas cookie cutters, etc.  I made a sheet that had pictures of some of the items for the kids to search for.  You can sort of see it leaning against the wall.  They seem to like the sensory tub best when there is an eye spy sheet to go with it.

special sounds- A Beka

I wrote recently about my inability to figure out Bee's 'special sounds' homework.  Actually, we were correcting work from class because Bee apparently had an inability in figuring it out too.  I asked Bee's teacher to share with me what these special sounds were so I could have a list. She sent home a book with charts and practice pages and I copied all of them down.  I had searched online with no luck (perhaps there is a real name other than 'special sounds).  Regardless, here they are.  Hopefully some other desperate parent can use them to help with homework.  

To the best of my knowledge and copying ability these are the 'special sounds' that go with the A Beka language materials. All 131 of them.

a adopt
a asleep
a banana
air hair
al also
alk walk
all ball
ang bang
ank bank
ar dollar
ar stars
are care
arr carry
ay pray
au faucet
aught caught
aw saw
be because
bl block
br bride
c city
ch chorus
ch church
ck  duck
cl clock
cr crab
dge fudge
dr drum
e me
ea leaf
ea steak
ea thread
ear ear
ear earth
ear pear
ed wanted, looked, played
eigh eight
en enjoy
en sharpen
er bigger
er verse
err cherry
es peaches
est biggest
ew few
ew flew
ey key
ey obey
fl flake
fr frog
ful beautiful
g giant
gl glue
gn gnat
gr grin
igh night
ild child
ind kind
ing king
ing pointing
ink wink
ir bird
ie brownie
ire fire
kn knot
le little
ly slowly
mb lamb
o go
o shovel
oi choir
old gold
ong long
onk honk
oo book
oo tooth
or morning
or sailor
ou country
ou out
ough enough
ought thought
ould could
ow bowl
owl owl
oy boy
ph phone
pl plane
pr pray
sc scat
scr scream
sh ship
sion missionary
sion television
sk skate
sl sleep
sm smoke
sn snack
sp spade
spl splash
spr sprain
squ squeak
st stop
str stream
sw swim
tain mountain
tch patch
th thick
thr three
tion nation
tr train
ture pasture
tw twins
u push
un unbutton
ung strung
unk trunk
ur nurse
ure pure
wa wash
war warm
wh whale
wh who
wor worms
wr wrinkle
y baby
y crystal
y fly
y rainy

penguins and friends

I have nothing ready of my own today, but thought I'd share this cute cheese ball that a friend of mine made.  There are little olive penguins and an igloo cheese ball.  The feet and beaks are carrots and he's stuffed with cream cheese.  A college friend of mine brought this to a Christmas get-together.  I just did a quick search and here's a site with step by step directions for the penguins (although it doesn't look like theirs have eyes).   Upon further looking, here's Betty Crocker's version. 

These college friends of mine are a fun group to visit.  There were 8 or so of us who got stuck together in the dorm our freshman year of college and have been buddies for the past 14ish years (gulp!  That can't be right...), all of us ending up roommates in different combination all through college. We are spread across the country now and most of us are married and have little people of our own now.  Five of us (and some hubby's and some kids) were able to get together this time.  A few of the girls live closer and are able to get together more frequently, but there are at least two organized gatherings each year and usually a wedding or baby shower thrown in there too.  Here are some of us, not everyone would get in the picture, mostly the husbands and pouty little brothers (ahem), and sleeping babies would not be photographed.

giggle

This made me giggle when we picked Lou up from Sunday school today.  Hmmmm... 

Also, on the way home he looked out the window and said, "Look!  a squawk of black birds!"  Bee corrected him with the word "flock," but we've been laughing about it all day.  It was one of those large flocks, like 5,000 birds.  My nightmare!

I actually do have some things I want to write about.  We are back from our travels and ready to start school up on Monday.  I thought I'd have time on Sunday, but hubby made me move furniture around in two rooms, which means cleaning and reorganizing.  I had school plans and such left them to cram in once the kids were in bed.  We have some 'New Years resolutions' that should be freeing up some extra time, but I'll have to share about that later.  

quick ruffle bags

In the two weeks before Christmas we had four birthday parities to go to. They were good ones too; mini golf place, gymnastic place, pottery studio, frozen yogurt place.

One was a boy in Bee's class and we had something in the present box for him, the others were girls and Bee had strong opinions on what to give them.  I set her budget a little lower this time since it's December and frankly, I wanted to spend that money on gifts for family.

Each girl got a small gift that Bee chose and a little lined ruffle bag that I made up using fabric on hand.  My favorite was the purple.  It's made from an old skirt that I loved and tried to remake as another skirt, but failed.  The first is fabric my littlest sister gave me at Thanksgiving.  

 

Bee's favorite is this brown Hawaiian floral.  We seem to have very different taste in fabrics.  It's leftover from a large order of matching coffee cozies.  They were bridal shower favors or something. The ruffle is fabric from my sister at Thanksgiving.  This was a great budget saver and a nice way to use up fabric on hand.  Plus, these bags are so easy and quick to make.  It was a win-win for us.