Ee elephant day- preschool style

We had a lovely Ee elephant day.  I was able to pull most of our activities from last year.   There are just a few new items.  Here's elephant day from last year.

I read the same elephant story, But No Elephants.  It was a favorite of mine from when I was little.  We used the story sticks.  The kids are very careful with them and it's going really well with using them to help retell stories. 

We also sorted E and e from a few other letters, written on peanuts. The baby elephants eats little e, the big mama eats big E.  We decided the daddy elephant would eat the other letters because dads always eat the scraps!  Those kids are funny. 

Same end of the day activity, the letter mazes. Here's Lou from last year. The link can be found here.

 Same two-cut elephant. 

We did these elephant action cards, which they thought was fun. They participated at least.   I think you'll find the link on this post about last year's elephant day.

I saw this on pinterest this summer; stamping the kids hands with the letter of the week.  We have been doing it and the kids like it and we are able to look at our hands during paperwork.  

Here is the journal page for the week.  It reads, "What just hatched out of the egg?"  Several did baby birds, a few did dinosaurs or snakes, etc.  One friend did a cat and other said a man. 

Here are the E pictures for the week.  They were pretty sure the Eagle was flying because a hunter was coming.  The two elephants are mama and baby.  I just love the little stories the kids create from these pictures.

Now that I've written all that, I see that most was a repeat.  It did make for an easy planning day!

Crying Bee

This is what made Bee cry tonight.  CRY.  Spider web nachos made my 7 year old cry.  She said she would not like me making anymore Halloween food this year.  Poor thing has a rough life. 

D journal page

D week wasn't anything new (dinosaurs), but here's the D journal page. 

______'s dog is __________.  I had intended to make it dinosaurs, but couldn't find any dinosaur stickers.

Some kids had me write what their dog was doing,

others described their dog or named it.

In other news, the lightbox is back.  it was sadly broken a week after school started.  I might have shed a tear.  A little friend in the class after mine shattered it.  Thankfully she wasn't hurt.  I had Lou sit on it to test it out and nothing happened.  She must have leaned in just the right spot.  I will be keeping it in the cabinet when our class is over!

crazy shirt

 So, this friend of mine from Lou's school makes the cutest kids shirts where she takes a t-shirt and turns it into a really cute ruffly, trendy little outfit.  She uses knits from other shirts and does the whole remake thing.  They are darling.  She used stripes and dots and funky colors together.  I noticed that she had made the two kindergarten teachers hoodies from their school shirts and I had to have one.  I begged and begged and tried to make a deal with her, but she said she was too busy right now to make any adult shirts. She encouraged me to make my own. 

I hit the thrift store on ladies 50% off day and went to the XL section.  I figured I'd get more shirt for the money.  I found 5 shirts that sort of coordinated with my unfortunate colored preschool t-shirt.  I have $12 in this project and that's only because the hooded shirt was not included in the 50% off event- it stood at $4.  

I chose a shirt with an existing hood, so I could have a hood without trying to figure out a pattern for it.  I tried to work the construction of the shirt all out in my head first, but there was some cutting and sewing and guessing at parts.  There were no side seems in my shirt and I  tried to work around that.  When I looked again at my inspiration pieces, I noticed that she added side seems.  That makes more sense now.

It all worked out though.  Hubby said it looks like Punky Brewester.  My sister said, "But, do you like it?"  which means that she doesn't like it.   Well, I do. I like it.  It works for teaching preschool.  It's loose and comfy and colorful.

Yes, I'm taking nighttime bathroom mirror pictures.  I'm classy like that.  These are the pictures I sent to my friend as I was working on the shirt. She seemed to think it was ok, or she was kind about it.

It was 45 degrees the Friday I made this. I'm wearing sweatpants as I try it on.  I planned to wear Monday to school (and get some pictures), however it was 81 degrees.  It's fall in Indiana!  We'll try again next week.

scarecrows -preschool style

I've been sporadic with posting school plans from this year.  I'm really gathering and reusing things from they past two years as most of the themes are repeats.  It's been a real time saver.  Instead of spending 4+ hours on a lesson, I'm spending 30 -60 minutes.  Which is great since Bee and Lou's homework has tripled!

This scarecrow theme was new to me though, so there was a bit of planning involved.  Here's what I did.

First I introduced the friends to my scarecrow. I used a home decor sort of guy from my house.  The photo above is just one for the flannel board I had in my files.  I Didn't really do anything with him.  I had my real scarecrow sing this little song (which I might add that the parent helper for that day video taped my whole lesson.  I did more singing than normal-  great footage for them.  If you like that kind of singing.... the off key kind)

Scarecrow (I'm a little teapot)

I'm a little scarecrow

stuffed with hay

Standing watch in my field all day.

When I see a crow

I like to shout

Hey Mr. Crow, you'd better watch out. 

Then, we acted like scarecrows.  I sang (more great footage for my leader parent) this little song and we acted out the song while being scarecrows with stiff bodies. 

Scarecrow, scarecrow (twinkle, twinkle)

Scarecrow, Scarecrow turn around,

scarecrow, scarecrow touch the ground.

Stand up tall and blink your eyes,

Raise your hands up to the sky.

Clap your hands and tap your knees,

Turn around and tap your feet.

Scarecrow, Scarecrow touch your toes,

scarecrow, scarecrow tap your nose.

Swing your arms so very slow,

Now real fast to scare the crows.

Touch your head, jump up and down.

Now sit down without a sound.

 I read this fun book, which was new to me. It's The Scarecrow's Hat by Ken Brown.  It was perfect for this day.  It's a sweet chain of events type of story with the chicken facilitating some trading of much needed items for some other farm animals.

We used pieces from the story as I read it to keep track of the characters and props involved.  I gave each child a different piece or character.  I had planned on using them for retelling too, but we really got them all confused on the felt board as they brought them up through the story.  I just gathered the props- a hat, a stick, a ribbon, glasses, a blanket, some wool, and a feather and printed out pictures of the characters- chicken, donkey, owl, sheep, scarecrow, duck, badger, and crow and attached velcro to the back of everything.

We did this little counting rhyme next:

We used these little scarecrows.  Theses were found searching a google image of 'scarecrow black and white clipart.'  I printed them out and colored them before laminating.

I thought this would be my favorite part, but the kids went silly on me and couldn't really follow along.  I shouldn't say that; a few friends followed along. 

I gave them each a sheet of paper with a scarecrow on it.  There was plenty of white space for 5 black paper crows.   The little song went something like this: (to which the kids were supposed to remove a crow when prompted in the song.)

5  black crows  (5 green and speckled frogs)

5 black and shiny crows

Sat on the scarecrows back,

eating some most delicious corn.  Yum, Yum. 

Scarecrow winked and shouted "Boo".

Scared one crow and away he flew.  

Now there are 4 black shiny crows.

 So several of the kids seemed to be in their own world and were removing the crows at will and not following along with the song.  Anyway, we'll keep practicing projects like that. 

Now is when there was knock on the door and hubby was there with these:

It was our anniversary!  13 years.  Good grief, that makes me old!

My own kids sent along these with hubby:

Back to school.  I had this book as my extra.  It was cute too and might be something I work in more next time.   

 The craft we did was from Parents.   

Here's another cute craft we did the next day (corn day- my partners turn to teach).  The kids dipped a pencil eraser in colored inks to stamp Indian corn.

My teaching partner and I really have been wanting to take a nice nature walk, but the area where we've gone in the past got really overgrown over the summer and hasn't been cut for us.  We keep asking, but it seems low on the priority list.

weekend

I have school things to share, but the pictures are all on my phone, which is right next to me, but I have a hundred excuses not to walk downstairs and get the cord to upload them.  I'm tired and my toes are cold, so I'll just share some shots from what's now been almost two weekends ago.  We visited my sister a few hours north and took in a little zoo and a nice park. 

 

I jut don't understand kangaroos.  Maybe they're wallabies, but still, why aren't they scared of people?  Who decides what animals can be with people and what animals need to be behind bars?

These beautiful chickens only heightened my desire to own a few. 

And gave me ideas about my future coop.  

 Bee's on board with me with the chickens, Hubby is not. 

Baby goats.

Can one have a porcupine as a pet, because this guy is adorable?  Look at his little hands brought up to his mouth just eating away. 

The park was our favorite.  We will go back next visit.

In case you're comparing, Bee and Lou and roughly the same size these days.  Bee is 21 months older and about an inch taller.  I sometimes get asked if they are twins.  I think Lou has a much younger looking face, but I suppose they could pass for twins.

They're holding hands.  I will think of this little sweet action when they are mad at each other next.  Like later today probably.  Like as soon as we pick Be up from school.

My sister's sweet little dog is in poor health, although still hanging in there. He spent the whole weekend cuddling on the couch.  Lou got a little hair cut, so both boys have pretty similar hair right now.

Maybe we have triplets, not twins.

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.