Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Lesson Plan for Week of October 29: The Letter J

Welcome to the letter J. 

I had a really hard time coming up with J words!  Finally, I settled on Jellybeans, Jellyfish, Jesus, Jonah and the big fish, and Jupiter (Space).  Then, after I settled, I thought of others!!  Oh well.  Enjoy!

MONDAY

MATERIALS

LESSON PLAN
  • Review A-I
  • Introduce the letter J.
  • Focus on J is for Jellybeans
  • Paint with Jellybeans, from Housing a Forest
    • Place jellybeans on the heavy paper and spray them with water.  Watch how they melt and use the colors to paint.
  •  Make the Jellybean J, from No Time for Flashcards 
    • Cut out a block J.  Have your child paste it to a sheet of construction paper.  Draw a J with a line of glue down the middle of the J.  Let your child cover the glue with jellybeans.
  •  Games and Printables
    • Do any games and printables from those listed above.

STORYTIME




TUESDAY

MATERIALS

LESSON PLAN
  •  Do desired printables

STORYTIME




WEDNESDAY

MATERIALS

LESSON PLAN
  • Review A-J
  • Introduce J is for Jesus
  • Do Desired Printables linked above
  • Have church.  Sing songs, pray, preach :)

STORYTIME




THURSDAY

MATERIALS

LESSON PLAN
  • Review A-J
  • Introduce J is for Jonah
  • Do the craft, from Camo and Bows 
    • Cut a boat out of one paper plate.  Cut a whale out of the other.  Have your child color them.
    • Cut a long strip of cardboard, thin enough to fit inside a toilet paper roll.  One on side, draw a man who will be Jonah.
    • Tape on toilet paper roll to the back of each paper plate (see her pictures for clarity)
    • Tell the story by putting the Jonah puppet thru the toilet paper rolls during the story.
  •  Color.

STORYTIME




FRIDAY

MATERIALS

LESSON PLAN
  • Review A-J
  • Introduce J is for Jupiter.
    • This lesson will actually be talking about the whole Solar System.
  • Make Solar System Hats
  • Do desired printables

ADDITIONAL J WORKSHEETS





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Wednesday, October 17, 2012

It's okay to say "Not today"

In case you haven't noticed, things haven't gone exactly according to plan recently.  My days have been full, full, full.  Life is a juggling act; I'm sure you feel that way, too.

It makes me feel guilty to push preschool to the bottom of the list, so I push, push, push and sometimes we hit the mark and sometimes we don't.  And then other things fall by the wayside, too.

How do I juggle it all?  I don't know.

But, I decided yesterday to give myself a break.  I hadn't had a chance to fully prep for "Hat" day and I was feeling overwhelmed and guilty.

We came home from chapel and I was turning over in my mind what I could pull together.  Even though my lesson plan said to pair "hats" with a community helper theme, I just wasn't feeling it.  I had looked over some of the printables last week and just couldn't gather any excitement.  And I was also thinking "but what if I want to use these for Police/Fireman/Doctor day?"  I just wasn't feeling that push to do the lesson.

And so I didn't.

That's right.  I didn't do the lesson.

We've been having nice weather finally and the boys have been spending a lot of time in our dirt backyard.  As soon as we got home from chapel, they ran outside to play.

I looked at the computer, pondering what to print out and prepare and finally I said "Forget it.  I do not have to do this today.  It doesn't matter what the lesson plan says.  It's a plan, not an edict.  The boys need vitamin D and fresh air.  Preschool today is free play!"

I gave myself permission to say "Not today" to our schedule.

It felt so freeing. 

And today we jumped right back into it with a fun Hippo day.  It was okay.
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Monday, October 15, 2012

Lesson Plan for Week of October 22: The Letter I

This week we will be Introducing the letter I with ice cream, igloos, iguanas, and inchworms.  We will also enjoy another fall day filled with pumpkins!

MONDAY

MATERIALS

LESSON PLANS
  • Remind your child that we are in the fall season.  If they are anything like my child, they have been begging to go to the pumpkin patch.  Today's the day!!!  Take a trip to the pumpkin patch.  If you can, bring home some pumpkins.
  • Paint a Pumpkin
  •  Get in some sensory play by making a Salt Art Pumpkin, from Creatively Blooming
    • Dye 1/2 cup of salt with 3-4 drops of food coloring.  Do additional colors if desired.
    • Draw a pumpkin on a piece of cardboard.
    • Spread glue around the pumpkin with a paintbrush.
    • Using a spoon, sprinkle the dyed salt onto the paint.
    • Pick up and gently shake off the excess into the cookie sheet.
  •  Do desired printables
STORYTIME


TUESDAY

MATERIALS

LESSON PLANS
  • Review A-H
  • Introduce the Letter I
    • Kids love ice cream!!!!  Top off this lesson with an ice cream treat and you'll be Mom of the Day for sure!
  •  Make Puffy Ice Cream Cones, by Teach Preschool
    • Mix 1/4 cup of glue to 1 cup of shaving cream.  Put into a bowl and add a few drops of food coloring.  Allow your child to mix it up with a plastic spoon.
    • Cut an ice cream cone out of brown construction paper and attach it to a second sheet of paper.
    • Have your child top the cone with the shaving cream ice cream.
    • Shaving cream is an awesome sensory experience.  Don't be surprised if your child winds up with his hands in the shaving cream.  If you want, make letters and numbers in the cream.  According the Teach Preshool, it washes off easily.
STORYTIME
 

WEDNESDAY

MATERIALS
LESSON PLAN
  • Review A-I
  • Introduce I is for Igloo.  Talk with your child about igloo, especially if they don't know what they are.  You can get out a children's encyclopedia and look at pictures of Eskimos and Alaska
  • Make a  Marshmallow Igloo, by DLTK Kids
    • Follow the directions, but use frosting instead of glue.  Don't be surprised if a large portion of  supplies disappear ;)
  • Do desired printables.
  • I couldn't find a whole lot for igloos, so this may be a good day to do some generic I printables, or just play!
STORYTIME
   

THURSDAY

MATERIALS
LESSON PLAN
  • Review A-I
  • Introduce I is for Iguana.
  • Make Toilet Paper Tube Craft, from The Activity Mom 
    • Color the tube green.
    • Pinch the sides together at one end to make a mouth
    • Cut out a tail and tape it inside the tub.
    • Add eyes and the Letter I.
  •  Do desired Printables
STORYTIME


FRIDAY

MATERIALS
  •  Any and all ideas from Danielle's Place
    • I really like the Inchworm Coloring Page with leaves, and her Bingo Dot Inchworms.  She also mentions that you can start measurements here
LESSON PLAN
  •  Do any additional activities from the links provided.
STORYTIME
 
 
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Friday, October 12, 2012

Following the Plan Friday; The Letter G

I have no pictures to show you!  Can you believe that?  For one thing, it's hard to take pictures while you're busy telling a story and holding a mask over your face, and second, who wants to see pictures of the exact same thing (worksheets) every week?

So, I have to confess that our week wasn't all that exciting (Is this normal?  We really have hit the drudgery days of school, I think.  All four kids, really).

Monday was a holiday that we all thoroughly enjoyed.

Tuesday we did Goats.  That was fun.  I printed out some masks from the Sparklebox, assigned each kid a role and we acted out the story of Three Billy Goats Gruff.  The boys got a big kick out of kicking the troll over the bridge.

I also picked some gems from the dollar store and we included those into our worksheet routine.  Now the boys cover their dot pages with gems before doing the dot markers.

We did Gumballs on Wednesday, hoping that we would be able to go to the library and pick up Goodnight, Gorilla, but we never made it there.  So on Thursday we spent the morning at the park and I had the boys do some of the gorilla activities that afternoon, but we didn't get to do the book.  Bummer.

Today we are going to do our Green activities.  I think the boys are going to love the pudding!

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Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Lesson Plan for Week of October 15; The Letter H

The letter H promises to be a fun-filled week.  Here's the plan:

Monday we will begin the week by Hammering away at the letter H.  Our hat day will include the different hats that our community helpers wear.  Wednesday's Hippo theme takes a look at these hefty animals.  Our Cowboys will enjoy horsing around.  Then Friday, The Hermit Crab gets a Home.

MONDAY

MATERIALS
LESSON PLAN
  • Review A-G
  • Introduce the letter H.  Children will enjoy walking around making the "Huh" sound in each other's face (ask me how I know!)  If it's cold enough to see your breath, go outside and do it.  Fun!
  • Focus on H is for Hammer.
    • Talk about hammers and tools.  Who uses hammers?  What kinds of things can you do with a hammer?
  • Practice Hammering with the Smashed Baked Cotton Balls, from Time for Play and/or Hammering Golf Tees and Styrofoam, from Happy Brown House.
    • Gage your child's abilities, but you could even provide some wood and nails and have them go at it.  Or pick up a wooden kit from Hobby Lobby or Joann's.
STORYTIME



TUESDAY

MATERIALS
LESSON PLAN
  • Review A-H
  • Focus on H is for Hat
    • Go through the house and see what hats you can find.  Talk about what kind of hat it is and when a person is most likely to wear it.  
    • Lead the conversation to a talk about our community helpers and how they are identified by the clothing and hats that they wear.
    • Go back through the house and find other things that relate to the hats that you found.  For example, if you found a fireman hat, find a firetruck (or whatever you have in the house).
  • Make a hat using one of the links above.
  • Do desired printables about Community Helpers
 STORYTIME

 

WEDNESDAY

MATERIALS
LESSON PLAN
  • Review A-H
  • Introduce H is for Hippo.
    • Has your child ever seen a Hippo?  I'm not sure that my littles know what one is!  This would be a great opportunity to pull out a children's encyclopedia and look at pictures, or find information online.  Or, even better?  Head to the zoo!
STORYTIME



THURSDAY

MATERIALS
  •  Items for H is for Horse, from Miss Maren's Monkeys
    • Brown and black construction paper
    • Scissors
    • Glue
    • Googly Eyes
  • Items for Hobby Horse *(this blog is in Swedish, but the picture give you the basic idea)
    • Long cardboard tube or a yardstick
    • Construction paper
    • Scissors
    • Packing Tape
    • Crayons
    • Yarn
LESSON PLAN
  • Review A-H
  • Introduce H is for Horse
    • Has your child ever seen a horse?  If you go to the zoo this week, take some time to look at the horses, too.  I'm trying to remember if Jason has ever seen one!
    • You can go a couple of different directions with a horse theme, or do both!  Horses are common on farms, and cowboys ride horses.  Personally, I think I'm going to concentrate on a cowboy theme, maybe even get out some cowboy hats, make some lariats, and walk with a swagger, as we've already done lots of farm stuff, but I'll be looking everywhere for any usable printables.
  • Make  H is for Horse, from Miss Maren's Monkeys 
  • Make a Hobby Horse and act like cowboys!
  • Do any desired printables
STORYTIME



 FRIDAY

MATERIALS
LESSON PLANS
  • Review A-H
  • Introduce H is for House.
    • Talk about houses.  This would be a great time to read A House for Hermit Crab and talk about the different houses that different things have.  You can also say that toys and things have houses and they like to go there every night to sleep and that is why we need to put our toys away!
  • Make a Letter H house, according to the directions given for the craft you've decided to make.
  • Make a House for Hermit Crab and/or a Cardboard House and play away.
STORYTIME

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Sunday, October 7, 2012

Following the Plan Friday, The Letter F

We started our F week with another Fall day.  The boys made the Fingerprint Fall Tree and the Leaf Sorting Page.  Then we did worksheets.  I started Jason on addition and he did really well with the concept of x + y =Z.  Later during the week, he struggled a lot with trying to count up two sets of dice, though.


On Tuesday we did Frogs.  I made Lilypads and wrote a letter or a number on each one, then spread them out on the living room floor.  I would call out a name, then a letter or number and the person would have to frog jump to the correct one.  They really enjoyed that exercise.

Later we were doing printables and I was so pleasantly surprised by how well Justin is doing!!!  Up til now, he's been kinda tagging along, doing the crafts and lots of coloring, but I haven't forced anything with him.  I let him go at his own pace.  Well, Tuesday Justin was coloring while I was working with Jason.  Jason finished up a worksheet where you had to match up shapes:  there was six shapes on a page, and six cards that have pictures on them, with a shape in the corner.  The object is to put the correct card on top of the shape.  Justin said he wanted to do the worksheet, so I gave it to him, but didn't really explain it to him.  I turned back to help Jason again.  Justin shouted "I did it!"  He had matched all the shapes correctly!  It was amazing.

A few minutes later I gave him a simple tracer maze to do, not really expecting him to do more than just color the page.  I was so surprised to see him correctly trace the line from beginning to end!  He's learning, he's learning!!!!
After he did the maze several times, he then started scribbling...
Wednesday we did Fish.  I purchased some fish cut-outs from Dollar Tree, wrote letters and numbers on them, then put paper clips around them.  I had two magnets, which I used to make fishing poles.  Unfortunately, the paper clips would not stay attached to the magnets very well, unless you went really slowly, so the fishing wasn't as much fun as we had hoped.

After fishing we made Stained Glass Fish.  This might be one of my favorite crafts.  I drew a fish with black marker onto a piece of clear contact paper.  Then I cut out the fish, along with lots of tissue paper pieces.  When it was time for the craft, I removed the backing from the contact paper and the boys covered it with the tissue paper pieces.  When we turned it over, it really did look like stained glass.  So pretty!


I had Jason do a "copy the pattern" page from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  This was the first time he'd done a page like that and he did it like a pro.

Thursdays and Fridays seem to be shaping up as days that we don't do as much school because we are shopping, or at chapel, or something like that.  Jason did do the flag activities, but it was during naptime while Justin slept and I would give instructions in between trying to blog.

 

I am very pleased with the progress I'm seeing in my boys!
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