X

with permission from my friend's blog...they also do a letter-of-the-week co-op preschool.  Names have been changed to protect the innocent!  :o)

X Makes 3 Sounds

/ks/ like in the end of "box",

/ex/ like in x-ray, 


The kids came to the "doctor's office" and told me a tale of how they broke some part of their body. I had them lie down with their head on a pillow and wounded body part on top of a carpet square. Then all my little X-ray techs would stand up and make their bodies into an X-shape - feet apart, arms up and out, while chanting, "X-ray! X-ray! X-ray! Beeep!"

Then I'd hand them an x-ray (black construction paper on which they glued the white bones like a puzzle and I filled in the patient name).

Neee-xt!

& /z/ like in xylophone

Of course, I couldn't resist making our water xylophone a rainbow xylophone. The kids were all very focused during their turn to play it.


Of course, it turns out that Taylor was home for Spring Break when it was my turn to teach. One in seven weeks. The last time he was home during my class because of the snow storms. That made ten kids (mercifully Anna napped three-quarters of the class).

Luckily, Taylor's friend Lauren came over along with her brother Sam. A good girl always helps a boy stay in line.

They all LOVED giant Tic-Tac-Toe with O bowls and wooden spoon X's. Gotta remember that one.

Spring Nest Activity

A fun craft project from this website to help kids learn more about nests!

For most birds, nest-building supplies consist of whatever nature has lying around — wood, grass, twigs, feathers, and fur. You can provide the birds in your neighborhood with easy-to-obtain nest fodder by stuffng a mesh onion bag with materials such as pet fur, strands of cloth, bits of stuffing, hay, yarn cut into short lengths, hair from your brush, or feathers from an old down pillow. (Avoid anything synthetic or sharp.) Snip a few large holes in the sack so birds can poke around, then hang it in a tree, ideally near a feeder so it will get noticed.

In the coming weeks, be on the lookout for birds visiting the sack, then watch what trees they return to — from the right viewpoint, you might even get to see your building materials being incorporated into the birds' nests.

A great book to jump start your children's enthusiasm for this nest quest is No Roses for Harry!, a story of a dog who never expected his discarded sweater to end up in a bird's nest.

Letter G

9:00 Puzzles? BOOK- Gregory the Terrible Eater (about a picky eater Goat)

9:10 Circle time, carpet squares….
"Welcome Song (Here We Are Together), Calendar, Weather, etc.
Introduce letter of the day…G is hiding. We have to find the letter G! (go find it upstairs)
9:20 G handwriting page and Glue Gold Glitter on Green G's
9:30 BOOK--The Three Billy Goats Gruff

9:35 Role Play--take turns acting out the story with popsicle stick masks
9:50 Snack Time
10:00 Playtime
10:25 Clean up BOOK-Go Dog Go!
10:30 Red Light/ Green Light…stop and Go in the GARAGE
10:45 BOOK--Fran's Flower  and SCIENCE...talk about what you need (water and sun) to help things grow.  (Just for fun we changed the title of the book by putting post-it notes over "Fran's Flower" and made it "Grace's Grass" since we were going to grow grass for our science experiment).


10:50 Help make Grass buddies .  I had the kids help me sprinkle on the seeds and then I knotted the tops.  They also decorated them adding faces with permanent markers and googly eyes.
11:10 Wrap up circle time (review what we've learned) and show & tell.
11:20 Coats/backpacks/shoes…sit on stairs and read BOOK--Green Eggs and Ham (notice a little bit of a didatic theme about picky eaters...)   Another picky eater "G" title option would have been Good Enough to Eat.

Extra Ideas & Songs:
Give Said the Little Stream
...And the green grass grows all around all around...
Hopscotch
Playdough
Goldilocks
Goliath
Zinnia's Flower Garden

Letter R

9:00 Puzzles and Noah's Ark Activities (books, Little People Ark, and file folder game)

9:10 Circle time, carpet squares….

• Welcome Song (Here We Are Together)
• Today's letter is R.  Make the "R" sound together.  I also like to do some sensory tracing of the letter either on their carpet squares or on the bumpy foam letters.

• Calendar: Today is … Wednesday, March 10th…let's count to 10 and now let's count backwards (BLASTOFF!!!)  Pretend like we are Rockets!  We counted backwards several times from the a crouched position.  We'd say all together10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 BLASTOFF and jump as high as we could.  The kids LOVE this! 
• R is for ...Grab bag.  I put a bunch of familiar objects and have each child pull something out of the back and then we all say the R sound and the r-word (rabbit, red marker, rock, rose, rice, raisins)

9:20 Show & Tell

9:30 Move to the kitchen to make the rolls!  I had made the quick-rise dough ahead of time, it was just ready to be punched down.  The kids took a vote and chose cinnamon rolls over regular round rolls.  So they all watched/helped me Roll out the dough, spread the butter, sprinkle on the cinnamon sugar, and then Roll up the dough before slicing it and popping it in the oven.

9:45 Handwriting page at the table.  To change things up a bit I covered the table with butcher paper and let the kids draw write on the tablecloth using crayons (ala Macaroni Grill Restaurant style).  They practiced writing a letter R or drawing a picture or whatever.

9:50 Move to family room for singing time: Ring Around the Rosies, Row, Row, Row Your Boat, and The Wise Man Built His House Upon a Rock

10:00 Paint rocks

10:10 Snack--Ritz crackers, raisins, and cinnamon rolls!

10:20 look at books, find the letter R's

10:30 FREE PLAY TIME  (during free play time, I gather up the carpet squares, back packs and their craft projects getting them ready for a quick exit when preschool is over.  I also put felt squares of the rainbow colors on the floor upstairs, away from the playroom, for the last inside activity).

10:55 Clean up

11:00 Everyone find a color and sit on it.  Then place it in your lap.  We then read What Makes a Rainbow.  As we came to each color in the book the child with that color felt shape would bring it up.  We put the colors in rainbow order and talked briefly about what makes a rainbow--rain & sunshine.  Then we sang the song, "All the Colors of the Rainbow" which reinforces the rainbow order.

11:10  Coats and shoes on
 
11:15  Running and Races!  We had races around cones in the front yard.  Then we played "Run Rabbits Run."  It basically was like freeze tag, but I change the name a bit for the letter R's sake.  One child was the wolf, and the others were rabbits.  When they got tagged, they had to freeze.  But it was taking awhile sometimes for the hunter to get everyone, so I added a fun twist they loved.  I was the hunter.  So I could also catch/tag the rabbits but I could also tag the wolf!  And lastly we played Colored Eggs (see below) reinforcing our rainbow colors--red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.

Other Extensions we didn't have time for:
Rain and Rainbow science!
Rain by Peter Spier
Make rain on the stove
Talk about the rain cycle (use the marker board to draw it or read The Drop Goes Plop)
Sorting fruit loops in rainbow colors and gluing them on to a paper making a fruity rainbow
Rainbow finger painting

Rockets
Rhinocerous
Red
Rectangle

Colored Eggs

This is one of the BEST games to play with a group of children.  Great to initiate if things aren't going well at a park playgroup.  You need at least 3-4 people to play the game. More then 10 kids can get confusing and/or boring with too much wait time.

One person is the "wolf". The other people line up next to each other at the home base, with the wolf facing them. They are all the eggs.  They huddle together and quietly decide what color they are going to be.  They also choose a family color.

The wolf then initiates the following dialogue:
Wolf:  Knock-knock.
Eggs:  Who's there?
Wolf:  The Big Bad Wolf.
Eggs:  What do you want?
Wolf:  Colored eggs.
Eggs:  What color?

The wolf then says a color. Whoever had "picked" that color then runs around a selected area (to the far oak tree in the yard and back to the line, for example), with the wolf giving chase.  If the wolf names the family color then everyone runs.

If the wolf catches the "egg" before they make it back to the home base, then that person becomes the wolf with the game starting over. If not, and all eggs make it back to line successfully, the eggs huddle and pick new colors and  the wolf then calls out the next color, etc.

NOTES:  You can vary this according to kids ages.  The colors chosen should be kept secret from the wolf when playing with older children, not as critical with younger ones.  You can also define which colors are allowed so that a precocious 8-year doesn't pick chartreuse trying to stump her younger brother.