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