Friendship and Valentines

Dramatic Play

We had a Post Office for sending valentines and letters to our friends. The kids loved this dramatic play center! I had to explain a lot about what a Post Office is, since many haven't been or don't remember it, and they caught on quickly. They loved working there and could use the phone, computer, or cash register, plus they got to stamp the letters coming through. They also had to collect the mail from the big mailbox and deliver it to mailboxes around the room.
They loved stuffing envelopes and adding stamps and sending them in the mail. They really enjoyed this center!

I added Valentines to the shelf on week 2:






  



Blocks

Puppet theater




Dinosaurs with the book, Mine-o-saur

Valentine beanbag toss game


Art

Paint with colored sweetened condensed milk



Foamie ABCs and glue


Valentines boxes

Rolling and stamping out sugar cookies for snack, then playing with pink play dough.

Small Manipulatives

Bears and pattern cards


People floor puzzle and lacing beads


Valentines flat marble pages


Small 12-piece puzzles

Magnet board:

Pattern block puzzles


Valentine 1-10 puzzle


Reading


Writing

Colored pencils

Valentine stickers

Valentines

Large Group

We learned the word cooperate this week. They caught on quickly and used it constantly throughout the day to point out whenever they were or weren't cooperating.
We learned a song from Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, "Before you take something away, stop and ask if it's ok." We watched a clip the first day, then listened to and sang the song the other 3 days. We also sang Daniel Tiger's song about taking turns "you can take a turn, and then I'll get it back."

Here are some great topical friendship episodes or clips. The one we watched isn't on YouTube yet, but we watched it off the PBS Kids app.

This was a snowy week so we had to get fully dressed in snow clothes to head outside. They were totally bummed about only watching short clips of Daniel Tiger, so I actually used it to help us get ready to go. I turned it on, then would help 2 kids at a time get their snow clothes on while the others watched. We were able to get all 8 dressed and ready to go without chaos, in a 13 minute video clip! I rarely have any screen time at school, but was relieved to find episodes about friendship that tied into the theme, and helped us to get ready to go outside with less chaos than usual.

Day 1, we watched a Sesame Street clip to learn about cooperation. Then we read I Can Cooperate. We made patterns with little people. Then I put them with partners, and they had to cooperate to make a pattern together.

Day 2, We read the Mine-o-saur, which is about a dinosaur who takes all the toys, and then has no one left to play with. We role-played sharing. We practiced asking for something we want instead of just taking it away, as well as answering "yes, I'm done" or "I'm not done yet. I'll give it to you when I'm done." We also role played taking turns.

Day 3, we read a book about friendship by Mr. Rogers and they had so many comments and questions about it! Then we played Valentines Bingo.

Day 4, we split into 2 groups. My group sorted and graphed Sweethearts candies. I had a mom volunteer and she helped her group gather valentines that the kids mailed to you. After playing post office all week, they were pretty excited to add a real stamp and have it go to their houses. They all wanted to see what kind of stamp the post office would put on it.


Small Group

Week 1, my group worked on a beginning sounds puzzle, and we practiced taking turns getting pieces to match.
The other group worked on lacing cards.

Week 2, my group extended and made patterns with conversation hearts.
The other group drew their friends in their journals.


Happy Valentines Day! Love, Miss Lisa!

Friendship

Dramatic Play
Not really friendship related, but fun anyway. I got out the cardboard castle walls and fancy dress ups. Those of you who were here a few years ago may remember my bigger castle tower I had, but it kept falling apart, so we just went for the castle walls. I wasn't sure if it would be enough, but they loved it like this. I liked how portable it was, and when there were lots of kids in it, we made the walls extend over the block center too, so they all fit. And one of the days, they were building towers and things with blocks, so we moved the walls and made the castle smaller for a bit.

The important part is all the fun dress ups. I have costumes for queens, princesses, knights, fairies, a jester, king, and wizard. My dragon costume has disappeared, so that was sad. One of the days, they all wanted to be kings at the same time, so I got out construction paper and we made some more crowns for everyone.

They held many balls, and needed music, so Pandora's Disney Princess station came to the rescue. They are such adorable dancers! I even added the dancing ribbons for the last 2 days and they loved dancing with those too.





Blocks

Sometimes the castle was spread out into this area, but otherwise, we got down the foam blocks, brick blocks, and Megablocks this week and did a lot of building. I forgot pics :(

Art

Maybe it's because we didn't do anything extra special or unique, but I forgot pics of the art table both weeks! Here's what we did:

Spin Art. We used the salad spinners and coffee filters to make spin art. I especially like the fine motor strengthening that comes with using the eye droppers to get the paint on their paper. Some get frustrated at first, until I show them how to release it, then wait for it to fill up with paint. After they get the hang of it, we really have some soaked pictures! This center was busy all day.

Collages. I had a tray out with dried beans, sequins, feathers googly eyes, and pom poms. Just add glue, and they created to their heart's content.

Paint. Sometimes the kids just want to paint! And paint they did :)

Stamp markers. This was a simple art project, because we used the second half of the time using the art table to make our green eggs and ham for snack.

Small Manipulatives

Cookie sheets with small magnet builders

ABC lacing beads

Wikki Stix















ABC blocks (and yes, if you look at the box, these are straight from 1982 and still in great condition).
They actually really really liked these. I didn't expect that. I worked with them on beginning sounds and finding the block that matched the beginning sound of their figure. They also just liked hiding the figures from each other inside the blocks.




















Writing

ABC stickers

Stamps and ink pads

Snacks

The snacks were pretty typical this week, except we had cereal with milk one day. I didn't think it'd be a big deal, but they have asked if we're doing it again every day since.

On Dr. Seuss' birthday, we also made green eggs and ham. I let each child take a turn to crack an egg into the bowl. They did fairly well! I say fairly because some had more shells in the bowl than others :) It's hard to let little ones do this job, but they sure love doing it.They did great at remembering their color mixing, and referring to our color wheel, to know that we needed to add blue to our yellow eggs to make them green. I read Green Eggs and Ham to them as they ate. It was a detour from our friendship theme, but we couldn't skip this great holiday!

Also, I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before. The kids really work together during snack and take turns being responsible to hand out hand sanitizer, napkins, and cups. And they also now pour their own drinks and pass the pitcher around the table. They're doing a great with this big responsibility. We've had some spills, but they're rare and it's how they learn.

Reading
We had friendship books out, but I also wanted to share our Dr. Seuss day reading center. They loved having the characters down to play with!

Large Group
So, free play doesn't have as many obvious ties to our theme as others have had. It was more just free play time, so in large group we really focused our learning on friendship skills. We learned the word Cooperation. We also learned Raffi's Sharing Song and sang and acted it out each day.

Day 1, we read Mr. Rogers' book Making Friends. It asks great, realistic questions, so it took longer than usual to read and discuss. We also watched  Sesame Street video clip about cooperation.

Day 2, we read the Mine-o-saur, which is about a dinosaur who wouldn't share. After this, I ended up reading the book every day, several times each day, in the reading center. They really think it's funny. We then sat in a circle and took turns role-playing how to enter play, and how to accept others into our group to play. We used blocks as the example, and showed how the more kids we had, the more we could build together (cooperation!)

Day 3, we read The Crayon Box that Talked. This is one of my very favorite books. I gave each child 1 crayon, and we worked together to draw a picture with all the colors, then talked about how each person is important and needed in our class.

Day 4, we read Wanted: Best Friend. They then wrote and drew in their journals about the things they like to do with their friends.

We also fit in some Daniel Tiger video clips about sharing and taking turns.

Small Group

Week 1, my group did more sharing role playing. We are working on asking if we want to use something, and also WAITING for that person to be done. I think that's the hardest part of sharing, and I'm constantly reminding them that waiting is part of sharing. I get told many times a day, that so-and-so is not sharing, when what they mean is, that person is not giving them the toy they want. I do want the person who has the toy to be aware that someone else wants it so they can give it to them when they're done, but not think they have to give it away right when someone asks for it. That's not really sharing. It was good to talk about and role play, and I keep bringing them back to this as it comes up.

Miss Kim played a counting game with them.

Week 2, our small groups focused on Dr. Seuss games since his birthday was this week. Miss Kim's group had Horton the Elephant counting cards, and attached links to his trunk to match the number.

My group learned rhyming words and played a memory game with counting words. We are also practicing tracing their names in my small group.

Feelings

Ok, so this really needed to be 3 weeks! It's just such an important topic for the kids, but it's also one of those things that we're constantly talking about and need to address in many daily situations.

Dramatic Play
Due to popular demand, we had the return of the doctor's office.

Blocks
Wood ABC blocks and train.

Art
We made magazine faces. I cut out eyes, noses, and mouths out of magazines and they got to put them together to make fun faces. They mentioned they needed hair too so I got out some paper strips that some of them used to glue on hair. They also had markers to draw anything else they needed.

I printed and laminated these play dough face mats so they could use play dough to make different face expressions. They thought it was pretty funny for awhile, then just wanted out the rollers and cookie cutters to make whatever.

 
Small Manips
Shape and color links
 
Feelings puzzle
 
Number puzzle

Writing Table
Faces to draw expressions on.
 
Outside
We enjoyed some spring weather with more bug hunting, plus balls, hula hoops, and colored rice in the sensory table.

Large Group
Day 1, we watched the Dave Matthews and Grover video about feelings and read a book about different feelings. We talked about expressing feelings with words instead of actions and then played a feelings game. I made 2 dice with emotions on one and animals on the other. They took turns rolling the dice and acting out the emotion and animal. It was so fun!
In place of small group, we worked together on this Sesame Street feelings paper I found that can be used to help them talk about and express different emotions.
Day 2, we read a book called Hurty Feelings and talked about how people feel when we say hurtful things to them. I then took a paper heart and had the kids say mean things to it, and crumple it with each insult. They didn't like doing that part, because they knew they shouldn't say mean things to someone and hurt their heart. We apologized and complimented the heart and smoothed out the wrinkles and taped the tears. I then pointed out that the heart still wasn't what it used to be, because insults can really hurt. We talked about how it's good to apologize when we've said hurtful things, but it's even better to not say those things in the first place.

We continued learning about our feelings during Easter week too.

Friendship

We had a fun and productive few weeks learning about friendship. It's one of our most important themes, since the main reason parents put their kids in preschool is to learn social skills. It's also a little difficult as a theme, since it's based on skills I'm trying to teach them each day.
We learned the word cooperate, and practiced cooperating in our play and clean up times. They did awesome!
Name Writing
Our name writing practicing is going really well, and each morning they have remembered to move their bus and come write their name with me. We're working on starting all letters from the top, and I'm already seeing great improvements. They're even more willing to write their names on their own now in art and the writing center.

Dramatic Play
I got out the tents and tunnels, since winter time is making us a little stir crazy, and needing some more active play! They have a blast playing in them, and I love watching the games they play and the great imaginative things they come up with!

One of their dinosaur castles, protecting the baby dinos from an impending volcano:
 

Blocks
Since the kids have been begging for dinosaur toys, they came out this week! I only planned on it for 2 days, but each day, they'd ask to have them out the next day, so they were out all 4. I set out the book, The Mine-o-saur, so at least it went along with our friendship theme. It was great having the book there, and I ended up reading it to them all several times during their play, and it's an awesome book about a dinosaur who's selfish, then learns to share to make friends.
Their dinosaur play is fun to watch too. They built them homes, castles, and nests with the blocks, and took them into the tunnels on trips and to bedtime. Great imaginative play this week.

Art
We painted with frozen paint. I just freeze it over night in an ice cube tray with popsicle sticks. It's kind of like a crayon at first, then once it starts melting, it paints more like paint. They liked it, and made quite a few pictures at the beginning, but the tents and dinosaurs won most of the attention this day!

We played play dough with capital ABC stamps and scissors. I love scissors and play dough. It's a great way to master the cutting skill, and strengthen small motor skills, and it's easier than paper to start out.

We had another sensory play day with trays of baking soda and cups of colored vinegar with droppers. The droppers are another great small motor skill. This was a huge hit, and they were amazed by the fizzing and bubbling they made when combined! It was also fun to watch the colors mix. And of course, my child figured out that when you add enough vinegar, it makes a sticky dough. That was a lot of fun for many of the kids, and they played here until they were all just colored blobs!

 

We painted with ABC stamps. Even with all the fun art we do, sometimes they just want to paint, and they had a great time.

Small Manips
We did ABC floor puzzles.

We played with the number peg puzzles.

We threaded ABC beads.

Writing
We did a letter rubbing activity, so they could rub the letters onto their papers. I have these alphabet cards I laminated, then traced over the letters with puffy paint. I use them for the kids to trace over the letters to practice their formation and learn their name and sound (it's a powerful tool, to combine the senses, in touching the letter, saying it, and hearing it). I showed them how they can also use it for the crayon rubbings and they enjoyed that.


Snack
The first day, we carried over our Jan Brett theme with Gingerbread Friends. For snack, I shared the original Gingerbread Boy story, then we made gingerbread people. I wanted a healthier snack, so we cut them out of bread, them toasted them, and added some jelly or cinnamon/sugar. This was one of their favorite snacks, and I've already had several requests for toast again!

Small Group
Week 1, our volunteer moms read the book The Crayon Box That Talked. It's about crayons who can't get along, until they realize they're all important. The kids then each got 1 crayon, and had to work together to make a picture. Tuesday's group was really sweet and wanted to give their picture to one of our friends who was home recovering from tonsil surgery.
I continued practicing numbers and counting with the kids with a game with our math "friends."

We rolled our giant dice, then, the kids had to each count out that many "friends." It was nice for me to be able to work with them one-on-one on this important skill.

Week 2, our volunteers helped the kids with their number recognition by reading the book Chicka Chicka 123, then the kids found and glued numbers 1-10 on their trees. Nothing to do with friendship, but number recognition is something we're really working on right now.
My group played with our math "friends" again to practice more sorting and patterning. We've done a lot of this, but I was reminded how much I need to use the proper vocabulary with them. When I explained we were going to sort them, they were all confused. Once I explained what sorting was, they got it and did great, but I need to use the word sort more, so they recognize what it is they're doing.

Large Group
Day 1, we read Gingerbread Friends by Jan Brett, and watched a Sesame Street clip about what friends are and why they're important. We had a great discussion, then played a Gingerbread people game. It was the same one we played over Christmas, and they were excited to see the people hidden all over the room. I showed them a Gingerbread man or woman, then they had to find its match hidden in the room. This time, I told them we were working on cooperation, so once someone found it, they needed to help their friends come find it. No competition to be first, but cooperation to help each other. They did really great at working together and not arguing!

Day 2, we read a book about cooperation, then cooperated to build a Lego tower. First, the kids each got their own pile of blocks and were told to build the tallest tower they could, and they weren't allowed to share. They didn't love that rule, and thought it wasn't nice to not share. They all finished their towers, and thought they were pretty small.  I asked what we could do to make a bigger tower, and they all wanted to share. We pooled the blocks together, stacked our towers, and had to help each other hold it steady, and we learned to cooperate. We then wrote in our journals about ways we can cooperate. We had to skip outside time because of rain today, so we had extra time and made Get Well cards to cheer up one of our classmates and friends who had her tonsils out.

Day 3, we read a book called Making Friends by Fred Rogers. It had a lot of good discussion points, like about how hard it can be to play with friends who want to do different things and how to do that, or what to do when you're left out by your friends, or get in a fight with friends. We spent a lot of time talking about these situations, and role playing what we can do in those situations. Often, these are things I tackle during play time (seeing someone left out, or someone trying to join and doesn't know how, and kids fighting or having a hard time sharing, etc), and I think it has the most impact when it's actually happening (one of the reasons the free play time is SO important in pre-k), but how to deal with these situations is something that needs to be taught and role-played.
When I help children in these situations, I try to not solve the problem for them, but talk through with them what they can do, then offer the support they need to do it. (For example, Tommy won't share that toy Billy wants, so I go over and help Billy ask Tommy if he is done with the toy yet, and if not, if he can play with it when you're done, and other situations close to that.) This is what we role play too. Role playing can be powerful. I've seen it work with my daughter, who gets frustrated easily when she doesn't get her way with friends, and I've seen her leave, and take deep breaths to calm down before coming back to work things out. This is something we've had to practice over and over for her to finally start doing it! Role playing with your children can offer them a powerful problem-solving tool.

Day 4, we read a book about being selfish and it had so many great discussion points. The kids had lots to talk about and we role played too. It ended up taking up most of our time so we couldn't do our activity, since we fit in show and tell. I didn't mind though, because they were right on topic and it was a productive lesson about selfishness and sharing!

Outside time this week was cut short because of bad air quality, and rain/snow, but the days we got out were fun. We enjoyed more coloring the snow with these food coloring/water bottles and that's always a hit. The snow is also low enough to swing on the swing set some more, and they always like sledding. They also searched the yard for deer footprints, and loved discovering that the birds have eaten almost all their bird seeds! It's fun to see the scratch marks in the peanut butter where they were eating.