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!

Jan Brett

I love this week! Jan Brett is one of my favorite authors, so I love doing a whole theme surrounding her books, and introducing her to the kids! My youngest son groaned when I told him what we were learning about, but that's mainly because he didn't know who she was, or how fun her books were! There were no complaints during the week!

Dramatic Play

This was based on her books, The Three Snow Bears, and Annie and the Wild Animals. The "bear cave" had 3 polar bears inside, and blankets for their 3 beds. Outside, I had a bunch of stuffed and puppet wild animals from the other book.






Blocks

Giant mitten and mitten character puppets. We had done this story last year, although 2 of our students are new this year and hadn't done it, so instead of doing as a large group again, it was just out for free play. I ended up reading it 3-4 times as they had fun acting it out. It was on the shelf and played with several times during the theme week.


Noah's Ark book, and Noah's Ark toys and finger puppet set


Lincoln Logs

Art

Cardboard easels


Slime with markers. These kids do not like oozy yucky slime I've learned, but this recipe (white glue mixed with water with a little dissolved borax) leaves it thick and not sticky. I love leaving it white because then they can use the dried out marker box to color it. And they can still enjoy squeezing and stretching it without mess.


Beads and pipe cleaners


Watercolors

Small Manipulatives

Number pegs


Animal words puzzle


Mitten ABC clothesline


Lacing cards


Flat marbles with Jan Brett themed pages


Jan Brett number matching in pocket charts


Snack

Tortilla snowflakes with cinnamon

Bread and Honey, and we read the book Honey Honey Lion

Large Group

We learned the word "author" this week. I introduced Jan Brett as an author and illustrator and told them one thing that makes her books unique is her secret pictures on the sides of each page that show us what else is happening in the story. They loved looking for them as we read each book! We also learned that Jan Brett loves to travel the world and that's what inspires her stories. As we read each book, we marked it on our map where it was from.


Day 1, we read The Three Snow Bears. They quickly caught on that it's similar to Goldilocks and the Three Bears and just knew how it was going to end. We then used sorting bears and sorted them by big, medium, and small, then sorted by colors. Afterwards, they each took turns using the scale to weigh different quantities of bears and we learned words like heavier and lighter.

Day 2, we read The Turnip. I also showed them the Russian version I have of that book and we compared the two. I taught them a few Russian words too, and they loved trying to say Babushka! I lived in Russia many years ago, and showed them a lot of the fun things I'd brought home. They were way more interested than I expected them to be! They especially loved the stacking dolls. I have a 5-piece one that tells the story of The Turnip, but their favorite was my 10-piece one because the pieces get so tiny at the end.

Day 3, we read The Hat, which features Hedgie the hedgehog. My neighbor brought her pet hedgehog to our class, which was a big hit! He was very shy and preferred to stay curled up in a ball, but she was able to get him to at least poke out enough they got to see his cute face and feet. Some of the kids were willing to try to touch and hold him, while others were scared and stayed by me, preferring just to watch. Once we went outside to go home, the hedgehog was running all over the front yard, so the kids had a great time watching him move and run, and really getting to see his face!


Day 4, we read Daisy Comes Home. This book takes place in China, so I showed them some of the things I brought back from China, since I got to spend a semester there in college. Again, I was surprised how interested they were in just showing them stuff. They loved the lantern and paper dragon the most.

Small Group

My group did a puzzle page of The Mitten where they had to cut out the pieces, then glue them on a paper with pictures. The letters on the puzzle matched up with the beginning sound of the picture. It was good cutting practice and letter and sound recognition.

While my group worked, the other group got to play with the sorting bears and scales some more from large group.

The next week, my group read The Gingerbread Baby and played a Gingerbread Baby board game. We had also read The Umbrella, so the other group colored a rainforest mural, and rainforest animals they got to glue on to the mural. 


All of these games and extra themed things come from Jan Brett's website, which is full of fun lesson ideas for each book, games, coloring pages, etc.

Thanksgiving

Dramatic Play
We had the housekeeping/kitchen set up back. I added some turkey plates and cups to make it more Thanksgiving-ish. They loved cooking Thanksgiving feasts for each other!

Blocks
We played with mega blocks. I also brought out some trucks and tractors. I'm loving having this extra shelf for either dramatic play, or the block center, to add a few extra things the kids can pull out. There were also puzzles of things we learned about in past themes.

Art
We made turkeys, kinda :) I actually just had out glue and feathers and eyes, plus markers if they needed to draw anything. A few decided to make turkeys, but many made monsters, people, or just glued things together. It's why I love open-ended art! They can do and make whatever they want!


Day 2, we painted with feathers, and pipe cleaner turkey feet. It was funny watching them stomp the feet and act like turkeys as they painted.

Day 3, after our field trip, we did a turkey craft one of our moms supplied. The kids got to glue the turkey head and fathers to a body made of a brown paper sack. It was lots of fun, and really glue-y!

Small Manipulatives
The first day, we had our chameleons from last week out. They had been left to dry over the weekend, then I added the top spinning plate. They enjoyed playing with their plates and the stuffed chameleon.
 
We had out our favorite fall manipulatives, the squirrel pattern cards and apple counting cards.For Thanksgiving, we added turkey feather counting cards. They also liked playing with the feathers by sorting them by color.


I also added Leap Frog ABC magnets to the magnet board.
 
Outside
We played with wheat in the sensory table outside, along with all the other fun things to play out there! They really liked the wheat for digging and pouring. It's just so relaxing.

Large Group
We learned the word gratitude, and each day read a new Thanksgiving book. They taught about the pilgrims and Indians, and also about things we can be grateful for today. After reading each day, I also had them add thankful leaves to our tree, making it a thankful tree. Many ideas were pretty general, like family and friends, and some got pretty specific, like green popsicles. We also kinda learned the song, Over the River and Through the Woods.

On day 1, we reviewed our colors with Skittles turkey sorting mats. They got to sort their pile of Skittles by color, then they could eat them, or put them in a bag to bring home.

Day 2, we wrote in our journal about things we are thankful for. We also made our name turkeys, where the kids had to put the feathers with letters of their name in order. Their names were written on their turkey body to help. I didn't take pics, but you should have seen their turkey come home!

Day 3, was our field trip to Dick's! Thanks to all of you who came. Our host, Randy, was great with the kids and let them run and jump and be loud, so they all had a lot of fun. We toured the back of the store and saw where all the groceries are stored. We even got to go inside the fridges and freezers, and moo at customers from behind the milk.
We got to check out the loading dock, and ride up and down. They even got to go inside a frito lay truck, which they thought was amazing. Then they got to feed cardboard to the cardboard recycle monster. My son has been talking about that part ever since.
As we walked past the meat counter, we were also stopped by a customer who thought the kids were just so cute, she had to give each of them a dollar, including all the younger baby siblings. The kids loved that part!!
The bakery was pretty amazing too. We got to see glazed donuts, freshly dipped, and the giant ovens, plus watch the cake decorators at work.
The kids' favorite part was eating chocolate chip cookies at the end.
Once back at school, we added our favorite foods we are thankful for to our thankful tree, and they all said cookies!

Small Group
My group practiced rhyming words. I have a fall harvest game, with matching rhyming words. Rhyming is a difficult skill at this age, but I think worth introducing. They all did great at recognizing which words rhymed as I said them out loud, but did struggle with finding rhyming matches in the pictures by themselves. We worked as a group to match the rhyming cards. This is a skill we'll be working on all year.

Miss Kim's group played a harvest counting game. They all had harvest mats with pictures of grouped vegetables, and had to match the numeral cards to the correct amount of vegetables. They are doing wonderfully with their numbers and counting!

Both of these games were found at Kelly's Kindergarten.

All about Fall!!

Dramatic Play

I am so grateful to Pinterest for this one! I combined a few ideas I found for our apple orchard/leaf raking/pumpkin patch dramatic play center this month.

The apple trees were the biggest hit! I'm grateful to Pinterest for the idea of using the velcro and balls for the apples, especially because I could use all 3 colors of apples. It was great for learning about apple varities, and sorting colors!
This center was a learning curve for me, as the kids played and I had to tweak it a little. I first just made the trees of construction paper, but the strong velcro kept pulling them off the wall. So I taped it together and got it laminated. It worked much better that way. It still wasn't perfect, as the velcro sometimes came off the tree or balls, but it worked well enough.

I took the pumpkins out the first 2 days of the center, so it wasn't so overwhelming. Then, I added them in to change it up and it brought some interest back. That also made them want to be farmers, so I had to get out my cowboy hats and vests, then they requested the stick horses. I also added the shopping carts, because they needed to carry their pumpkins they bought from the farmers.

I was surprised how much they played in the leaves too! I couldn't find any big rakes, I should have bought some in the summer, but they loved the small ones just fine. They would rake piles and jump in them, not caring that they didn't really provide cushion. They also had fun gathering them into the boxes, then taking turns lying down and dumping leaves on each other and burying each other.

I love adding the books too. It gets kids interested in reading who might not go to the reading center that day, and it taught them more about real orchards and pumpkin patches.


Blocks
The orchard and pumpkin patch reminded me of farming, and since we're not doing a farm unit this year, I got out all the farm toys. They loved it and wanted it back, so it stayed out all 3 days.

I also kept the cars out and added farm puzzles, plus some shape ones from last week, to the shelf. I've found I like having options to pull out besides what's out, but they need to be limited if I don't want a huge mess! The counting farm puzzles were played with every day!

Art
Day 1, we painted fall pictures with fall colored tissue paper squares, and liquid starch.

Day 2, we made apple prints. I cut them in half both ways, so they could also see the star the seeds make. We had red, yellow, and green, plus orange if they wanted their prints to look like pumpkins.

Day 3, we did apple, pumpkin, and leaf spin art. This was a huge hit, and a busy center all day! I had papers cut out in apple, pumpkin, and leaf shapes for them to choose from, and fall colors out. I add a little water to thin the paint, and they use eye droppers to squirt it onto their papers. I do that to add fine motor skills. Then they spin them in salad spinners.

Small Manipulatives
Day 1, fall floor puzzle

Day 2, fall pattern cards and manipulatives

Day 3, apple counting mats. They did these with me in small group last week, now they got to play on their own. Print your own from Kelly's Kindergarten.

Snack
Day 1, we had a mom come in and bring different apples to sample. They loved tasting and learning about different apples, and getting to keep some seeds too!

Day 2, we had apple chips and apple juice, plus some crackers.

Day 3, we made applesauce. They loved this so much! They each got turns using my victorio strainer to smash the apples, and turn it to get applesauce. They loved all the "gross parts" too, which is just peels, stems, and seeds. We added cinnamon and they loved it. Most of them had seconds.

Outside

Sensory table
I filled with with black beans, then added fall things like real acorns, plus plastic acorns, pumpkins, and apples. They really liked playing here and gathering and sorting the fall-related toys.

They also still love playing with the diggers, swing set, and sandbox. The play house is always fun too. We also played some baseball and basketball this week.

Large Group

Day 1, we used corn syrup and food coloring to paint leaves. This is a favorite activity I love to do every year. It's sticky, and takes a long time to dry, but I love the final product! It's also fun to learn about mixing colors, as I just use yellow and red, and they have to mix them to make orange, if they want orange. They are now hanging in our class tree.

Day 2, we went on a walk to find deciduous leaves and trees. I was so impressed of their use of the word "deciduous!" They screamed it every time they found a tree with changing leaves. They also gathered leaves and we helped them make observations of them on their leaf hunt paper. We even got to taste freshly picked grapes at my neighbor's house (one of our classmate's grandmas), and they found some fresh raspberries to pick and taste at my house too. So glad we got to see, smell, touch, and taste fall!

Day 3, we wrote in our journals about our favorite thing about fall.

Each day, we sang songs and practiced our new word, deciduous. I was stressed a few days before the theme started, because Sesame Street no longer had their deciduous videos on their site. Luckily, I found them, and the kids loved them! Here they are, if you want to watch with them.
Deciduous tree
Deciduous rap

We sang "10 Red Apples hanging in a tree" and learned 10 different ways we can eat apples. This song is so old, it's on a cassette tape. They were fascinated I had to rewind it.
We also sang "Leaves are falling," which they love, because I dump leaves on them as we sing, and they get to gather and throw leaves on themselves.
5 Little Pumpkins was also a big hit! We sang the Raffi version.

Small Group
My group practiced number recognition and counting with apple tree counting and little apples.
Kim's group made leaf rubbings with crayons. This was actually a kind of difficult small motor activity, but they had fun.