Oceans

This was a short theme, but I think one of the kids' favorites so far! We had 1 day spent on our field trip to Seaquest (thanks to a great preschool mom for getting us passes!), and then another short week because of Thanksgiving. Here's the fun things we did:

Dramatic Play

An ocean! And beach!




It changed a bit each day. The first day, we had the blue blanket for the ocean with lots of big and small ocean animal toys. There were beach towels, floaties and goggles for kids on the beach. The highlight is the sensory table with kinetic sand and seashells.


The next day, I added a few more dress-ups.


The last day, my son had requested pirates, since pirates sail on the ocean, so I added pirate costumes and a treasure chest. They had a lot of fun with it! Also, the small ocean animals were now in the water on the art table, but we happened to find another awesome bag of ocean animals at the store this weekend, that had a few animals we didn't have yet. So, more ocean animal fun!






I think my favorite part of their play at this center this week was wanting to learn all about the animals they were playing with. They wanted to know their names, what they ate, etc. So we spent a lot of time checking out the reading center to find books about their favorite ocean animals, so they could learn more about them.

Blocks

The sensory table was in the block area, but we had all these fun ocean-themed puzzles and games too! They're really starting to like puzzles and get them out often.

Art

I forgot a picture, but I have seashell rubbing plates they used the first day, before we left on the field trip.

Ocean animal sponge painting


Tub of water with toy fish


Small manipulatives

Folder game and book


Ocean animal lacing cards

Flat marble animal pictures from totschooling


Magnet board



Writing table

Ocean stickers


Ocean stamps
I made these with foam stickers and milk lids and they've held up great for 6 years now!


Snack

We had Jello from ocean animal molds, with some blue "ocean" Jello

Of course, Goldfish crackers!

Large Group

Our song was 5 Little Crabs from Dr. Jean. We focused on the counting and numeral recognition.

Our word was ocean and we talked about the difference between oceans and lakes on our big world map.

Day 1 was our field trip to Seaquest aquarium.

Day 2 we chose ocean animals from dramatic play and sorted them by their beginning sound. This is new to them, so I was really focusing on them isolating that first sound and hearing what their animal started with. Then I'd tell them which letter card it went by that makes that sound.


Day 3 we read Rainbow Fish and made our own Rainbow Fish by gluing sequins on a fish picture.

Small Group

Week 1, my group played an ocean treasures counting game. The other group played ocean dominoes.

Week 2, my group worked on counting and putting our ocean 1-10 puzzles together, while the other group drew their favorite ocean animal in their journals.

4 Seasons

This post will be a little different, because it's easier to share what we did each day and how it pertained to that season, than it would be to post the different centers, like I usually do. Each day, we studied 1 of the 4 seasons. Here's what we did!

Fall

Dramatic Play: Pumpkin patch, apple tree, leaf raking


Blocks: 4 Seasons floor puzzle


Art: Fall-colored papers and fall foam stickers


Small Manipulatives: fall pattern cards


Writing: Scented twistables crayons

Large Group: we read about the 4 seasons and sang Round and Round the Seasons Go, and Leaves are Falling

Samll Group: My group played a game calling "Raking Rhymes" and practiced rhyming words, from here. The other group independently made contact paper leaf pictures.

Winter

Dramatic Play: Hot chocolate stand and snowball throwing


Blocks: ABC trains


Art: shaving cream and bears


Small Manipulatives: Snowman counting buttons, snowman building on the magnet board



Outside: It's March and snowed today, perfect for our theme! So we played in the snow and colored it with colored water squirters.

Large Group: we read A Snowy Day, then made snow pictures. We painted white with glitter on a blue paper, then added some Elmer's glue and Epsom salt on top to make it sparkly.

Small Group:
My group played snowflake racing. I had foam snowflakes spread on the ground with numbers 1-10 on them. I'd say a number, and they'd run to it.
The independent group was working on counting, and had to line up snowman cards in order 1-10, then count that many "snowballs" (cottonballs) by each one.

Spring

Dramatic Play: planting flowers in the sensory table


Blocks: ABC Easter eggs. Each eggs had the capital and lowercase letters, and had an item beginning with that letter inside.


Art: Spring sponge painting


Small Manipulatives: Spring ABC cards and flat marbles from here, Easter bunny and flowers on magnet board



Writing: Easter stickers


Large Group: we read the ABCs of Spring, then went outside searching for signs of Spring.

Small Group: we split into 3 activities, and rotated. One made popcorn blossoms for our tree, another made bird nests for our tree, and the third played a counting game by counting "eggs" into nests with numbers, from here.

Summer

Dramatic Play: a summer beach, with ocean animals and sand with shells. I think 90% of the kids played here the WHOLE time.






Blocks: ABC blocks

Art: marble painting. We've done it in trays this year, where they roll the marbles. Today, we put the papers in old oatmeal containers for them to roll and shake the marbles around. Messy and fun!


Small Manipulatives: horse clothespin matching


Large Group: we read An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Shell, then made lacing suns. They used a yellow paper plate with holes punched around it, and a yellow piece of yarn tied to it. They could lace around the sides, or across the middle for a cool design, or both.

As they finished their suns, they made a 4 Seasons book. They had to practice cutting a circle, then place the season picture on the right page. Then they got to draw their favorite season.

Oceans

Dramatic Play

We played at the warm and sunny beach! There was a wading pool with balls and ocean animals, towels, picnic supplies, goggles, sunglasses, beach balls, and floaties.






The first day, my small sensory table had ocean animals and water beads to play in. The kids absolutely loved this!

The second day, we added fishing poles and magnetic fish. This led to a lot of fun play. The fish they caught were added to the picnic, then the kids insisted on cooking them, so we got out some cooking supplies, and made "grills" out of baskets. They then took turns fishing and grilling and we all got yummy fish sandwiches.

The third and fourth days, I added molding sand into the sensory table, and seashells. They loved this as well, making prints of the shells in the sand, and filling them with sand. The table was always crowded with kids, these two days.

Blocks

Each day, we had a different ocean puzzle. They were also stored on the shelf so we could try different ones over and over.

Art

Ocean sponge painting

Sensory table filled with ocean animals and water beads. We had them out in the small sensory table before and they loved it, but putting them in the big tub of water was a different sensory experience. It's especially fun to have the clear water beads in there where you can't see them, but can feel them. They had fun searching for them and surprising each other.
 
Painting with textured rollers
 
Small Manipulatives
Ocean animal magnets

Ocean lacing cards
 
Ocean file folder games (thanks to my son's over the top and amazing Sunbeam teacher at church)
 
Number sequencing puzzle

Writing

Ocean stamps. I'm pleasantly surprised at how well these homemade stamps work. They're just foam stickers on milk lids!

Ocean stickers

Snack

Goldfish crackers

Ocean Jello animals

Outside

More playing in the snow, but we also had to miss a few days due to extreme cold, so we played parachute inside. We played counting games with the fish, where we bounced them on the parachute, then would count how many stayed on, and how many bounced off. They loved this game! We also danced around and sang songs with it, like Shape a loo and Snow is Falling, from previous themes.

Large Group

We learned the song 5 Little Crabs by Dr. Jean. It's on her Totally Math cd. We also learned Baby Beluga by Raffi. We also danced to Raffi's version of Octopus' Garden. We used ribbon streamers as we danced and moved. It was especially fun on days we couldn't get outside and needed more movement.

Day 1, we read Hello Ocean, and went over what our 5 senses would see, hear, taste, smell, and hear in the ocean or beach.

Day 2, we read Coral Reef Homes. We also looked through another ocean I Spy book I have to see the different types of ocean habitats (coral reefs, kelp forests, arctic oceans, etc.) and what animals lived in them. We then did an ocean animal sound sort, where we listened for the beginning sound and sorted them into groups with the same sounds. They were great at this. Isolating beginning sounds is a very important pre-reading skill.
 
Day 3, we read Rainbow Fish and then made our own rainbow fish. We talked a lot about things that were happening in the book, and how we can apply them to making friends at school too. I had a few of the other Rainbow Fish books too, and as they were finishing, we read those as well, at the kids' requests. They were dying to know what happened the rainbow fish and his friends.

Day 4, was our Field Trip to PetSmart! Thank you to those parents who came and helped drive and supervise. The kids had a great time looking at all the different types of fish they had. They also got to see birds, watch the employee feed the guinea pig and a hamster, touch a tortoise and a snake, plus see lizards, turtles, and crickets. They also loved the cats and seeing the dogs in the grooming area. We had a super fun time!

Small Group

Miss Kim played the game, Ocean Treasures, with them, which is a counting game. They had to place numbers 1-10 in order, then count fish to match them with the numeral.

My group observed and classified sea shells. They used magnifying glasses to look, and they got to touch and hold them. We talked about their attributes, (swirly, flat, bumpy, etc) and then sorted them into groups of shells with similar attributes. It wasn't just sorting to them. They loved exploring, then as I'd ask them about their shells. I'd encourage them to find others similar, and pretty soon we had piles of swirly shells and flat shells, then those groups were divided into big and small. They also learned how to properly handle fragile shells, before I put them out in the play area the next week.

Week 2, Miss Kim did the counting ocean puzzles with them, which are put together by placing the numbered pieces in order, 1-10.

My group fished for our number fish, and put them in order 1-10, then counted fish flash cards and matched them to the numeral. Lots of counting and numbers with this theme!