Jan Brett/Winter

This was such a fun week for me, to begin our author spotlights! Jan Brett is one of my very favorite author/illustrators, and it was great to showcase so many of her books! We reviewed our vocabulary words, author and illustrator, and I was impressed that by Day 2, they also remembered Jan Brett's name! They asked about her a lot, and loved that her picture was in the back of almost every one of her books. We learned some cool facts about her, like that her books are often based on her traveling, and I loved that each author description in each book was different, spotlighting that book and what influenced her to write it. I shared those in the books I read in large group, and I also spent a lot of time reading in the reading center too, they really wanted to hear her books and learn more about her!

Dramatic Play
The kids had so much fun acting out Goldilocks and the Three Bears last week, I promised it would be in dramatic play this week. It was a great transition to the new theme.


 
They had so much fun! They gathered together and acted it out several times. With the kitchen being there, I thought it'd also be used for housekeeping play, but they just acted out the story over and over! There was a doll, and 3 stuffed bears, if they needed them in case there weren't enough people to act it out with the masks, but as soon as 1-2 kids started acting it out, a few more always joined in! I never helped, and it was so cute watching them retell the story to a T!

The second week, we had out the giant mitten and the masks and sign and books, from the story we read and acted out in week 1. I never saw anyone act out the story, but lots of kids loved climbing inside the mitten!

 

Blocks
We played Lincoln Logs. I've found they're a bit frustrating to kids this young, since you have to put them together a certain way and don't just stack anyway you want, but we tried them again. They had a great time, and it really pushed them. A few kids were very determined to build a house. I had to help quite a bit, to show how to stack them, but once they got the hang of it, they were building houses and towers. This was a popular center all 3 days!

Art
We went with the winter theme, and did Epsom salt painting to create "ice crystals." Since the results are delayed, they just enjoy painting with water, and are shocked when they come back the next day to see their dry and crystallized pictures!

We played in fake snow for a sensory activity. There were different polar animals in them. We still had water beads from before, so they added some water beads to the snow too. They had a great time playing with each other here.

We made "snow paint" by mixing glue with shaving cream. One of the bowls had glitter in it too. It was a fun sensory experiment, and became sticky finger paints for a few of the kids. :)
 

Small Manipulatives

We did an ABC floor puzzle and a sequencing puzzle.

The third day, we played with the manips we had done in small group the week before. The counting snowman buttons, and the ABC mittens. I added a clothesline and clothespins for the mitten game, and they loved that! Using clothespins is a great activity for strengthening those little finger muscles!

 

Snacks
Aside from the usual, I made them cinnamon tortilla snowflakes from an idea I got here. I folded and cut the tortillas like a snowflake, then added a little melted butter and cinnamon sugar, then baked them right before snack. They were a huge hit and they begged for seconds!

Outside
We colored the snow with spray bottles, and ketchup and mustard bottles, filled with water and food coloring. They loved this! They preferred the condiment bottles because they're faster and easier, but I love when they use the spray bottles because it's such good exercise for their little hand muscles.


 
 
Large Group
Day 1, we read The Three Snow Bears. It made for a great transition from our bear unit. They loved the story, and comparing it to Goldilocks. They also loved looking at the hidden pictures on the side that Jan Brett uses to tell more than just the story. They loved pointing out what was happening in each one.
I also had planned some fun snow and ice experiments, but they require freezing weather, which we had all December, but it was now in the 40s. We just did one of them, where we gathered snow samples outside and brought in to melt. We checked on them on day 2, and noticed which ones were dirtier, but that even the ones from pure white snow that hadn't been walked on, still had dirt in them. We talked about eating snow and how it might be dirty, and also how the clean snow gets dirt in it. Since we were stuck inside with the inversion, we talked about the dirty air and such too. Great discussion and lesson!






p.s. The yellow snow is from where they had been coloring the snow :) We have found deer poop out here, though, so I guess it could be anything :)


Day 2, we read The Mitten, my favorite Jan Brett book, then acted it out! It got squishy in our giant mitten, but they had so much fun!I had name signs for them, plus masks I got from Jan Brett's website.

 

Day 3, we read Annie and the Wild Animals, then chose a wild animal to glue onto our lids for our snow globes. We'll add the water and glitter next week, once our glue is dry.
We had extra time since we couldn't go outside because of the air quality, so we also played a Jan Brett memory game, with numbers and pictures by Jan Brett that we had to count and match to the numbers. It's from her website too. We can never practice counting too much! Especially using our fingers and tracking.

Here's the finished projects:

 
I know they have high risk of shattering, so hope they survived at your houses. I know our animal came unglued, but many of the kids said they were going to open it up at home anyway to get the animals back out :)

Small Group
Week 1, our mom volunteer helped practice counting and number recognition with snowman button counting. The kids count the buttons onto the snowmen, to match the numbers on the hats. I also have that number of dots on the snowman, to help them with their counting and one-to-one correspondence as they learn to identify the numeral matching the number of objects. They also helped the kids place the snowmen in order 1-10. Awesome moms, going above and beyond!
I worked with the kids on ABC order, as we placed mittens with letters written on them in ABC order. We also played Jan Brett memory with character cards from her website.
Both of these activities were out to play and explore on their own the next week, now that they were shown how to do them.

Week 2, we only had 1 day, so the volunteer helped me do a literacy activity with the whole group, and I was glad for the extra help! We did a beginning sounds worksheet puzzle, where the kids glued a piece with a letter on it on top of the picture with the same beginning sound. In the end, they had a picture from The Mitten. I was very impressed with their ability to hear the beginning sounds, and match it to the letter! They were small letters, which are often harder than capitals, plus there was a b, d, and p, so that was tricky, but they got it! I got it here from Kelly's Kindergarten.

Bears

We had such a fun 3 days, learning all about bears! We learned the word, hibernate, and also talked a lot about habitats. We also used a lot of math vocabulary as we compared sizes of the 3 bears (black, grizzly, polar), small, medium, large, and also more sorting and patterning.

Dramatic Play
I tried to make a bear den and winter scene, so I covered the tent in a white sheet, and had white sheets on the ground for snow. They did ask why there were sheets, and I simply explained it was snow on the bear cave and ground. After that, it was always a cave instead of a tent, so I thought it was a great success!
I had different stuffed bears (which meant 1 with a graduation hat) there, plus a few rabbits, deer, and a moose since they live in the same habitats.
The kids loved the bear cave and we had lots of growling bears in there, that would also come out and chase people. It was a great place to hibernate, and, as always, they loved the stuffed animals.

Art
Nothing really bear related this week, just fun art!
We did spin art for the first time this year. It was a hit and I had pictures drying all over the room! We used coffee filters since they fit perfectly inside the salad spinners, and we used the eye droppers to get the paint on our pictures. That's hard for some kids, but it's a good fine motor challenge and they all got it going after being shown a few times. Here's an older picture of our salad spinner spin art, because I forgot to take one!

We made winter bird feeders to put outside. We spread peanut butter on toilet paper rolls, then rolled them in seeds. We had lots of kids choose to keep theirs at school, so we took them outside after snack. I showed them all the branches they could reach and put them on, but they all chose the same branch :) Some also went home with the kids, so I hope they found a good spot for them!
 
The last day was sensory play, with water beads. They loved them! This was my first time trying them, but I've been dying to since seeing them on this blog. Here's the direct link to fun water bead activities. I think I was hesitant, because I read story about a kid eating them. I decided these kids were mature enough to not eat them, plus I kept reminding them. I don't think I'd try it with a younger group. I didn't get pictures, but here's some so you can see what they are. I found ours at Dollar Tree near the vases. The kids had a great time playing in them, bouncing, them, squishing and breaking them, and I can't wait to try them again with other things!

Writing
We had animal stencils and stamps. They also got into snowflake making again, so I folded lots of paper while they got lots of cutting practice!

Small Manips
We did puzzles, and had a book about black bears to listen to on a cd.
We played with our counting bears, and I was impressed by the patterns they made with them!
We also sewed with lacing cards.

Snack
We had 3 fun snacks this week!
Day 1 introduced our large group activity, by sampling foods that black bears eat. We had black berries and strawberries and grapes, spinach (to represent them eating plants) with Ranch to make it good, and gummy worms since they dig for grubs and bugs. They didn't all love the blackberries and spinach, but they all at least tasted both of them, so I call that success. The ones who liked the berries, couldn't have enough!
 
Day 2 we ate Teddy Grahams, then I read to them about Grizzly Bears and how they catch salmon in rivers, and we had a few gummy fish too.
Day 3 we ate porridge, since we were reading Goldilocks and the 3 Bears for large group. Almost all of them liked it, but they at least all tasted it.

Outside
We only had 1 inside day because of bad air. We enjoyed playing in the snow, and even got to sled down our little hill! They are great about taking turns with the 2 sleds. They love being out in the snow!

Large Group
Day 1, we read about black bears. We learned lots of great information, such as: they're scared of people, they climb trees, mamas care for their cubs, cubs like to play, and they eat berries, honey (plus bees), nuts, and bugs. We learned a new song, The Bear Went Over the Mountain, and we reviewed the things black bears eat. They then glued a bear picture on their sacks, and we crawled around like bears to find food. The food were just these papers they collected in their sacks, then colored to take home.

Day 2, we read Alaska's 3 Bears and compared the different habitats and diets of Polar Bears, Grizzly Bears, and Black Bears. We then sang The Bear Went Over the Mountain again, plus learned a song about hibernation, Are You Sleeping Little Bear? We used those songs as we crawled around the room, pretending it was fall and we were fattening up, then crawling into our den (the tent) to hibernate all winter.

Day 3, we read Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. We had time to act it out twice, so all the kids had a turn to be a character. They helped gather and set up the props, and they knew just what each character said! They wanted to play it over and over again, so I promised it would be in dramatic play next week, so they can act it out some more.

 
 
Songs:
The Bear Went Over the Mountain song (and bear food pictures) from the Growing Up WILD! curriculum
The bear went over the mountain,
the bear went over the mountatin,
the bear went over the mountain,
to see what it could eat.

And what do you think it ate?
And what do you think it ate?

It ate _______________on the mountain, (foods: plants, berries, bugs, meat, nuts)
It ate _______________on the mountain,
It ate_______________on the mountain,
As much as it could eat!

Are You Sleeping?     found here
Are you sleeping, are you sleeping?
Little bear? Little bear?
You will sleep all winter,
through the cold, cold, winter,
Little bear, Little bear.

Are You Sleeping?
Are you sleeping, are you sleeping?
Little bear? Little bear?
You will wake in springtime,
in the warm, warm, springtime,
Little bear, Little bear.

Small Group
Since week 1 was only 1 day, we didn't have small group. Our large group and show and tell took the whole time!
I played a number dice game with the kids to practice counting and number recognition. They had a bear outline with numbers all over it, and they rolled the dice, we all counted the dots, then they had to find and circle the number on their bear.
Our mom volunteers used our bear counters to help the kids sort by color and size.
 

Christmas

 As I always say, we had a great time these last 2 weeks! How can you not have fun, celebrating the holidays?

 Dramatic Play
We went back to the housekeeping dramatic play (always a favorite) with the addition of 2 Christmas trees (one was a felt one on the wall) and Christmas masks. The kids love the masks and had fun playing "Santa Claus" and delivering presents, made from empty boxes I had wrapped and placed under the tree. The mirror was awesome this week because they loved switching masks and checking themselves out.


 
 Blocks 
The block area was taken over by the Christmas tree and fake presents, plus the felt tree on the wall. This is also where we collected your donations, under the tree in big wrapped boxes. I also had the doll house out. Maybe the old-fashioned feel of a doll house under s Christmas tree makes me think of Christmas. The dolls even had their own little tree.


Art 
We made snowflakes for our class tree. I had the paper cut into squares and folded, and they only had to cut it. I knew it'd be hard, but they did a great job! I was impressed. They all cut off the corners because that was the easiest, some cut out a few more shapes, and they mostly cut slits. I only had to help a little. They loved opening them to see their creation! We then added glue and glitter. It was a fun mess!

 Day 2, we painted the salt dough ornaments they had made Tuesday. They were all colorful and bright! A true preschool masterpiece. You can see a few on our tree.

 We decorated these styrofoam "trees" with pipe cleaners and pony beads from here. It was planned as a fine motor activity for the small manips area, but it fit better at the art table. I honestly didn't expect it to be a big hit, but they all did it! They really wanted to take them home too, but they stayed at school. It was a really good fine motor skill that required a lot of concentration. I was also pleasanly surprised when I checked them out to see how many patterns were made, with no help or prompting to do so by me!

 
We played with peppermint playdough. I used my usual recipe, but added some peppermint extract so they smelled like candy canes. It still smelled like playdough, but left their hands peppermint-y and they loved that. Some even tasted it, and regretted that. We had Christmas cookie cutters and this was a very popular center!

 Small Manips
We had Christmas ABC and picture puzzles.

We played Charlie Brown Christmas dominoes.

We played with the counting tree magnets. There are magnets on the pom poms so they can attach to the trees on cookie sheets. It's a great counting activity. I made the sheets with non-copyrighted pictures, so you can download them here if you want to try them out at home.


I made this bean bag toss board, and the kids loved having a fun and active game, that required sharing and taking turns! It was a hit.

We had out 2 books on cd, The Polar Express, and The Night Before Christmas the whole 2 weeks too. 

Writing 
This is usually a rotation of stamps, stickers, and stencils in addition to the writing materials always available, so Christmas added a fun twist.
We had Christmas cards out the first day, and I put them away, except every day they begged for them, so I had to pull them back out each day. They wrote and delivered them to each other for 4 days and it was so cute and kind!
 We also had Christmas stamps and stickers.
 

 Snack 
Besides the usuals, we had Christmas tree waffles for snack. The kids helped prepare the batter, then cleaned up as I cooked them. I cut their waffles into 4 triangles and stacked them to look like trees. I got the idea from here on pinterest, but ours weren't quite as fancy :) They were tasty, and almost each kid ate 2! 

Here's the recipe we used (they especially loved beating the egg whites)
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups milk
1/2 cup oil
Mix together dry ingredients. Combine egg yolks and milk. Stir into dry ingredients. Stir in oil. Beat egg whites until very stiff. Fold into batter. Don't over mix. Makes about 8 waffles.

The last day, we bagged the healthy thing for once, and decorated sugar cookies that we ate with hot (lukewarm) chocolate. It's Christmas :)

Outside
Snow. We figured if I dress them as we eat snack, we can get 10-15 minutes of outside time before we need another 5-10 minutes to get boots and coats off for large group. It's time consuming, but they need the active time, and they love it so it's worth it. We did have 2 inside days with the inversion and storm.

 Large Group 
We read "Merry Christmas Mouse" and "If You Take a Mouse to the Movies" with my stuffed mouse as incentive to listen quietly (we passed it to good listeners as we read). We wrote our favorite Christmas traditions in our journals, then instead of small group, our Mom helper helped us make salt dough hand print ornaments. Their favorite part seemed to be helping make and mix the dough. They each rolled them out themselves too and did a great job!
 Day 2, we celebrated St. Lucia Day and read about and looked at pictures of how they celebrate in Sweden. For small group, we split into boys and girls to make our hats. The boys made cone "star boy" hats and the girls made candle wreaths. I wanted to get a group picture, but as they finished we were getting coats on and such and just run out of time.

 Day 3 was all about Christmas trees (this is the day we had the counting trees in small manips, the styrofoam trees in art and trees for snack). We read "The Best Christmas Tree Ever" and then made our name trees. Man, these kids are SMART! I had their trees cut with the letters of their name, and they had to spell out their name to make their tree. Then they used their markers to decorate their trees with ornaments. Without prompting, they started comparing names and counting how many letters each person had, who had more and fewer, and which letters were the same and different. I never had to lead the conversation or butt in, yet they were doing all sorts of great learning from each other!
 
 Day 4 was about finishing our service project for The Road Home. A HUGE THANK YOU to all of you for donating. We were able to go above and beyond my original plans, and add a few extra items to each kit, plus have boxes of donations beyond just the Hygiene kits, so thank you! During snack, I started the movie, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and they gathered on the floor to watch once they finished. I then called them over one at a time, so they could each pack a kit. They were very thoughtful in picking things they liked the best. Each kit had: shampoo, soap or body wash, washcloth, comb or hair brush, tissues, hand sanitizer, toothpaste, tooth brush, flossers, chapstick, a toy, plus a crocheted stuffed animal (hand-made by my Grandma, the Great-Grandma of 4 of our students). The bags were even hand made by one of our preschool grandmas so the kids have a good bag to keep!
 
 
 
 
We had to cut the movie short (skipped some scenes to end it quickly, but I explained them all and they got to watch the ending). We played 2 active games (it was needed on a day we skip outside play). The first was finding Gingerbread Men and Women around the preschool, by searching for the ones that matched the ones I had. The second game was this one from Pinterest. They LOVED it and I highly recommend if for getting some wiggles out! We then passed out some presents, and did small group before heading home on a crazy snowy day!

Small Group
The first week we skipped it, for help in large group activities.
The second week, we made candy canes with pipe cleaners and pony beads. It was a good fine motor activity, and patterning activity to practice our math skills.
My group made handprint Christmas trees.
 

Transportation

Dramatic Play
We blasted off to space in our rocket ship and rocket packs. They had so much fun and played so well together, I kept it out both weeks, although I had only planned on using it the first week.
 
Week 2 I added other cardboard vehicles. I transformed diaper boxes into cars and planes. I learned that spray paint does not cover them, but at least turns the baby heads different colors :) I simplyt attached elastic straps for their cars and some wheels. My daughter did point out that Daniel Tiger's cardboard cars looked better. I guess I was just leaving more room for imagination (which ended up being good, instead of lazy, because some kids pretended the cars were trains).

Blocks
Dramatic Play carried over here, but the first week it was smaller, so I had out a variety of large cars, trucks, trains, and boats.


I also added this shape game week 2.
 
Art
We played with lots of cars!
We drove cars on playdough.
 
We drove cars through paint.
 
We drove cars through shaving cream.
And took one break from the cars to make rocket packs too. One of the kids mentioned making one with his mom and adding stickers. So I checked my "beautiful junk" stash and had enough for a rocket pack for each kids. I added some felt flames and a little coat of spray paint, then they got to dress them up with space stickers.
 

Small Manips
I had a cool felt play area, perfect for this unit, dropped off on my porch from a neighbor this week! It fit perfectly on our new round table too. The kids loved it.
 
We played with transportation lacing cards (thanks Dollar Tree).
 
We played with transportation file folder games (thanks to cards from Dollar Tree).
 
 
 
Week 2, I had a different car rug out with the big chunky cars, planes, trains, and boats.
 
We also played with a Thomas matching game.
We re-enacted The Little Engine That Could with the flannel board story.
 
We had a book on cd, called Big Heli and Little Heli.

Writing
Transportation and construction stickers.
 
Transportation stamps
 

Outside
We had some inside days with temps below 10 degrees, and the days we did go out were snow days!

Snack
Our 2 transportation-related snacks were:
Banana Airplanes
Each child got half a banana, pretzel sticks for wings, and mini colored marshmallows for windows and they each creatively created their own airplane.
 
 
We watched part of a Mighty Machines movie about Airplanes as they ate.

Apple Boats
Each child got half an apple and pretzel sticks to make a sail and put it together themselves.

Large Group
Day 1, we learned and read about Boats, then played Will It Float? with many classroom objects. It was fun making predictions, then charting our results.
 
Day 2, we read about different types of transportation, then wrote in our journals about different types we've used and like.
Day 3, we read The Little Engine that Could, then retold the story with our flannel board.
Day 4, we read about construction vehicles, and made patterns with vehicle cards.

Small Group
Week 1: Transportation Math
Our mom volunteers helped the kids practice counting with dump trucks by counting blocks into them. I found it here on pinterest. We had the printable dump truck, but they liked using a real truck.
I helped them practice patterns with these cards that are also a free printable. I was very impressed that EVERY child can correctly extend a pattern. I tried to have the older group create their own patterns and we weren't as successful, but they tried and I'm proud of where they are, cuz they're right where they should be. We'll keep practicing!
Week 2: Transportation Literacy
Our mom volunteers helped the kids play this letter parking game. I wrote the alphabet in "parking stalls" on box lids, and the kids drove cars into the stalls that matched the letters the moms had on flash cards.
I practiced letters and sounds with them at our "alphabet center." We've used it to practice our small and capital letters, but today we used pictures to sort by beginning sounds. To tie it into transportation, they "flew" a big airplane to the chart with their picture, and had to land it in the right letter.