We had fun talking about family trees. The one I sent home was found here for anyone interested in printing another one. It's a great family lesson at home. We made one in our classroom tree too. As we talked about the word, relative, we added other relatives besides grandparents like aunts, uncles, cousins, and siblings. They were all talking and talking about their uncles, cousins, brothers, etc. and really excited about it all. We talked about how some kids in our class have step parents too, and they're so lucky to have more moms and dads and siblings in their family trees, so some kids have a really full tree. I really tried to celebrate our great families because it's important that all kids love the family they come from, even if it seems different from others.
We also read the story The Turnip. I have a Russian nesting doll (matryoshka) that tells this story and they had a lot of fun retelling the story with that. We also had it out to play with the next 2 days. Their reading comprehension is impressive and I'm so proud at how well they listen to, and remember the books we read.
We read The Relatives Came the second day and we talked more about their relatives, especially cousins. It was pretty much a repeat of the above-mentioned chaotic sharing of family stories.
We had our grocery store and kitchen back for dramatic play. It's amazing how much better they are at playing together, compared to when I had it out at the beginning of the year. Instead of fighting over the register, they actually took turns on it without much prompting by me and were content to do something else, like shop for groceries or play in the kitchen, until someone was done with the register.
Other fun things we did:
Wiki stix. We started making numbers, and ended with a table of spiders.
Play dough. Each day we cleaned up art early to have some play dough time. They ask for it almost every day. We did the lowercase alphabet stamps again and it's a challenge to find the letters they want since they know their uppercase letters better. It's great letter practice mixed with play.
Puzzles. Today I had 6 of the 8 kids help with an ABC floor puzzle and that's rare. I usually only have 1 or 2 who have been interested in puzzles all year.
ABC lacing beads. How did I not get these out sooner? Huge hit. They were naming letters as they practiced the fine motor skill of lacing. Win win.
Pattern block magnets. I loved pattern blocks as a kid, and they're even better as magnets. We had some way cool designs made and I grabbed my camera to snap some pictures, and the battery was dead. Boo. We'll have to do it again.
Played outside. They love it and miss it! Glad we got out again!
Growing paint. Found the idea on pinterest here. And here are the directions.
Ours looked even better, I thought. At least they looked like a 3 year old did them. :)
They were so amazed by this process, and enjoyed the stickiness and messiness of the painting. They loved seeing and touching them after they were microwaved too. It was pretty much like cooking a pancake in the microwave, and they all wanted to eat them. I told them no, although it was all edible ingredients. Just flavorless I guess. I'm only disappointed in how the paper folded as they dried and cooled.
As I was racking my brain with what else we did, I remembered we celebrated Valentine's Day! We started the group celebrations with conversation heart graphing. I was super impressed by their graphing skills and self-control! 2 of the older kids got it right off the bat, and the other kids just checked theirs, had a little prompting from me, and they all figured it out. I asked super hard math questions like, which color did you have the most or least or same? And they knew the right answers! May not seem super hard, but this is a Kindergarten-level skill, so be impressed that your 3-year-olds can do it!
We then used our hearts we hadn't eaten yet to play Don't Eat Pete and they thought it was so funny!
We handed out Valentines and it was a bit of a challenge because we weren't all excited about handing out the treats we brought, but with some prodding (and pointing out treats received), we all shared with our friends. We even fit in show and tell that day. I got the graphing page here and game here.
We worked really hard on sharing when we talked about friends. My daughter's new favorite show is Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, and I have to admit that I love it too! We watched a 1 minute clip with a song about taking turns. Find it here. (You can take a turn, and then I get it back!) We then role played taking turns, and watched it again. We played Memory and practiced taking turns some more, then watched it again. I was really trying to drill that song into their heads! I think it worked because they were singing it when they came back the next week. I'm singing it with them as I help them take turns in real play, because that's when it counts. It's one thing to role play and practice, but one of the most important skills children learn in preschool is socializing, and that includes sharing. We will be using this song lots the rest of the year!
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