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The Preschool Corner: Letter O

Feb172009
February 17, 2009 by 2 Comments

I’ve been continuing on with Zachary’s alphabet theme, but in the next few weeks I’ll also be ‘testing’ and reviewing some other curriculum, so the alphabet theme might be put on hold for a week or two while I post about the new curriculum that we are using.

‘O’ ended up being mainly for ‘octopus’ this week, so the ocean theme was plentiful in our house.

ABC Book: Octopus

I cut an octupus shape (of sorts *grins*) out of blue foam and we added ribbons and white paper reinforcers on as the ‘tentacles’ and legs of the octupus. The main page was colored like water and we added on some other ocean themed stickers so that the octopus had a little company in the water.


Alphabet Activities: Ocean in a Bottle

What isn’t there to love about water, strange sea creatures that expand when they are put into water, rocks meant for a fish tank and fake seaweed?

Just remember to hot glue the top of the water bottle shut – or you might just have a big, fat watery mess on your hands.

Not that I speak from experience or anything. Not me.

Fun Activities: Making Orange

Paint mixing and color mixing can be especially fun when attempted with a four year old who refuses to sit still.

We all know that red + yellow = orange.

Red + orange + Zachary = a big mess and paint everywhere.

Math: Estimating O’s & Octagons

We set out some small bowls of Cheerios this week and had Zachary try to guess how many were in each dish (his answers were hysterical). We then counted out 1:1 to see how many were actually in the dishes.

We pulled out our pattern blocks too and had fun making octagon patterns together.

Music: Opposites

We have a great cd called Sounds Like Fun {you can now download mp3 files!} that we sang along with our "O" theme called ‘Opposites’:

Opposites are tricky
Opposites are fun.
One day we will know them,
We’ll learn them one by one.

Happy faces smile.
Sad ones make a frown.
To use a slide go up, up, up
And then slide down, down, down.

(There’s more to the song, but I’m sure you get the idea…)

Letter Sheet/Collage

Click on the thumbnail to download worksheets

Stories and Books

Owl Babies by Martin Waddell
The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear
Animals, Animals by Eric Carle

Verse: Psalm 118:1

"Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!"

About the Preschool Corner:

The Preschool Corner is a place for us to share the ideas we are using during our "preschool time" with our kids. You can join in the fun and record what you are doing in your house. Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below (if you have questions feel free to ask). Be sure to link back to this blog post so that your readers can find some other great ideas too!

The guidelines can be found here if you need them.

Share what you’ve been doing in your house this week!

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Filed Under: Alphabet Time, Letter Oo, Preschool Corner 2 Comments

The Preschool Corner: Letter H

Feb62009
February 6, 2009 by 2 Comments

This is the last “catch-up” post and then I can move on and continue alphabetically. :) We

ABC Book: Handprints

Simple and quick (but messy maybe) – and now we have his handprints to see years later!

Alphabet Activities: Haystacks

Who doesn’t like helping make food? There was no baking involved in this treat, just a lot of mixing, measuring, sneaking noodles, and stirring.

Chocolate Butterscotch Haystacks

You will need:

~ 1/2 package of chocolate chips
~ 1/2 package of butterscotch chips
~ 1 cup of peanuts, chopped
~ 2 cups of chow mein noodles

  1. Melt the chocolate and butterscotch chips over medium low heat (or in 30 second increments in the microwave).
  2. When completely melted, add in chopped peanuts and chow mein noodles.
  3. Place by spoonful onto waxed paper and let cool.

Fun Activities: Hole Punching

This week Zachary had fun playing with my hole punch to make little confetti circles. And dropping little confetti paper everywhere (those little pieces of paper can travel, I tell you!). He punched and punched to his hearts content. Once I’d had about enough of the paper circles, he practiced his fine motor skills: picking up those tiny things and making them into the letter “H”.

Letter Sheet/Collage

H Worksheet

Math: Hundreds and Hours

Zachary does really well counting from 1-29 (and then forgets what comes next) so we practiced counting 100’s this week: 100, 200, 300, 400….etc…

We’ve also been working on telling time to the hour. We have a great little clock that has movable hands that he loves to play with and since he can identify all the numbers, he is doing great telling the time for us! His only struggle is telling time on our house clock – because it has Roman numerals on it!

Movement: Hula Hoop and Hopping

Those lovely hula hoops are just too much fun. And when he was tired of trying to make that thing go around, he had GREAT fun watching me do the Hula Hoop on the Wii Fit (because I am that good, I am!). Technically it was also a little exercise time for me too. *grins*

During the day, we might as well get a little energy out, so the rule was hop, hop, hop! Everywhere and anywhere.

Stories and Books

Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion
Harry and the Lady Next Door by Gene Zion
Have You Seen My Cat? by Eric Carle
A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle

Verse

“Honor one another above yourselves.” Romans 12:10 – We did this verse on our own this week to talk about how we treat our friends and family…after a little incident at our house. :) Zachary wasn’t the primary person involved, but we’re still working on treating other people better than we treat ourselves – even if we don’t think it’s always fair.

Writing

This week we continued using Peterson’s Handwriting as our paper work. We also used the confetti holes to make our letters.

About the Preschool Corner:

The Preschool Corner is a place for us to share the ideas we are using during our “preschool time” with our kids. You can join in the fun and record what you are doing in your house. Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below (if you have questions feel free to ask). Be sure to link back to this blog post so that your readers can find some other great ideas too!

The guidelines can be found here if you need them.

Share what you’ve been doing in your house this week!

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Filed Under: Alphabet Time, Letter Hh, Preschool Corner 2 Comments

The Preschool Corner: Letter G

Jan312009
January 31, 2009 by 3 Comments

We’re still moving on with our alphabet theme (even though these letters seem a little sporadic). We actually did a lesson on the letter “Q” this week, but just to thoroughly confuse you (really to help me catch up more), I’m going to post about the letter “G”.

Are you confused yet? :) All the other letters of the alphabet are coming too, but I’m just catching up on these last few and then I’ll be right back on track.

ABC Book: Gingerbread Man

While the letter “F” page was one of my favorites, this gingerbread man just made me hungry. I cut out the gingerbread man shape on a paper bag (remember he is glued to a 8 1/2 x 11 inch paper. Zachary used white paint that had a little bit of cinnamon scent in it to paint “icing” on his hands and feet. He also drew a face on and then we had fun fighting with the glue bottle so that we didn’t have gobs of glue everywhere. Once we had a sufficient LITTLE amount of glue, we sprinkled glitter on for buttons and also a nose.


Alphabet Activities: Gingerbread Baby puppet

Zachary made a gingerbread baby ‘puppet’ also to use when we were reading the book “Gingerbread Baby” by Jan Brett (the book is just too cute) – and I’m guessing now that you realize the letter G was mostly focused on gingerbread.

I cut out a smaller pattern and he added some googly eyes and drew on a face. Zachary decorated it however he wanted (which meant markers everywhere). When he was done we taped a craft stick to the back and he played with it and made it run around everywhere during the story.

For some reason I can’t find pictures of the puppet, but I do have pictures of my son after using white paint again.


Fun Activities: Glitter & Guitars

I’d love to meet a mom that truly enjoys her kids using glitter. And by enjoys, I mean – finding it everywhere for days to come after using it. Despite my aversion to glitter, we used it this week. Because glitter starts with the letter “G”. As does “glue”.


And I really don’t think I need to give you many more specifics other than to say:

Glitter + Glue = Gobs of Gooiness (if that is even a word).

_________________________________

And before you think I was crazy foolish enough to make a glittery guitar, you may rest assured I had the glitter far, far away when we did this craft!

To make your own guitar you will need:

  • a small box (an oblong tissue box works great!)
  • some rubber bands
  • an empty paper towel roll
  • scissors
  • tape
  • and much patience if dealing with a 3 year old

On one of the ends of the tissue box, trace the end of the paper towel roll and then cut the circle out. Once the circle has been cut out, fit the towel roll into the hole. Depending on how tight the fit is, you may (or may not) have to use tape to secure the roll. Put 4-5 rubber bands around the box long-ways so that they go over the hole in the box. (Listening to your child whine every time a rubber band pops off is optional).

Movement

To get a little energy out we had fun around the house:

  • growling like bears
  • honking like geese
  • thumping our chests like a gorilla
  • sounding like goats
  • stomping like giants
  • jumping like grasshoppers
  • played Daddy’s guitar (shhhhhh)

Letter Sheet/Collage

Click on image to download pdf file

Stories

Even though this house was on gingerbread overload this week, here are some of the books we read:

Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett
Just Grandma and Me by Mercer Meyer
Just Grandpa and Me by Mercer Meyer

We also had some fun computer time with two Mercer Meyer cd-roms that we have for both Grandma and Grandpa. :)

Verse

Using My ABC Bible Verses by Susan Hunt we learned Mark 16:15 – “Go into all the world and preach the good news to everyone.”

Writing

This week we continued using Peterson’s Handwriting. We’re doing a lot of gross motor activities right now to learn how letters are formed, so that when we actually sit down with a pencil and paper it will be a lot easier to recall the hand motions needed to make letters.

For example, “Tall down” = top to bottom movement. You can read more about Peterson’s here.

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Filed Under: Alphabet Time, Letter Gg, Preschool Corner 3 Comments

The Preschool Corner: Letter F

Jan232009
January 23, 2009 by 1 Comment

We have been moving on in our alphabet studies, but I want to be sure to catch up with the few posts that I missed, so this week I am posting what we did for the Letter F.

ABC Book: Fishbowl

I have to say that this is one of my favorite alphabet book crafts yet. :) The little fish with his googly eyes is just too cute for words. And Zachary definitely liked the glitter. I cut out the fish and the “bowl” along with some water and he glued it all on and then used a paintbrush to spread glue around so we could add some playsand on the bottom for the sand at the bottom of the bowl. He also used blue glitter to make the water a little more sparkly.



Alphabet Activities: Fingerprint F’s

I wrote the letter F several times on a piece of paper and then Zachary had fun using some of my ink pads to put his finger print all over the letter F.

Next time I’ll buy a washable ink pad. :)

Fun Activities: Rainbow Fish

This week we made our own rainbow fish using two paper plates, a brad, tissue paper and tinfoil. One paper plate remains whole and the other one is used to cut a wedge for the tail of the fish and then attached using the brad.

We made a watered down paste using glue and water and then Zachary laid 1-2″ squares of tissue paper on the fish body and used a paintbrush to brush the glue mix over. Occasionally he used a square of tinfoil to make the fish glittery.

Movement

Zachary let the girls be a part of this time with us this week (so generous that he is). We pretended to fly like fairies, fish, fight fires, float in the water, freeze, fall like a leaf, leap like a frog….and then had fun playing a game of leapfrog together.

Letter Sheet/Collage

Click on the thumbnail to download the worksheet.

Stories and Books

Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister
Foot Book by Dr. Suess
One Fish, Two Fish by Dr. Suess

Writing

This week we used playdough as part of our writing time. We rolled out skinny snakes and then had fun forming them into the letter “F”. We also used the worksheets (similar to Handwriting Without Tears) that I made.

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Filed Under: Alphabet Time, Letter Ff, Preschool Corner 1 Comment

The Preschool Corner: Letter N

Jan102009
January 10, 2009 by 1 Comment

This week I will say that the letter “N” was a little more than frustrating to me. Sigh. Stuck there in the middle of the alphabet with so much less to work with (it feels like). Poor “N”. Looks so much like “M” and yet…oh, well, I digress. :)

Because I felt like I was hitting my head against a wall trying to come up with ideas for us to do this week, the specific activities might be a little more vague than they have been in the past. We did do lots of other things and tried to tie them into our alphabet activities.

ABC Book: Nighttime

The creativity is overwhelming in this ABC page. Nighttime. Zachary stuck some stars in the sky and then colored it what he thought nighttime should be. If we would have done this letter before Christmas, I probably would have added some nativity stickers to make it a little more festive. :)

Fun Activities: Falling Dominoes

We pulled out our math manipulatives box this week and everyone was having great fun with everything inside. One of the little bins has dominoes, so Zachary and I worked on making a dominoes line-up that would look like the letter “N”. Pushing them over to make them cascade everywhere was too much of a temptation so it took a little time to get it all just so, but we finally did (and they all were quickly scooped up before I could get the last picture.

Math

Our math manipulatives box also has some boards that we can stretch rubber bands on to make shapes or really anything else (and the name of these is escaping me right now…). Zachary decided to make an “N” with his and then worked on different shapes and letters.

And while we had our manipulatives out, we also pulled out our numbers to 100 chart and had a little fun counting by 10’s and also from 1-30.

Letter Sheet/Collage
We did have a letter sheet collage for this week too. Here’s the document if you would like to use it.


Click on thumbnail to download

Verse

Matthew 6:24- “No man can serve two masters.”

We’re still using the book My ABC Bible Verses by Susan Hunt. I also dug out our cd called “Sing the Word from A-Z” and the same verse was on the cd, so the kids have been walking around the house singing the verse for me.

Writing
We practiced our letter writing this week using Peterson Directed handwriting. Since this has been working well for us and Zachary likes the curriculum too. Here’s a post with a little more info for you.

Rhymes and Songs

I had every intention of practicing nursery rhymes and such with him this week…and it just didn’t happen.

Next week is already in the works and I am hoping to also get a few back posts up for some of the missing letters – just need to find the time this week!

About the Preschool Corner:
The Preschool Corner is a place for us to share the ideas we are using during our “preschool time” with our kiddos. You can join in the fun and record what you are doing in your house. Please link your exact post to the Mr. Linky below (if you have questions feel free to ask). Be sure to link back to this post so that your blog readers can find some other great ideas too!

The guidelines can be found here if you need them.

Share what you’ve been doing in your house this week!

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Filed Under: Alphabet Time, Letter Nn, Preschool Corner 1 Comment

The Preschool Corner: Letter M

Dec192008
December 19, 2008 by 6 Comments

Last week we had so much fun with our lapbook, that we decided to another one this week. This week I’ll be sharing about our preschool fun studying the letter “M” and at the end of the post you will find Mr. Linky so that you can participate too in the fun by sharing what you’ve been doing during your preschool time.

I pulled out several books this week that we were going to read and asked Zachary which one he wanted to focus on, and he chose If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. I pulled together resources from several different sites and we had fun making another lapbook together based on that book.

We did do a few activities that weren’t related to the book, but it’s all listed below, so enjoy looking around. I’ve provided links to the various activities and sites that we used, whenever possible.

ABC Book: Mouse and a Cookie

The alphabet book page for the letter “M” was a little grey mouse and his cookie. Zachary cut his pieces out after I traced them for him and then added dots to his cookie – because that’s what mice eat, right?

Alphabet Activities: Upper and Lowercase Matching

I found some cards that have upper and lowercase letter matching on them on this site. The cards are a jpeg/gif image so you can make them whatever size you would like. I pulled all the images together from her site and made a document. I would be happy to email you the full document if you would like. Just leave a comment requesting it or email me and I’ll get it to you!

Fun Activities: Shadow Matching and Monster Cookies

I found a fun game that uses similar images to the ones in the book and then has a shadow image of it to put match. I cut apart all the images and we used one side of the lapbook to glue the game pieces and I stapled a baggie to the side to store the game pieces. You can find the shadow match game here (it is also in the document that I put together).

Since we read all about cookies we had to make some to eat too, so we made Monster Cookies.

Lapbook: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

The majority of the lapbook pieces that I printed off were from Homeschool Share and their mini books for If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. I used a full size folder for this lapbook and glued some of the game pieces directly onto the folder so that we could open it up and play it. On the back of the lapbook I glued our math game (only three sides) so that the pieces to the game can slide down in between the game board and the lapbook cover. You can see in one of the pictures above if you can’t visualize it.

Here are the pieces that we worked on:

I Spy: While we read through the book, we played “I Spy” and tried to find anything that was shaped like a circle in the book and then wrote it down in our mini book.

Mouse Anatomy: Since we’re talking about mice we also did a mini book that shows different parts of a mouse: tail, hairless ears, clawed feet and whiskers.

Shadow Matching: This game wasn’t from Homeschool Share, but I cut the board pieces apart and glued them onto one of the inside pieces of the lapbook. You can find the shadow game here or email me and I’ll send you the document I made that includes it.

If You Give a Boy a Cookie: This was a mini book that gives a story prompt. I asked Zachary to finish the sentence and this was his response:

“If you give a boy a cookie he would just eat it and go outside and play. If he put a magical hat on it to come alive he could take it outside to play.”

Storywheel: This is a wheel that helps retell the story using pictures. I printed it off on cardstock to make it a little more sturdy.

Letter Sheet/Collage
Click thumbnail to download

Math

We used a cookie counting game that tied into If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and glued it to the back of our lapbook so we could keep it handy. The game has numbers from 1-20 and you can fill in the blank that tells you how many cookies to put on the plate.

Stories and Books

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

If You Give a Moose a Muffin

Moosetache

Little Mouse and the Big Red Apple

Mary Had a Little Jam and Other Silly Rhymes

The Preschool Corner is a place for us to share the ideas we are using during our “preschool time” with our kids. You can join in the fun and record what you are doing in your house. Publish a post on your blog and link directly here. Then be sure to link to the blog carnival on this post so other bloggers can stop by to visit you.

The guidelines can be found here if you need them.

Share what you’ve been doing in your house this week! (Clementia, can you either email me directly or let me know how to get ahold of you? I can’t find a way to comment on your blog. Thanks!).

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Filed Under: Alphabet Time, Letter Mm, Preschool Corner 6 Comments