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Preschool Corner: All About ‘Bb’


While I have my lesson plans from last year and I know that the kids are not the same…for some reason I am feeling the need to do things ‘new’ and ‘different’ this year.

Go figure.

It was a full day though and we had a lot of fun stuff going in the classroom ~ playing and making messes.

Alphabet Book

This year’s alphabet page craft was different than our bumblebee from last year. I had all the pieces cut out and then got a great idea for another craft {also bee related}, so I ended up cutting and creating a different page for the alphabet book ~ a boat. Not just any boat, mind you.


A brown boat with a blue sail in the blue water.

‘Cause I’m all about the letter ‘Bb’, I am! If you’re going to do it ~ might as well go overboard {there was really no pun intended on that…}.

You’ll need:

~ Brown and blue construction paper
~ Glue sticks
~ 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper {you can print off the alphabet book if you’d like!}

To Make:

{Note: I cut out all the pieces ahead of time since we have a short amount of time and a lot to do ~ otherwise I would recommend letting the kids cut out their own shapes!}

1. Trace a boat shape, a triangle and a ‘wave’ pattern out for your child.
2. Let your cut out the pieces for the boat.
3. Glue the water and boat onto your paper.

Art

After last week’s alligator craft, I wanted to keep the theme going of making a craft that is shaped like the letter we are studying. Since I also have an overabundance of foam sheets from the Dollar Tree, I have been using those ~ and they are a little more sturdy than construction paper.

The Bee ‘Bb’ was the result of my efforts. :) If you’d like more specifics on how to make it, you can find direction in my ‘Bb’ is for Bee Craft post.

We also had fun making ‘Bandaid Butterflies’ that I found over at No Time for Flashcards. Cheap ol’ bandaids at the Dollar Tree in some great funky colors made it fun, fun, fun.

Cooking ~ Blueberry and Banana Smoothies

There wasn’t much cooking involved – just blending! :) I hauled the blender in and we made banana and blueberry smoothies. Want to try them too?

You’ll Need:

~ 1/2 cup of blueberries, fresh or frozen
~ 1 banana {peeled, of course!}
~ 1 1/2 cups of milk
~ sweetener to taste {we used a few tablespoons of sugar}
~ ice to thicken

Drop it all in the blender and enjoy!

Game

We played a quick game of “I Spy” or find…and looked around our room to see what we could find that started with the letter ‘B’. Here’s what we found {and I borrowed this great idea from Carisa at 1+1+1=1 ~ her color ‘I Spy’ is wonderful!!}:

Math

Balancing and Estimating. I brought my scales in, along with my counting bears and we checked to see if bears of different colors weighed the same, compared the weight of bears to blocks, counted, sorted….and had fun learning.

Songs and Rhymes

We used a bee puppet during our circle time and sang a fun little song:

Do You Like to Buzz?
sing to: “Do Your Ears Hang Low”

Do you like to buzz?
Are you covered all in fuzz?
Do you call a hive a home
In the garden where you roam?
Do you like to make honey
Are your stripes a little funny?
Do you like to buzz?

Additional Resources

Be sure to check out another one of my posts for some more ideas for teaching the letter ‘B’ – there are some different activities and printables in that post too!

Stories & Books We Used:

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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Tot School ::33::

~ Kaleb is 34 months ~

Before anyone is under ANY illusion that this is my house pictured ~ rest assured it isn’t {grins}. While we were visiting with some friends this last week, we were able to spend the day at their wonderfully amazing children’s museum ~ and Kaleb was in pure bliss!

The day prior to the children’s museum we went to Colonial Williamsburg ~ a.k.a. not so much fun for Kaleb, unless being pushed around in a stroller all day counts for fun. Trying to keep him happy meant resorting to letting him use the camera and take pictures of me.

Mind you, it’s the only picture of me from our trip. I apparently need to work with him on framing a shot and more flattering angling…


I didn’t like the picture, so he had to spend some time in the stocks. :) I kid you not, there were people there {in their 60’s} asking if they used these to cut off people’s feet!!!


After a good night’s rest, we decided to head to the children’s museum. 244 pictures ~ so feel relieved that I’m only posting these. :) Kaleb spent the majority of the time at the museum playing in the ambulance. Lights. Sirens. Buttons to push. It was pure.boy.heaven.

The museum had a wonderful grocery store ~ after he was done grocery shopping, Kaleb spent some time checking himself out.

He spent a little time digging around for dinosaur bones…well, ok, more like playing in the pretend dirt and flinging it around.

This is probably one of my favorite pictures of Kaleb. Period. Just too stinkin’ cute he is.

They had the most amazing apple tree in the center of the museum that would pull up apples in a conveyor of sorts and then roll them down into tubes where they would drop out and wait to be picked. Baskets and baskets full of apples were picked.

Kaleb also made his acting debut. He pulled a line from Letter Factory and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen…proud to present…”

And then there was the water table. The HUGE water table in which Kaleb got soaking, soaking, soaking wet. And then cried and fussed because he wanted a towel. Only to return later and soak himself some more.

After a full day, Kaleb took a break in the ‘lake’ and spent some time fishing. They had a variety of red, yellow, and green fish that Kaleb sorted after he caught them all.

Don’t forget to visit Carissa at 1+1+1=1 for some more Tot School posts.

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Preschool Corner: All About ‘Aa’

Preschool time with co-op is a little bit different {and on a much larger scale} than trying to focus on one child at home. I’ve worked in the 4 year old class with one of our local co-ops for the last few years and love it. This year I’ll be teaching the letters A-E with the class and we started our first week with the letter ‘Aa’.

Alphabet Book

Throughout the year, the kids create an alphabet book to take home and it is filled with crafts that they make – each letter of the alphabet having it’s own craft. The apple craft we did last year went over really well, so we did that one again this year.


You’ll need:

~ Red construction paper apple
~ White rectangle piece of construction paper
~ Black inkpad
~ Green construction paper leaves

To Make:

1. Have your child cut out the apple if they are able to use scissors {we cut them out ahead of time due to limited time}.
2. Let your child rip the apple in half, horizontally.
3. Rip the white piece of paper on both sides, so the apple ‘core’ appears to be eaten.
4. Have your child stamp their fingerprint on the white ‘core’ of the apple to make seeds.

Art

I can’t take credit for this too-cute alligator Aa. No Time for Flash Cards has directions for the craft. We used foam sheets that I picked up at the Dollar Tree along with construction paper teeth and googly eyes. Super fun and a cute take home for the kids to remember the letter we studied!

Math

Apples were the primary focus of the week, so during our circle times we had several different activities we used to focus on different math skills.

Sequencing

I printed off a page of different sized apples from File Folder Fun and cut them out and the kids took turns putting them in order from smallest to largest.

Apple Tree felt board ~ How does an apple grow? I have a cute little apple tree that we used on the floor to show how apples grow. We put flower blossoms on the tree first and then they ‘grew’ into big and little apples. We picked the apples off the tree and sorted them by big and little and counted to see which one we had more of.

Cuisenaire Rods ~ We used cuisenaire rods to build the letter Aa. First we used the big rods and then tried using the little ones. We also made an apple tree, airplane and an alligator with the rods {this is something I did with Zachary, not the class!}. :)

Science

The biggest hit of the day revolved around taste-testing apples. I brought in three different colors of apples and sliced them up. Everybody took a bite of each apple slice and then we talked about how the apples tasted {sweet, sour, tangy, etc…}, the different colors of the apples, and everyone voted on their favorite tasting apple and we graphed the results.

Golden Delicious was the winner by ONE vote…why those kiddos liked the Granny Smith is beyond me….

Songs and Rhymes

During our circle time we did several songs and games together. After reading through The Lady with the Alligator Purse, I sang the song to them while ‘reading’ the book again {I love that book!}.

Apple Tree {song and game}

We passed around a little apple {like playing Hot Potato} while singing the song below and whoever was left holding the apple got tickled!

Apple tree, apple tree,
Will your apples fall on me?
I won’t cry, I won’t shout,
If your apples knock me out!

Additional Resources

Be sure to check out my other post for some more ideas for teaching the Letter Aa – there are some different activities and printables in that post too!

Stories & Books We Used:

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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Preschool Corner: Months of the Year Song

Apparently I should start taking song requests. I’ll just pull up a chair, set up the camera and have a great year singing to my video camera…and feeling like a lunatic talking to nobody.

Not that talking to myself doesn’t happen on a daily basis ~ because my kids sure miss the majority of what I say every day.

But I digress.

You all taught me something new last week because I had never heard the Adams Family version of the Days of the Week song. Or if I did, it has been forever replaced with Tim Hawkins ‘Homeschool Family’ song {I’m leaning heavily toward that option}. Since the days of the week song was such a huge hit, this week my ‘at the mic’ feature will be the months of the year song. Before I forget, I popped on over to the Discovery Toys website to browse their catalog and they have the ‘Sounds Like Fun’ cd available for $15.

Months of the Year
{no idea what tune this is….
but it’s definitely not Ten Little Indians}

January, February, March and April,
May and June, July and August,
September, October, November, December…
These are the months of the year.

Twelve, twelve, twelve, twelve months,
Twelve months come in every year.
Twelve, twelve, twelve, twelve months,
Twelve months come in every year.

{Repeat until you know the song so well you are singing it in your head when you wake up in the middle of the night}.

And you all and your guesses about the tune before I posted the video are cracking me up!! :)

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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Tot School ::32::

~ Kaleb is 33 months ~

While our overall week has an ‘idea’ or overall plan, I think that many of you would be surprised to actually be in our house and see how that week actually plays out.

There are times that I have great ideas and plans and things don’t work and go along with my plans. At all.

And you know what? That is fine!

This last week I have one picture of Kaleb playing and in all honesty there was little more done that I would qualify as focused time on him. One.

No pictures of the endless time pushing him on the swing.

Reading the same books over and over again.

Cuddling. Laughing. Giggling.

So while there may not be much to check off on my ‘list’ I’m really okay with that. Really.

Don’t forget to visit Carissa at 1+1+1=1 for some more Tot School posts.

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Preschool Corner: Days of the Week Song

For some strange reason, I’ve been thinking about vlogging for Preschool Corner.

Why? Well, other than the fact that I am low on sleep and flying on Dr. Pepper lately, there really isn’t any rational explanation as to WHY I would sit myself down in front of a camera and think that singing is a sane idea.

Especially because it depended on having at least 5 minutes of uninterrupted and quiet time in order to get it done ~ something that is nothing short of miraculous in this house.

So….here’s me. Live. Rambling {which I do extremely well} and singing one of the songs we sing frequently in our house to help the kids learn the days of the week.

Days of the Week Song
{to the tune of Oh My Darlin’ Clementine}

There are seven days, there are seven days,
There are seven days in a week.
There are seven days, there are seven days,
There are seven days in a week.

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

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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