Farm Week!

Last week was filled with fabulous farm fun!  To start the week, we made a bubble map of farm animals, then focused on different animals each day.  We also graphed our favorite farm animals.  We are little pre-k friends and still working on cutting.  I was very proud of their progress!

Our first animal to learn about were sheep and discussed what sheep are used for.  Pebble Go helped us learn a lot!

  

My cuties LOVED seeing a sheep being sheared and learning what sheep's fur is used for.  Then we learned to shear sheep by "shearing" with craft sticks.  Students cut the "shaving cream" off of sheep (balloons).

On Tuesday we learned about pigs and why they rolled in mud. We started by predicting why they rolled in mud.

Then we rolled our hands in mud - AKA chocolate pudding.

(Of course we ate it after our experiment - yum!!!)

We also stamped our hands on paper pig and shouted "stay cool" to remind us of our experiment and that mud keeps pigs cool.

We also did a cow glyph...

...and stamped our letters onto corn.

At our centers, we grew crops like farmers do!

For math, we have been practicing recognizing number 9.  I made these little number 9 farm pouches and placed a handful of tiny farm animals inside.  The pouch has a 9 on one side and a barn on the other side.

Students first used the barn side to add the number of farm animals I called out, up to quantities of 9.

Then we practiced tracing the number 9  by starting our animal on the barn at the top of the number 9.

We also practiced counting mud spots on pigs.  Students pulled a pig from the mud puddle, then counted the mud spots and recorded the number of mud spots.

 

We also counted the number of chicks in an egg.  Students grabbed an egg from the nest, opened it up and counted the chicks inside and recorded the number.

(The chicks inside were on pieces of paper that matched the color of the egg.)

We ended our week with a trip to the farm!

Fabulous 50th Day of School!

What a wonderfully, busy week in the land of PreK!  We celebrated 50 days of learning with 50's themed activities.

To start the day, we learned about life in the fifties verses life today.  We read this little freebie book

(Click above to get it.)

We also sorted pictures of today's life verses the fifties.  They loved the Barbie and the truck!

For our letter learning, we went bowling.  Student groups were given sets of bowling pins with letters attached to them.  Students recorded any letters that fell over on the recording sheet below.

(Click above to grab this bowling sheet.)

We also made root beer floats by following the directions on our chart.

After making them, we used our five senses to learn about root beer floats.  I LOVE that we could hear the fizz in the float.  Do you see the ear I drew in the bottom right corner with the sound one of my cuties described!

After describing the floats, we create dour own to take home as a memory from the day.

(Don't you just love puffy paint?!?)

It was also oodles of fun to have a sock hop and wear our fifties themed clothing!  (Maybe one day I will actually get a picture of my poodle skirt.)

It has been truly fabulous to spend 50 days with these cuties!

Nursery Rhymes!

Last week was a oodles of fun celebrating Nursery Rhymes!  To start the week, we investigated Humpty Dumpty and the wall that he fell from.

To start, my cuties helped me build a wall from our block center blocks.  Then we set materials under the wall to see what would happen to Humpty.  As we experimented with each Humpty Dumpty, we recited the poem.  This really helped them learn this Nursery Rhyme.

We also learned about Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and created these little star wands.  When they were complete we held them up and recited the Nursery Rhyme.

On Twinkle Twinkle Little Star day, we played Starry Letters.  I learned of this game from the amazingly creative Julie Lee.  I taped stars under the tables with letters written on them.  Then students laid on their backs and shined a flash light on the letters that I called out, then recorded them.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider was up next.  We created this little house with a straw attached for the "water spout" with a spider ring attached to it.  We recited the Nursery Rhyme while moving the spider up and down the water spout.

Our week ended with a fabulous Nursery Rhyme dress up day!

Me and my mini me as Little Miss Muffet

Little Boy Blue and Jack Be Nimble

Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars

Hickory Dickory Dock

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary

We also had a Nursery Rhyme parade around the school, but I was a little too busy to snap some photos. 

Spooky Spiders and the Number 8

Happy Tuesday!  I love, love, love Halloween and the fun creatures we can study that tie into Halloween a wee bit without actually saying the word "Halloween".

Last week we started learning about spiders and the number 8.  I learned on day 1 that my kiddos are not afraid of spiders with this Cara Carroll inspired graph.

 

When learning about spiders, of course the number 8 pops up, which is partly why we started learning about spiders, because that's the number we are learning about.

We counted out 8 legs to make a spider hat...

We also played some games to learn the number 8.  This counting game was played by "spinning" a spinner and counting that number of spiders onto a web.

We also played a spin and record game to review numbers 1 through 8.

(You get these free downloads from my website -  spinner, tracing, and web.)

We also counted out 8 pipe cleaners to make spiders out of play-do.  The eyes are made with google eyes that are hot glued onto plug covers.

Another number 8 activity not involving spiders, was to create a skeleton - you know... a non-Halloween skeletons, with 8 "bones".

For more spider fun, we created a web by simply stringing white yarn through holes on black paper plates...

... then we attached our hand print spiders.

To learn more about spiders and their webs, we explored the stickiness of the web and trapped some insects.

Once the insects were trapped, we did an experiment (no pictures=sadness) in which we explored other sticky substances that also trapped the insects.  One of the sticky things was tape.  Then we came together as a class and stuck an insect to the tape.  We lifted the insect and saw the tape was still stuck to it, as well as stuck to me!  Then we learned that spiders don't stick to their webs because of the oil on their legs.  We dipped a spider into oil and walked him across the tape and noticed he didn't stick.  The cuties loved when I walked his unsticky self across and made munching noises as he gobbled the insect that was stuck to the tape.

Of course, we also enjoyed our spider web parachute and tried to free the insects before the spider got to them.