Letter Mm Activities

This week was letter Mm week.  We started the week going on a letter/sound hunt with monster wands.

When students found a picture, they had their monster say, "Mmm, mmm, good!" and then colored that picture on their recording sheet.

The recording sheet, picture cards to hunt, and monster wands are in my Mm unit.

We also made monster claws to wear.  These were so simple to make and helped with scissor skills.

To make them, I traced around students' hands about an inch from each finger so the hand was bigger like a monster hand and so students felt successful cutting.  Then students glued die cut triangles onto the "fingers".

I attached a paper band when students completed their part.

We enjoyed reading Go Away Big Green Monster and made lowercase m crafts.

(Are you catching on to our monstrous theme?!?)

We also learned how to form letter Mm with the help of our Mm mats and moose.

My cuties love these letter tracing mats in my letter units from my store.  I have a fun little character/object to use to trace the letter.  That object matches the character/object on the mat so students know where to place their character to begin tracing.

After this tracing fun, we played a spin and write letter game.

For extra fun, I added monster eyeballs (water beads from Michael's) to our sensory table.  They loved those things!!!!

We also made letter Mm with marshmallows.

Check out my letter Mm unit by clicking below.  It's usually $2, but it will be free for this weekend only!

 

Oh, and we had our 24th project funded this week from Donors Choose!  We are getting more Heidi Songs CDs and DVDs.  We love her songs!

Oriental Trading Goodies

Happy Tuesday!  I was recently contacted by Oriental Trading to review some of their goodies in my classroom.  

I was sent some fabulous products that my pre-k littles enjoyed.

We loved getting finger lights that we used to hunt for pictures of things that started with the sound /l/.

I got a class set, so everyone enjoyed the hunt at the same time.  It was oodles of fun!

We also got sticky hands to make a 5 senses "sense of touch" activity.  The hands were completely sticky after we pulled off the back.  Students then stuck different textures that we could feel to the sticky part.

Our favorite items were the bowling sets.  We were able to get five sets, which have allowed for fun group games!  We used them for our 50th day of school to practice letter printing.  I gave groups of students a set of pins with letters attached to the front.  Students bowled and recorded the letters of the pins that fell over.

Thank you for the great goodies, Oriental Trading!

Rowdy L'il Reindeer

This week was reindeer week in PreK land.  We started the week with our Mystery Box that had a reindeer inside to learn what our science topic would be for the week.

The reindeer brought us a "reindeer game" to play that day.  It's my newest freebie - Let's Build Rudolph.

We also learned about the parts of a reindeer by hunting around the room in search of the parts needed to build a reindeer.

The parts we searched for were antlers, legs, hooves, nose, mouth, and eyes.  After we found them, we colored those parts on a recording sheet.  When everyone was finished, we labeled a large reindeer together and learned about what each of the parts help reindeer do.

We also fed reindeer in our literacy stations and recorded the letters they ate.  (There were magnets on the reindeer mouths.)

This isn't reindeer themed necessarily, but we transformed our dramatic play area into a Santa's Workshop.

Students we able to "build" and "paint" toys and then wrap them for delivery.  I placed empty paint containers, paint brushes, and tools in the center.  They also baked cookies for Santa.

They also baked cookies for Santa. 

We ended the week with making little reindeer hats!

Next week is gingerbread man week.  We will be using my newest interactive book during transitions.

Thanksgiving Fun!

My little cuties amaze me everyday with how much they can learn in such a short amount of time.  The week and a half leading to Thanksgiving break really blew me away.  They left for break talking about Squanto, Pilgrims, and comparing feasts that we eat to Pilgrims'.  Such smarties!

I tried to grab a lot of pictures of our learning, but didn't quite snap them all.  Here are some recaps of the fun!

We have been practicing patterns and used these little guys to help us build patterns.  Click below to grab him!

We then added that same turkey to a colander for students to have a standing turkey to make patterns.  We are still working on patterns and will be all year.  This was another way to practice in centers and add some fine motor practice as well.

We also made play-do turkeys using dough, feathers, and my little outlet covers again.  I hot glued to eyes, beak, and waddle to it.  Another way to practice those patterns!

Another math activity was our Roll a Turkey game.  They loved this and I loved my parent volunteer who cut, laminated, and folded the dice.

In Literacy Stations, one station had a feed the turkey game.  I hot glued magnets to little stuffed turkeys and students "fed" the turkeys by making them peck at magnetic letters.  Then they wrote the letters the turkeys ate on a marker board.

Another Literacy Station was listening to stories in our teepee.

We also learned how Squanto taught the Pilgrims to grow vegetables by making the soil fertile with a dead fish.  I modeled this in whole group.

Then my students simulated it with mashed up Oreos (soil) and a Goldfish cracker.

While they were at recess, I placed "corn" in their cups to simulated the corn growing.

We also added fish toys, soil, and crops to the sensory table, as well as some fun Pilgrim hats.

We also made these little Pilgrims to go on our Mayflower.

I also pulled out my Mayflower hat freebie from my store.

For a family project, families helped decorate feathers of things their child is thankful for.

Oh, and if you haven't heard, TPT is having a Cyber Monday sale!

Mayflower Hats

I am so excited that Thanksgiving is next week!  I am one tired teacher.

To help us get ready for Thanksgiving, we made these little Mayflower hats.

These are a FREEBIE in my store!  Click the pic below to grab them.