On the Road to Literacy!

   So I know the last time I posted anything about my classroom, I mentioned that things were under construction. Well, things are still under some construction as I continue to find ways to meet the needs of my munchkins, who have been a challenge for me thus far in the school year.

   The past few weeks have been both stressful and hectic, yet somewhat inspiring at the same time; as I have been able to reflect on my teaching practices and express some of my concerns and challenges with my director who has given me some direction and further insight on how to manage my classroom of boys! 

    I think I now have a clearer sense of where I need to focus my attention & energy and where to start. It is basically back to the drawing board!! 

    I know, it is already November, but I have to start somewhere right?

    In our preschool curriculum, we have just begun our Letter of the Week series.!  Although I have been implementing literacy activities since Day 1, it is now time to focus on one letter and sound at a time.

   Learning the alphabet alone provides SEVERAL different fun and engaging learning activities for my kiddos. And thank goodness for Pinterest and  my wonderful collection of The Mailbox Magazines (which have always been a valuable resource for me) which highlight many different hands-on letter activities that I plan to use in my classroom this year!

    So, we are on the Road to Literacy! J

    Here are a few things we have been doing to get ready to learn letters:

    The most appropriate way we began our study of letters has been through name recognition activities.

    The munchkins have done name puzzles and have matched  and counted the letters in their name.

    I created a dry erase card for every child to use, by gluing a sentence strip onto white construction paper and then laminated it. I made sure the writing section contained no lines at all, giving them the confidence to write their letters as big and round as they need to!

Some kiddos are working on writing their full name, while others are practicing their first name.

    I pulled out a set of alphabet flashcards and have provided several opportunities throughout the past 2 weeks for the children to explore them and practice writing letters on blank dry erase cards.

    And we are still getting some good use out of our old Apple Pie PlayDoh by using letter cutters to spell names!!  (This is definitely the last week of it and then  it is getting tossed in the trash!)

    And… our sand table has become an Alphabet Digging Ground.

    There are so many fun and engaging ways to introduce and learn the Alphabet, my mind is in over drive! 

     What are some of YOUR favorite Alphabet activities???  

     Please share.! I would love to hear comments and/ or suggestions! =)

Here Come The Dinosaurs!

Well, now that the spring fever madness is over, I can relax a bit and try to spend some time sprucing up this blog… Yay for Spring Break!

Spring fever was at an all-time high this week! The munchkins were super talkative and just weren’t into really listening very well this past week. I tried my best not to mention spring break too much around them but I think they sensed both the exhaustion and excitement about spring break from me and my aides.

I had my Dinosaur week all planned out but I left room for flexibility because the week before spring break is never easy! Since it was a short week I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do all the dinosaur activities that I had in mind and I admit, I was a bit bummed out about that, but I knew a Dinosaur theme unit would hold their attention long enough to get through the 4 day week!

On Monday we began the week by talking about the letter of the week. We discussed things that begin with the letter Dd, which then led into Dinosaurs and they managed to have a very extensive discussion about dinosaurs and I could see their excitement and I knew they were hooked.

So, I took their enthusiasm and ran with it.

In this post, I will highlight just a few of my dinosaur activities that were a huge hit with my munchkins!

Dinosaur Egg Surprises

I started the unit by making homemade dinosaur eggs. I had done this once before but I only made five the last time… My son and I made 20 little dinosaur eggs and placed tiny dinosaurs toys that I had bought at the Dollar Tree. The recipe is as follows: (I had to double it to make 20 little eggs)

• 1 cup of flour
• ½ cup of salt
• ¼ cup of sand (I used craft sand purchased from Michaels)
• 1 cup of coffee grinds (or dirt)
• ¾ cup of water  

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Slowly add water and knead with your hands until it has dough like consistency. Take toy (or other item that you wish to put inside the egg) and mold the mixture around it to form an egg shape. 

These can be air dried for a day or two OR you can place them in the oven, (which I did b/c of time constraints). Bake at 150 for about 20 minutes.

                                                        When I brought them in the next morning, the munchkins were very curious about what they were! Some of the guesses I received were that it was a big cookie, a rock, and an egg made from dirt.

The excitement of exploring the egg (touching and some even smelled it!) and using tools to open it up was amazing and I was thrilled that I was able to get some of their facial expressions as they were” in the moment” and as they  were investigating their egg.

The looks on their little faces as they "discovered" what was inside:

ABSOLUTELY  PRICELESS! 

                      

(*I try my best to not photograph the munchkins directly, but for this one time, I had to do so, in order to capture the true excitement in their faces!)

 Paleontologist Play

In our sand table, they had a blast pretending to be paleontologists and used brushes and sand sifters to discover and find the toy dinosaur skeletons that were buried beneath the sand. 

Dino Nest

I turned our water table into a Dino Nest by using paper like hay (I am not sure what it really was, I just found it in the art closet and used it!) and I placed eggs, filled with dinosaur counters, inside the nest.

Math: Spin & Graph Dinosaurs

We worked on our counting and graphing skills by playing a Dinosaur Spin & Graph game, compliments of 2teachingmommies.com

Many of them really enjoyed this and were excited to try to be the first one to reach the number 10. They even asked to play it again the next day, so I am sure I will be making other Spin & Graph types of games for future math units!

                                                

       Math: Dinosaur Patterns

  We also did a patterning activity with dinosaur cutouts that I was very excited to make with my new teacher toy – Cricut Expression 2. 
   As many of them can continue a simple AB pattern, I decided to challenge them a little. Our focus for the patterns was on the shape of the dinosaur cutout (Spikes vs. No Spikes) rather than the just the color and type of dinosaur cutout.

Egg Relay Races

   And to help alleviate the madness caused by Spring Fever, I decided to get the munchkins outside for some fresh air and we had an Egg Relay Race. 

It was an awesome way to promote teamwork and to get outside to release that energy! 

They LOVED it!

 

Dinosaur Books

I have a very extensive library of Dinosaur books. (These are all available on Amazon.)  Some of this week’s favorite books were:

·         Patrick’s Dinosaurs

·         What Happened to Patrick’s Dinosaurs?

·         What Did Dinosaurs Eat? And Other Things You Want to Know About Dinosaurs

·         Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct

·         Danny and the Dinosaur

·         The Magic School Bus: In the Time of the Dinosaurs

·         Oh Say Can You Say Di-no-saur? All About Dinosaurs

 One more thing: 
    When I asked the munchkins “What do you think happened to the dinosaurs?”, one girl answered: “Maybe an asteroid came and only hit one part of the Earth and the dinosaurs who lived there died but the other ones who live far away did not die and they are still alive somewhere!” 

How do you like THAT theory??!!