Week nine 2008

Happy Halloween! Here are highlights from week nine! Theme: Autumn/Halloween Focus: Spiders, Bats and all things creepy! Classical composer: Igor Stravinsky, Russian 1882-1971 Here is a link to an amazing video of Stravinsky conducting the finale of his Firebird Suite. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTep91oqgVk&feature=related The children really enjoyed Firebird, especially when the firebird comes out. We used the performance on the Fantasia 2000 CD, which covers a delightful amount of story and suspense with a broad range of emotions. It was delightful to watch the student’s faces as their imaginations engaged in the music. This was a big hit! Table Activities: Letter matching BINGO (Students have the uppercase letters on their board and we show them the lowercase letters. They find the matching letter and mark it.), autumn-themed coloring pages, dot-to-dots, mazes, and hidden pictures. Music: The children had fun listening and moving to Stravinsky. Also, continual reinforcement of the songs and terms are helping the children understand and remember remarkably well. Songs and Finger Plays: “Itsy, Bitsy Spider”, “Spiders Love to Party”, “Hunting for Dracula” and favorites from weeks past. Art: Miss Cristina introduced the children to the concept of perspective using fall leaves, pumpkins, bats, craft stick gates, and moons. They used a ruler to draw the horizon line and placed the appropriate things in the sky or on the ground, in front of the gate or behind it, etc. You can see by the pictures how the children used these ideas to create their own special Halloween picture. There were no mistakes here…the pumpkins in the sky are flying pumpkins and some of the bats wanted to eat pumpkins on the ground! Very imaginative! Handwriting and Reading: We added the /t/ sound to our sound train. With one group, we reinforced the 5 sounds introduced thus far: /m/, /s/, short /a/, long /e/, and /t/ and practiced matching the beginning sounds to common pictures, including three of our school friends. The other group used those five sounds and a few more to work with the –at word family. We matched –at words with their pictures, emphasizing the beginning sound and the rhyming ending. These papers can be kept and practiced at home to reinforce the skills. We practiced making Play-doh snakes and using them to make uppercase letters and numbers. Play-doh is a great hand-strengthener and coordination-builder. We need lots of practice to make snakes and balls…it’s a learned skill! Using the snakes to make the letters following correct stroke order is another great way to practice the alphabet and numbers. Theme: Halloween is a favorite topic for kids and we spent time talking about some of the creatures that are common throughout this time of year. We learned some things about spiders (most spiders have 8 eyes) and about bats (bats can “see” at night using their super-duper sonar hearing - echolocation). We made a cool spider web by wrapping yarn around craft sticks and attaching our creepy, crawly friend to the end. We made Halloween pictures with Miss Cristina working on perspective. We also played Halloween BINGO with some spooky pictures. The winner (which was everyone) got some chattering teeth to take home. Storybooks: Diary of a Spider; Yellow Bird, Black Spider; Itsy, Bitsy Spider; We’re Off to Find the Witch’s House (“Which house?); Stellaluna; Inside a House That is Haunted; The Spooky Old Tree, Three Little Ghosties, Cocka-Doodle Whooooooooo! "Do they dare go into that spooky old tree?" Math: Every day we are reinforcing counting skills by counting the days on our calendar. We also practice counting numbers on the number line. Most days we practice counting by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s. (So far up to 20). The progress in calendar skills is really exciting. The students repeat the date and sometimes ask to do it all on their own as we point and sometimes give a bit of assistance. (“Today is: Thursday, October 30th, 2008”) It is fun to see their excitement as they say it all on their own. We also practice the days of the week. One song you can practice at home is: (To the tune of the “Eensy, Weensy Spider”) Sunday, Monday Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday Then comes Saturday. Start all over again! Sunday, Monday Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday Then comes Saturday. Those are the days of the week! Free-Play Fun: One big hit this week was our creepy, crawly flingers. The kids had so much fun free-playing with the flingers and trying to hit a target. Have a spooky and safe Halloween! We will see you in November…

Happy Day Cheer!

If you need a refresher, here is the cheer we sing every day to begin opening circle. Sometimes we sing forte (loud), pianissimo (soft), or, like today, mezzo forte (medium loud) and largo (slow).

Week eight 2008

Happy Birthday to Noah!

Here are some more highlights from week eight.

Theme: Autumn

Focus: Scarecrows, Apples, Pumpkins

Classical composer: Berlioz, born in France early 1800’s, known for conducting large orchestras with as many as 1,000 musicians.

Table Activities:. Cutting and coloring zeros, fun with magnets, 24 piece puzzles, ABC blocks, alphabet puzzles (matching capital and lowercase letters and filling in the entire alphabet puzzle).

Music: Songs and rhymes included: “If I Only Had a Brain”, “Way up high in the apple tree…”, “Five Shiny Apples”, “Five Little Pumpkins” . We are continually playing games with and reinforcing the music concepts we’ve worked on thus far: Forte/Pianissimo, Presto/Largo, Staccato/Legato, Treble/Bass. We have also introduced “mezzo forte”, which means “medium loud” and is represented by a normal singing or talking voice. This new concept has produced some beauty-ous results in our opening circle-time! Art: Miss Cristina introduced the children to watercolor. First, they looked at some beautiful watercolor paintings by Miss Cristina and saw the different techniques used in watercolor. They practiced strokes and using lots of water. First they only painted with water. Then they added just one color, then another and saw what happened as the paint spread. The children were amazed to see the effect of salt on their paper. They also experimented with using crayon first, then watercolor painting over it. The results are beautiful and will go in their portfolios.

Handwriting and Reading: We added the long e (with a horizontal line over the top) to our sound train. Miss Tracy made a small sound train to allow the two groups to advance through the train at the rate they are ready for. We are working on handwriting and reading in two groups. Both groups made Mat Man and played “Tap Big Lines”. We reviewed the stroke names. Both groups worked on forming uppercase letters correctly on the slates with small pieces of chalk with emphasis on going all the way from the top to the bottom and making straight lines as well as use of the helper-hand. We are happy to lend out any of our HWT supplies if you are interested in doing a little homework with your child.

Theme: We couldn’t talk about scarecrows without moving like them. We practiced being very floppy and dancing around like scarecrows. We made scarecrow puppets and the kids were so proud of their results. Apple day was a smash as we made our very own applesauce…Mmmmm. We also made apple prints with paint and real apples. We counted apple seeds and saw the “star” made when cutting the apple horizontally through the carpals. We discussed real mummies and saw some pictures of a sarcophagus, the pyramids of Giza, and actual mummies. The oldest mummy ever found is 5500 years old! We looked at the map to see different continents where they have found mummies: Asia, Africa and South America. We made our very own pumpkins into mummies. Each child’s picture is on the previous post proudly displaying their pumpkin and includes directions for making the mummies. We also had fun being 5 little pumpkins sitting on the gate (balance beam) and rolling out of sight (somersaulting).

Storybooks: The Scarecrow’s Hat, Three Little Ghosties, Ten Red Apples, Ten Apples Up on Top, Johnny Appleseed, Pumpkin Soup, Five Little Pumpkins, Inside a House That is Haunted (You might hear your child say, “Here is the hand that knocked on the door….”) .

Math: Small group work included: Counting skills and counting by 5s and 10s. We used the linking cubes to make groups of 10 on two different days, practicing counting skills to make sure we had the correct amount. Then we linked the 10 towers together to make a long number line. The groups of ten were different colors so they were easy to differentiate. One of the groups counted by 10s to 50 and the other group went on to 100. We discussed and demonstrated making all of the 10’s up to 50 by adding a zero We also reinforced counting by tens on the 100s chart so the children can begin to see the relationships of the numbers to each other. This week we also spent time talking about the teens (11-19) and the “tens” place and “ones” place. We used cards with 10s and each of the numbers 1-9 to create 11-19. All of the children were able to see that the 1-9 went in place of the zero. We then practiced jumping as we counted to get the rhythm of the teens which can be tricky to order correctly. This is something you can do at home!

Free-Play Fun: We spent some recess time in the reading loft, playing with the fishing pond, balance beam, cars, people figures, running around and making very loud noises! (We allow a certain amount of this during free-play!) Several of the boys are enjoying wrestling and rough-housing. We are careful to monitor this activity and frequently ask each child if they are having fun, encouraging them to ask for it to please stop if they aren’t enjoying themselves. So far, it has generally been a happy, fun thing. Please let us know if your child tells you otherwise so that we can intervene appropriately.

Scarecrow Ethan!

Listening closely about mummies!

Little Mummy Pumpkins

Two of our mummies were camera shy today. We included directions below for making your own mummy pumpkins at home!

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1. Start with a clean, dry, smallish pumpkin.

2. Using three full sheets of paper towels (attached), cut strips about 1.5 inches wide. Roll up the strips like rolls of gauze. Each pumpkin needs one strip.

3. Put two stripes of glue stick on opposite sides of the pumpkin about 1 inch from top to 1 inch from bottom.

4. Attach one end of the paper towel to the bottom of glue and roll out the strip around the pumpkin, moving the paper towel up and down as desired, and pressing it to the glue. (It looks best to keep some pumpkin showing)

5. Attach two large googly eyes with tacky glue and hold for about 30 seconds.

6. Let dry and display!

Week seven 2008

Happy Birthday to Emma! Here are some more highlights from week seven. Theme: The Alphabet Focus: Ss, Tt, Uu, Vv, Ww, Xx, Yy, Zz Numbers: 7, 8, 9 Classical composer: Vivaldi (The Virtuoso Violinist from Venice!) Table Activities: This week for table activity, we colored and cut the numerals 7, 8, and 9. Many of the children have gone from wanting help to wanting to complete their cutting independently (and asking for more). The curves are still tricky, but the practice is really paying off! Other table activities included lots of fun with math manipulatives, including: Pattern blocks, shapes fraction blocks, teddy bear counters, locking cubes, counting cubes on a number line to 100 and all the numbers in between. Music: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, 3rd Movement “Summer” includes the Storm which the children recognize very well. Here is a great link to listen for yourself and see if your child remembers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgO_cMfh4mE And, if you need a reason to start music lessons early, check out this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l_iR7iOh18&feature=related WOW! We focused on the Treble clef and practiced listening to notes. Are they “treble” or are they “bass”? Songs and rhymes included: “Shake Your Sillies Out”, “Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear”, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” with our shiny twinkle stars, “Willaby Wallaby Woo” Art: Miss Cristina helped the children construct a square using two horizontal and two vertical lines. She talked about the attributes of the square and showed the children some amazing pictures of mosaics. The children began their own mosaic project, gluing small squares of bright colors to their previously painted square frames. They will be wonderfully unique!

Handwriting and Reading: We are working on handwriting and reading in two groups. One group practiced making the number 7 with the wooden pieces, then used the chalk and slates to “wet, dry, try” making number sevens. We repeated the activity with the letters “T” and “S”. We sorted pictures beginning with letters Ss-Zz and noted which of these letters have lowercase that look the same as uppercase, just smaller. We repeated this activity at least twice with each letter to increase independent letter and beginning sound recognition. Great activities for you to do consistently with your child are demonstrating each letters’ strokes starting at the top left, upper-case letter hunting in books and signs you read, making comparisons between two letters (for example, if your child guesses “M when it’s a W, point out the differences between both letters emphasizing the correct names for each.) Also, praise straight lines, shapes and letter-writing attempts when your child is drawing. Encourage them to use their helper hand. The other group also made the letters with wooden pieces and moved on to using the slates. Most of this group was able to make the letters without any assistance other than verbal cues. The “S” is tricky so we used the smiley face in the upper left hand corner as a guide. (For “S” we curve toward the smiley face, then away). For handwriting we continue encouraging correct grip, use of the helper hand, straight lines that go all the way from the top to bump the bottom, and correct order of strokes starting with the upper left corner. When this group sorted pictures by beginning sounds, we included the “th” and “sh” blends, and also placed the printed words on the corresponding pictures. Theme: We had lots of fun with S-Z themed crafts and movement this week. The Star and Sun crafts helped reinforce the shapes as well as the S sound. The example we gave the students used an “S” for each sunbeam, but we were so impressed with the creativity and unique way each student drew their rays. It is such a joy to watch the process of creation! The Octagon Spiders were a fun way to use the eight-sided shape and follow directions to put our creepy crawlers together. We also built wooden block zoos for a variety of animals. Noah’s mom came in and did Yoga. Stretching, holding, and relaxing our muscles are great ways to play. Thanks, Darla!

Storybooks: Silly Sally, Trio of Triceratops, The Universe, Seven in One Blow, The Seven Chinese Brothers, Whatever the Weather, Where the Wild Things Are, ABC T-Rex, Alphabetter, X Marks the Spot, Z is for Zookeeper. Math: Small group work included: Reinforcing counting by ones, twos and fives. On #8 day, the children used the large dice to roll numbers up to 8, then the children chose an activity card and we followed their lead to complete the activity the number of times on the die. (For example, the child rolls a 4, picks the “spin” card and says “Spin 4 times!”) One of the groups also practiced rolling both of the dice and adding the two numbers together to form an equation. On #9 day, one group practiced gathering 9 items from a large pile, counting accurately, and placing their items in different arrangements. (“Place your nine bean bags in the shape of a triangle.”) We then practices ABAB patterns with two colors. This is a great activity to practice at home. Make a simple color pattern and ask, “What comes next?” Then move to having your child create the pattern. The other group practiced equations that equal nine. Using tally marks, bean bags, and the white board, we completed the following equations: 4+5=9, 3+6=9, 2+7=9, 1+8=9, 0+9=9. It is fun to see the astonishment in their faces as we counted nine for the sum each and every time. One child exclaimed, “I can’t believe it. It’s nine again!” Free-Play Fun: We were thrilled to over-hear this exchange this week during a free-play table activity. Child one: “I think I’d like to play with that one.” Child two: “That’s a really good choice!” Child two gave child one some of the cubes he was playing with so they could share. It’s funny and heart-warming to hear our own words in their natural conversation and lets us know that our consistency and repetition are really paying off and reinforcing the great teaching you do at home! We spent some recess time in the reading loft, playing with the fishing pond, and using the bean bags to hit various “X” targets around the room. The children usually find ways to adapt the activity and use their imaginations. Many of them pretended the bean bags were treasure and they tried to get as much treasure as they could! Yo, ho, hey…off to week 8!

Week six 2008

We missed a few friends during week six as some of our families are traveling. Come home safely! We miss you…

Theme: The Alphabet

Focus: Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Pp, Qq, Rr - Numbers, 4, 5, 6

Classical composer: Chopin

Table Activities: This week for table activity, we colored and cut the numerals 4, 5, and 6. The cutting is really progressing and the kids are using their helper hand with gusto. You may want to ask your child what their helper hand is called. A few of the students enjoy using scissors that open spontaneously from spring mechanisms. Other table activities included making paper diamonds, painting frames (prep for an upcoming art lesson), and rainbow paddles & flashlights. These are translucent paddles in rainbow colors. When stacked the paddles change color, especially when a light is shown underneath.

Music: You may have heard your child refer to Chopin as being sad. We discussed poor Frédéric’s health woes and the kids learned that he had “sick lungs”. Even though he died young (age 39), Chopin was widely known for his piano virtuosity and compositions. Activity Songs & Finger Plays: “Jack in the Box”, “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt ” with shaky eggs, “I am a Pizza” (building a cardboard and felt pizza to the song lyrics), “Popcorn Popping”, “The Raindrop Song” (with lots of Pretend Puddle Jumping).

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Handwriting and Reading: We are working on handwriting and reading in two groups. One group is receiving lots of instruction in uppercase letter recognition and stroke order. This group is also focused on recognizing beginning sounds of words and placing the letters of their first name in order. Activities with this group included finding pictures “hidden” around the room and placing them on the slate with the beginning sound written on it. We also used the wood pieces to create the focus numbers and letters. The other group practiced writing the uppercase letters on gray block paper with focus on using their helper-hand, correct pencil grip, starting each letter at the top left or top center and correct stroke-order. We also encourage going all the way from the top to the bottom (bump!). Each of these skills takes a lot of practice, reinforcement and encouragement and we are positive with each child and praise their efforts and improvements. This is the most difficult and focused work we do, so it is done in very small bits of time to avoid too much intensity. The atmosphere stays light and fun. This group pulled pictures out of the (stuffed-toy) Monster’s Mouth and sorted them by beginning sounds. We used both the hard K (kick, kiss) and soft K (knot, knife) sounds. Then they pulled the printed words out of the monster to use reading clues such as beginning and secondary sounds, one word or two, to figure out which picture they named. This group was also given specific instruction in each letters’ lowercase formation for recognition purposes only. As per the HWT curriculum, we will work to master writing the uppercase letters before we begin writing the lowercase letters. Both groups had fun using their pencils as missiles to hit points on stars or flowers and then scribble. We also drew big-line stems on the flowers and big or little-line legs on several different farm animals. Theme: We had lots of fun with alphabet themed crafts and movement this week. We practiced all sorts of Jumping skills over wide and tall obstacles. We had an Obstacle course with balance beam, crawling under the bench, somersaulting through hoops, etc…License plates were a fun way to practice ordering our first or last names. We also created a Mouse Mess collage and a friendship Quilt. Each child created a unique square and we put them together to form our classroom quilt.

Storybooks: K is For Kissing a Cool Kangaroo, Mouse Mess, Caps for Sale (for the mmmonkeys), Pair of Protoceratops, Princess Pigsty, Planting a Rainbow.

Math: Small group work included: Reinforcing counting by ones and twos, 4-sided shapes (square, rectangle, diamond, trapezoid)-recognizing attributes, similarities & differences. Then we did some more work with attributes using small, medium, and large squares, circles and triangles in the three primary colors. We talked about sorting them by size, shape and color and each child made their own matrix. Finally, we looked at 6-legged insects and the children drew legs on ants and bees.

Free-Play Fun: Flashlights were just too fun for one table activity, so they also made an appearance during free play. We also had lots of fun looking at alphabet books and playing with Play-doh (a great hand and finger work-out for those fine-motor skills.)

Who knew they were getting a work out while having free play fun? Also, the reading loft continues to be a big hit and the students are all enjoying looking at books independently. This is an exciting skill and passion for us to see them developing!

Week five 2008

Here are some great highlights from week five: Theme: The Alphabet Focus: Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii Classical composer: J. Strauss Special Visitor: Caleb’s dad, Don, presented Paper Airplane Folding 101. The children folded their own airplanes with a little help and flew them in a flying contest. Owen was the champion, winning the grand-prize paper crown/airplane combo. We all had a great time and appreciated Don’s thoughtful and fun lesson for our letter “A” day. Thanks, Don! Table Activities: In addition to letters, we are also focusing on a number each day. This week for table activity, we colored and cut the numerals 1, 2, and 3. You may have seen them in your child’s bag. We are amazed with the progress in their cutting as we practice this skill every day. Other table activities included marble mats & tongs, wooden word puzzles (the children see the picture and build the word puzzle below), sorting locking cubes and paddles, building uppercase letters with the Handwriting Without Tears wood pieces. Music: Camille Saint-Saëns’ returned for an encore several times this week as the children used their stick fish to follow the “Aquarium” up and down the scale. We listened to the 1, 2, 3 timing in many of Strauss’ songs and talked about the waltz. Activity Songs & Finger Plays: “We are the Dinosaurs”, “If I Had a Hammer”, “Jenny Works with One Hammer…”, “Grandma’s Spectacles”, “Give ‘Em Your Right Hand” (This song works on recognizing your right hand, looking someone in the eye, and saying “hi” politely.) and lots of repeat favorites. Handwriting: More, “My teacher draws…” (See last week’s entry), many demonstrations of writing lowercase and uppercase letters stroke by stroke, practice with gray block paper writing capital letters for those ready for such an activity. FYI, we identify each child’s helper hand by an imaginative name that starts with their first initial. For example, Caleb’s helper hand is Cornelius. That way we can tell Cornelius how to be helpful holding the paper and it takes some of the stress off of Caleb. This HWT technique is amazingly successful and one we use consistently. Art: Miss Cristina introduced the children to the triangle with such terms as “diagonal” and shared some interesting triangle concepts from the book, A Wing on a Flea: A Book About Shapes by Ed Emberley. The children saw clearly that three lines make a triangle and that they can make two triangles from folding one square. The children created wonderful representational pictures by gluing colored paper triangles to large paper triangles. Most of the children used the triangles to create their own picture, such as a sailboat, a bird, an airplane, etc. There was some great creativity present! Theme: We had lots of fun with crafts this week. Our much repeated rhyme, “B,b,B, a bat and a ball. D,d,D, a doughnut hits the wall”, illustrates our efforts to help the children recognize the difference between the lowercase “b” and “d”. This can be a skill that is not fully grasped until well into the early elementary years so we are helping to introduce the concept early in hopes your child will be able to differentiate and write these letters by kindergarten. We made a bat and a ball and a doughnut hitting a wall. We also had fun being dinosaurs and elephants, building garages and hangars for cars and airplanes out of wooden blocks. Storybooks: “A” Was Once an Apple, The Berenstein Bears B Book, Alpha Oops, Dinosaur, Goodnight Gorilla, A Wing on a Flea. The reading loft was a favorite place for many of the children during recess this week. Math: Small group work included: 1 vs. 2 number sense (Where do we find one and two on our bodies? 2 eyes, 1 nose, etc), two legged animals, what makes a pair, how to write a 2 (big curve and a little line across the bottom, counting by 2s including the 2, 4, 6, 8…cheer! Tri concepts and understanding the tri- means 3 with vocabulary such as tricycle, tripod, triangle, and triops (a shrimp that actually has three eyes!), Reading: Each day we practiced using our listening ears to hear the beginning sounds on common vocabulary words and sort them according to their beginning letter. Some of the children also worked on sorting the printed vocabulary words onto the correct picture. We tried to use different learning styles each day to practice the skill. For a, b, c, the students stood and tried to match their picture to the correct folder labeled with the letter. (See the short video clip below.) For d, e, f, the students used magnets to put their pictures near the beginning letter on the whiteboard. For g, h, i, the students used bean bags and tossed them onto the mat that sat on the corresponding letter. Using the different learning styles really helps kids learn skills more thoroughly and allows children who learn using their strengths. (To read more about learning styles, also called “multiple intelligences” by Howard Gardner, please see this interesting article: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/gardner.htm

Free-Play Fun: We were able to enjoy the last of our summer weather in the Backyard on the Airplane teeter totter! Throwing bean bags into baskets or at targets

Social Skills: We are working with the children very diligently to use their words appropriately, especially when they are in a stressful or frustrating situation. We use lots of modeling and praising and try to catch the kids using their words throughout the day, sometimes earning a sticker. We are continually seeing improvement. Thanks for all your support.

More pics from week 5

We made and flew paper airplanes with Caleb's dad! Lots of cutting practice this week...

Pics from week 5

Table activities are so fun the kids don't even know they are learning!

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We're working hard to practice those scissor skills for a short time every day.