Preschool Corner

Monkey will be 5 in one week! We are so excited for his birthday party! He has asked for a Tom and Jerry Theme. But, more about that in coming posts.

We had a really busy week. Both boys were sick this week. Alligator had the flu (we did vaccinate him, but he got a milder version anyway), and Monkey, Mommy and Daddy all had some sort of bug. Therefore we had a lot of time at home, and other than one day, we all had the energy to do some projects.

This post if picture overload, so I will try to keep it as sort as possible.

Our theme this month is Birds and Eggs.

Art Time

Mother Goose Time

Making a beak.

Painting with worms (fake ones, don’t worry we are not that cruel.)

You can’t tell from the picture but we are learning about ovals, so we put some foam ovals under the paper, and he is coloring over them with chalk and they “magically” appear.

 

Prewriting practice.

Water color over white crayons.

Kumon Craft book.

Watch craft

Spinning Frog

We had to send it out the window, just once.

Surfer craft

Learning Fun

Matching bird parts.

Time for Tots, color words

    

Mazes

Train Fun

Build the wall

Here comes the train

Uh-Oh CRASH!

 

Outside Fun

We made outside one day when it was really warm. He loves to bury his feet.

  

 

Linking up to Preschool Corner! Check it out!

 

 

Circle Time at Home

As you already probably know, I have started Mother Goose Time again with my boys.

One aspect that I have never done with them before was Circle Time. At the suggestions of a fellow MGT-er Jenny (Thanks!!!) I decided to give it a try! So far, we are loving it.

Here is our new circle time area.

It is just a small corner of our room. I will explain all the part in a moment.

As you can see in the above image I have 2 cushions for the boys to sit on. They are labeled with their name. This is great for name identification and also to help both boys stay on their spot. This will be important when both boys go off to Kindergarten. Although Alligator is a bit young, being exposed to his name, and learning to identify it is a good up and coming skill.

Mom also has a name tag, but I don’t have a cushion. Although why not??? Don’t I deserve to be comfy…I think I need to change this!

Here you can see our Mother Goose Time Calendar, theme poster, and the nursery rhyme for the month. The boys take turns putting up the calendar number. We refer to our poster a lot through out the month as well. I like having the Nursery Rhyme up to help with word identification and other early literacy skills. I have a stuffed cat and bird to act out the nursery rhyme for this month.

I have my items set out for today’s lessons. On the magnet board is our daily poster, with today’s theme on it. You can see the lesson plan book behind the basket.

What I like best about this corner, is when we are all done. I put all of my materials in the basket and then put basket away. I then  put the cushions behind the couch, and the area is clear and the room can be played in with out me worrying about them messing up my stuff.

Tot School March 6, 2011

We started Mother Goose Time again. And I am so happy we did. Our theme is Birds and Eggs.

Art

Alligator made this craft. I couldn't get a picture of him making it, because he was sitting on my lap. We talked about the parts of a bird while we made it.

Here he is playing with it once it dried, we talked about open, and close with it.

Circle time

Here he is admiring our new circle time set up.

We are learning about ovals. Alligator and I were touching the ovals to different parts of our body.

 

Music

Alligator was playing the drums and his shaker eggs to the beat of the music. We love the MGT CD!

   

Linked up to Tot School.

Birds and Eggs Sensory Tub

Throughout the month of March (and slightly beyond) our theme will be Birds and Eggs. We are going to be using the curriculum kit from Mother Goose Time.

I decided to make up a sensory tub for the boys with the same theme.

Inside is some blue rice. To learn how to dye it try this link. I could have used bird seed, but we didn’t have any on hand. I like the small size of rice because the kids can practice pouring, scooping, measuring with it.

I also found some eggs from the dollar tree. They have a ribbon on them, I decided to leave them on so that we maybe could use them somehow. When I figure it out I will do a post about it. There are 2 of each colored egg, so that will be fun for matching.

I added some feathers.

Then I went through our toys and pulled out the birds I could find to add to the mix.

ENJOY!

Tot School

 

Outside Fun

Art

We made a green collage.

 

Puzzles

Alligator loves puzzles!

  

Alphabet learning

We have an old alphabet track that comes with a bus. All the track pieces are in the shape of letters. It is a Sesame Street toy, I bought from our local consignment store. Alligator loves letters. He is infatuated with this thing. So I finally put it together for him. We talk about each letter, and the sound it makes as he hands me pieces. then I put it together. At the end we watch the bus go round and round. He can identify some letters (both in naming them, and pointing at them). Not all but some, I am so proud.

 

Linked up to Tot School.

Preschool Corner St. Patrick’s Day Measuring

I found this wonderful site and I knew it was right up Monkey’s ally.
Here is the link. I changed her sheet to match some items we had on hand. I glued a leprechauns hat over the picture in the first space, and I glued a gold coin over the picture in the last space.
Here is what our sheet looked like.

The link above has 2 printable shamrocks. I let Monkey choose which one he wanted to measure.
Here he is counting how many hats long the shamrock is.

As you can see, in space 2 it asks you to measure using crayons. I thought he would lay them horizontally to measure. But no, he wanted to lay them vertically.
    
I am thinking that I can to an egg activity and a bird activity for him for our next unit on birds and eggs. Such a great idea….We loved it!
It woks on:
counting, measuring, writing numbers and a little bit of reading!
Linked up to preschool corner!

Green and St. Patrick’s Day Walls and Collage

 

With St. Patrick’s Day approaching, I decided this would be a good time to start teaching Alligator his colors. Obviously, we will start with green.

Me and Marie has some wonderful printable learning aids, and they aren’t that expensive. I purchased the St. Patrick’s Day bundle and the green bundle.

I have placed our Green wall dislpay in the kitchen. I put it there, because we spend a lot of time in there through out the day, so I thought it would give us lots of chances to mention the colors, and the items.

Here is what the display looks like. I cut out a big swatch of green construction paper, then put the green words underneath (after laminating), I also hung up the green song.

I also have a similar display in the play room. But this display is our St. Patrick’s Day display. I have the song in the middle, along with our vocabulary cards. As well as the shamrocks on our magnetic board, so that we can act out the song.

We also worked on a green collage. Alligator seemed to enjoy this, but it took a lot of coaxing at first. Monkey really wasn’t interested, but he did make me a nice bracelet.

   

While working on it Alligator kept sticking the happy face stickers on his nose. Too Cute!

Here is Alligator’s final product! To make it simpler for him, I pulled out things that were green. So he didn’t have to sort through to find green stuff. We used wrapping paper, ribbon, stickers, tissue paper, and a do a dotter.