January week 2

Tuesday:  The kids did a matching worksheet today.  Most of the kids were able to cut out the shapes and match them!  They have made a lot of improvement with cutting.  Keep practicing at home!  We also talked about the brain today.  We talked about how the skull protects the soft brain, and when you wear a helmet it protects your head in the same way!  Next, I showed them an egg in a tupperware container.  When I shook it the egg broke.  Then I filled up the container with water and an egg.  When I shook it the egg did not break.  We concluded that the brain has liquid around it to keep it from bruising too easily.  I had the kids draw a still life painting of flowers.  We talked about how even though it is the same picture, our brains interpret it differently.  We had a great time doing our songs at the end of the day!

Today we talked about the heart.  We pumped our hands just like a heart pumps!  We moved faster and pumped faster, and we pretended to sleep and pumped slower.  We talked about how important it is to exercise to keep our hearts healthy!  We did a few letter review games including a hunt for snowman parts with the letter h on them, and a letter match up with upper case and lowercase. 

January week 1

Thursday:  I introduced our new topic, "The Body".  Today I traced the kids' outlines onto paper and over the course of the month we will add features to it.  Today we talked about the five senses.  I had a bag with the items pictured below in it.  Each one can be experienced with all, some, or one specific sense.  We had a good time talking about each one and naming them.  We also talked about the letter H and Hopped like bunnies, waved Hi with our Hands, and found other actions that began with the letter H.  We talked about the letter sound and practiced writing it together.  I asked the kids about each of their senses and what they liked to touch, see, hear, taste, and feel best.  I wrote their answers down on their body tracing.  

Week 15 Christmas Party

For our christmas party we played a letter review game where the kids rolled a dice to land on a letter.  They each made their way to Santa's house and won a prize!  We made a marble run together while we waited for all our friends to arrive.  We decorated ice cream cones as Christmas trees and we danced and sang to our favorite Christmas songs! What a fun day!

Week 14 December

Today we talked about the three wise men and read a book about their journey to see Christ.  I asked the kids what they would bring baby Jesus.  They said, diapers, toys, a baby rattle, and a baby sized skateboard.  These kids are so cute. I told them that we actually can give gifts to baby Jesus because serving others is serving God.  We worked on a christmas tree ornament and the upper case G.

Thursday we worked on a math game where the kids rolled a dice and then had to color in the number on the christmas lights.  It was a great way to practice reading and recognizing numbers.  We also worked on cutting skills.  Everyone should practice cutting at home, it builds great hand strength and is going to be helpful in the second half of the school year.  I remind the kids to keep their thumbs up, because if they are holding the scissors correctly their thumbnail should be up and visible.  It was also Baby Glori's birthday today, we sang to her and played birthday bowling.  

Week 13

December will focus on the theme  "I can be giving".  We talked a lot about how fun it is to give presents, and that they do not have to cost money.  The best presents are things we can do for others.  the kids all spent some time thinking of things they could do for their family members.  They also practiced writing out their family names.  It was great writing practice!  

Thursday:  We started our new christmas songs, "Jingle Bells" and "Let the Bells Ring". We sing both of these with hand bells.  We also practiced the letter F and went on a letter hunt to practice our lower case letters.  

 We celebrated Lincoln's birthday!  He brought in amazing donuts and we played birthday bowling!

Week 12 Thanksgiving

Tuesday:We started with block puzzles while we waited for all our friends to arrive.  We painted with legos to make corn decorations for our thanksgiving table.  Today the kids also worked on tracing the alphabet.  This took a lot of concentration from the kids--it was hard!  The kids are all gaining more hand strength as they keep writing.  

Thursday: We had so much fun the day of the feast!  We had a lesson about the first pilgrims and their journey to the new land.  The kids all got to play a part in retelling the story.  The kids each shared their snack they brought and nicely passed it out.  Everyone practiced saying please and thank you as they got snack. It was a great day!

Week 11

Tuesday: Thankful for good friends

We started our morning routine and made a list of what good friends do (as pictured).  We also sang, the more we get together and pointed to each friend as we said their names.  During free play the kids picked out colors for friendship bracelets and I made each child one while talking about what I liked about them as a friend.  It is always so fun to talk to the kids one on one!  We read the book "Girl and the Gorilla" which is about getting a long with friends.  We also made portraits of each other.  We paired off and spent time studying each other and carefully drawing what we saw.  We also made "friend-ships" and went around the table saying what we liked about each person.  It was good practice talking directly to each other and saying positive thngs about everyone!

Thursday:  Thankful for Pilgrims

We did our morning routine and then during free play I called up each child to review the letters we have learned so far.  Every child did great saying each letter and practicing the sound.  We also practiced writing.  Don't worry if your child's letters are shaky they are still building the right muscles to write smoothly.  Here are some letter formation charts I teach:

https://www.hwtears.com/bts/formationcharts

Letter formation is important because if done correctly it allows the kids to write quickly and neatly.  Once they can do this they can focus on what they want to write instead of how to write it.  Most of the kids are still writing from bottom to top--that is a normal stage of writing literacy.  Everyone is doing very well according to their age and developmental stage. We read a pilgrim story and talked about the first thanksgiving.  We also started our table decoration for next weeks feast.  The kids used legos to paint paper and we are going to cut them out next week to look like corn cobs.

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