since we will see him later in the evening for some bedtime star fun.
We start with a Mozart musical book after doing the alphabet.
Followed by a great picture book,
repetition is what I am after so we can do a few things with the song once they know it. It is one we sing quite often so this doesn't really take long.
And the pictures in this book are what lead me to most of the activity ideas to follow.We do motions next: Twinkle, twinkle: our fingers move and twinkle as we raise our hands, which are the stars, to the sky.
little star: We show what little means with our fingers.
How I wonder what you are:
Up!
Above the world so high!
Like a diamond in the sky.
I make up a song sheet with T is for twinkle handwriting tracing and picture words.
I show them an example of the song colored in, and direct them to do the same.
We talk about some of the shapes and pictures on the songsheet. I show Alex my own diamond on my finger, see how it sparkles. Just like a star.
We also discuss the world and how it is made of land and water and is in the shape of a circle. I tell them to color the little girl on the page to be you, with the right hair color and eyes.
After coloring the background black as night, our next activity is the main point to all of the other activities so far, I want Alex to "read" the song. I show her how to read the words with her fingers moving left to right and down to the next line. This is really hard for her, I realize she has no idea of the concept until now. I have placed their songs in plastic protectors to keep with their other bedtime books.
I show them an example of the song colored in, and direct them to do the same.We talk about some of the shapes and pictures on the songsheet. I show Alex my own diamond on my finger, see how it sparkles. Just like a star.
We also discuss the world and how it is made of land and water and is in the shape of a circle. I tell them to color the little girl on the page to be you, with the right hair color and eyes.After coloring the background black as night, our next activity is the main point to all of the other activities so far, I want Alex to "read" the song. I show her how to read the words with her fingers moving left to right and down to the next line. This is really hard for her, I realize she has no idea of the concept until now. I have placed their songs in plastic protectors to keep with their other bedtime books.
Next, we discuss the shapes and color of a star which matches her shirt. Using a circle shape and triangle shapes, we puzzle piece together our own star with five points.
I love her smile when she completes something. She is so happy and proud of herself.
I love her smile when she completes something. She is so happy and proud of herself.
Next we cut out two triangles and glue together a diamond.
And now for the messy part of our craft, do you see my table?? 
I try not to look or clean up, letting them have full control of their glittery stars and diamonds.
Amy joins us inbetween princess dressup.
Snack is quite fun. Allen has found star table decorations to go along with our snack and theme for the day. We add glitter points to our star cakes using hershey kisses,
followed by some star sugar confetti. Alex dumps almost the entire bottle onto her cake.
Our weather is cloudy but pleasant, so we take a walk outside. Alex takes a run instead.
It must be that all the sugar. She runs and runs all the way to Grandma's 
where we stop for a coffee break, another perk to doing preschool at home. Alex finally stops, too. This is her waiting for us slowpokes, as Amy and I are taking our sweet time.
We return to class to add stars to our stripes.
This leads us into a discussion of the world and how America is part of that world. We color our world blue for the water and brown for the land..
We color some stars that are up above the world so high.
We put it altogether in a mobile. One side shows a rocket ship BELOW the moon and ABOVE the world. 
Turn it over and we see the stars ABOVE the world. This ends our lesson on space and science.
After counting 1 through 20, we work on numbers by doing a Big and Little Dipper Dot-to-Dot that I have drawn on some blue construction paper. First, I show them a picture onlineof the star constellations and we talk about how there are pictures in the sky if we know where to look. I set out my own dipper pot and pans to give them a picture of what they are looking for as they connect the numbers.
And now for the messy part of our craft, do you see my table?? I try not to look or clean up, letting them have full control of their glittery stars and diamonds.Amy joins us inbetween princess dressup.
Snack is quite fun. Allen has found star table decorations to go along with our snack and theme for the day. We add glitter points to our star cakes using hershey kisses,
followed by some star sugar confetti. Alex dumps almost the entire bottle onto her cake.Our weather is cloudy but pleasant, so we take a walk outside. Alex takes a run instead.
It must be that all the sugar. She runs and runs all the way to Grandma's where we stop for a coffee break, another perk to doing preschool at home. Alex finally stops, too. This is her waiting for us slowpokes, as Amy and I are taking our sweet time.We return to class to add stars to our stripes.This leads us into a discussion of the world and how America is part of that world. We color our world blue for the water and brown for the land..
We color some stars that are up above the world so high.We put it altogether in a mobile. One side shows a rocket ship BELOW the moon and ABOVE the world. Turn it over and we see the stars ABOVE the world. This ends our lesson on space and science.After counting 1 through 20, we work on numbers by doing a Big and Little Dipper Dot-to-Dot that I have drawn on some blue construction paper. First, I show them a picture onlineof the star constellations and we talk about how there are pictures in the sky if we know where to look. I set out my own dipper pot and pans to give them a picture of what they are looking for as they connect the numbers.
Afterwards they add their own colorful foil stars to their night sky.
Stars bring us to another bedtime story and we end our class with a reading of
Perfect for counting backwards, after our first reading we make our own puppets. We talk about each animal. The book includes a section in the back on each animal's name and habitat. Alex wrinkles her nose at the platypus. All of our animals are from the "outback. . . with cool names like wombat, koala, and kangaroo that are fun to say. 
Using a doll bed we act out the story again with our puppets.
We sing the words of the song, here is Amy shouting out "Roll over!"
This is a fun ending to our day. In the days to come this is the "toy" of choice as I leave it out with the puppets and the book for them to play with.
"...there were 8 in the bed and the little one said, roll over, roll over!"
Here are a few homework pages that we work on for our day off, I pull out a lot of pages that have to do with our moon and star lessons ...the Great Bear constellation is from enchantedlearning.com...
and it is a hard one as I have trouble convincing Alex that the shape is a bear. She thinks it is a silly bear. But since bears will be the subject of our next few classes I include it and it is worth it just to hear Alex laugh.
We trace some A is for Astronaut and P is for Potato Head, and some Os in Moon and Boots on these coloring pages.
Amy colors Mr. Potato Head quite well.
We work on some number writing as well, three is extremely hard for her to do but she tries and she tries and that's all that matters.
Alex spends a lot of time on this color by number. This is her first one, and at first she is a little confused and only colors the numbers.
I am sneaking this one in from a couple weeks ago since I forgot it. She has been working hard on drawing her own shapes.
We also make our own constellations by first putting some foil sticker stars on some blue night sky. Next, they can connect their stars any way they like to make shapes or pictures
just like we see in the real night sky. I am impressed with Amy's, the one to the right. She connects her stars at the top in a pretty good line, and then even makes a stick person below it!
Alex as well does a great job on making her own shapes. This is such a hit.
Our night with Elmo and the stars begins that Tuesday evening on the same day that we do most of the above homework pages as well. This ends up to be a lot of fun for all as we pass the evening and both girls go to bed tired but content and happy, too, and I don't hear a peep from them five seconds after I shut their door for the night. Here's why...
I find this page in a coloring book that will begin our night with Elmo...
Next, Alex reads her Twinkle, Twinkle song, practicing and following the words and pictures.
With our PJ's on,
we read our bedtime stories
Good night, Elmo! is an interactive book. On each page are stars to count and move around according to the words.
Amy works hard at buttoning up Elmo's pajamas and she does it all by herself. I miss it the first time, so she does it again so mom can see her do it.
Our pillow book is a lot of fun as we say good night to all the characters on Sesame Street. The girls cuddle up with Elmo.
I purchase a glow-in-the-dark sand kit at Walmart for about five bucks. I tell the girls we are going to make our very own moon dust creatures to light up our bedroom at night. I embellish a little and tell them the sand is really from the moon along with some star dust as well. They are "starstruck!"
Taking the pictures while I help pour the sand is hard to do. They love telling me when to stop for each color that they choose to fill their little plastic sand bottle, making a rainbow of beautiful colors. I am having as much fun as they are. It really is a pretty bottle when they get done..
Using pom poms, googly eyes and pipe cleaners we glue legs, arms, eyes and noses to our critters.
Ta Da! Alex loves her little alien.
Can't miss the nose on Amy's cute little glow creature.
I guess we should thank our lucky stars , because the next morning we wake up to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse friends going to the moon as Alex informs me with great excitement.
They even do star constellation shapes, wow!
...and build moon sand castles, this is exciting for my little space cadets who know all about it, I can't stop laughing as I watch them revel in what they already know as they point out the world and rocketship. What they don't know is that I have been searching for an episode of Little Einsteins since the weekend, trying to find one that includes Mozart to go along with our learning, I guess I was searching the wrong show. 
since Saturday happens to be Hug-A-Bear Day, and will tie in nicely with our bear lessons the rest of this week.
Someone is sitting in teacher's chair! (hint for the story we are going to be doing this class)
Is it a scary bear? No! It's just a giant old teddy bear I tell my students when we arrive, as I give him a big squeeze.
They are having a good time as they watch teacher, and give their own teddy bears a squeeze, too.
Our exercise is the Teddy Bear song:
Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground...
For How Do You Feel, we draw bear faces instead.
Activity 1 begins with the classic reading of Corduroy by Don Freeman, another one of C.J.'s, I can't find it but youtube comes to the rescue as there is a reading of it already done for us to watch and listen to. T is for teddy bear, so our craft today is Corduroy the teddy bear.
I find a great printable off one of my favorite sites, http://www.first-school.ws/.
After coloring and tracing letter T, we thread yarn through holes to sew our teddy bear together. This one is great for fine motor skills as I watch their little fingers work, even teacher feels like she's all thumbs as she trys to help with this one.
Next Alex traces a C onto Corduroy's green overalls.
Amy demonstrates what pockets are, and where to find them so we can glue Corduroy's on in the right spot.
Check out the tongue sticking out and her head high in the air, as she is very proud to be chosen for this special job.
Our Corduroy bear overalls are glued just to the top of teddy's shoulders so that we can still see our handiwork underneath.
Amy's finished bear, complete with one button glued on (thank you, Grandma for saving all those extra buttons) and one buttone missing (if you are not familiar with this great story, you need to be, check it out on youtube.)
We do the song with hand motions, here they are doing "Papa's porridge was much too hot!"
...and here they are singing "See 3 beds."
We read the story one more time. I have printed out the words off the web, and this is strictly a listening exercise. All the repetition with the song and the extra reading have a purpose, and have been leading up to my final exercise for this story. Also from the First School website, I find a printable for Goldilocks that shows the different sized bowls, chairs and beds....
Perfect for counting backwards, after our first reading we make our own puppets. We talk about each animal. The book includes a section in the back on each animal's name and habitat. Alex wrinkles her nose at the platypus. All of our animals are from the "outback. . . with cool names like wombat, koala, and kangaroo that are fun to say. Using a doll bed we act out the story again with our puppets.
We sing the words of the song, here is Amy shouting out "Roll over!"This is a fun ending to our day. In the days to come this is the "toy" of choice as I leave it out with the puppets and the book for them to play with. "...there were 8 in the bed and the little one said, roll over, roll over!"Here are a few homework pages that we work on for our day off, I pull out a lot of pages that have to do with our moon and star lessons ...the Great Bear constellation is from enchantedlearning.com...and it is a hard one as I have trouble convincing Alex that the shape is a bear. She thinks it is a silly bear. But since bears will be the subject of our next few classes I include it and it is worth it just to hear Alex laugh.We trace some A is for Astronaut and P is for Potato Head, and some Os in Moon and Boots on these coloring pages.
Amy colors Mr. Potato Head quite well.
We work on some number writing as well, three is extremely hard for her to do but she tries and she tries and that's all that matters.Alex spends a lot of time on this color by number. This is her first one, and at first she is a little confused and only colors the numbers.
I am sneaking this one in from a couple weeks ago since I forgot it. She has been working hard on drawing her own shapes.We also make our own constellations by first putting some foil sticker stars on some blue night sky. Next, they can connect their stars any way they like to make shapes or pictures
just like we see in the real night sky. I am impressed with Amy's, the one to the right. She connects her stars at the top in a pretty good line, and then even makes a stick person below it!
Alex as well does a great job on making her own shapes. This is such a hit.
Our night with Elmo and the stars begins that Tuesday evening on the same day that we do most of the above homework pages as well. This ends up to be a lot of fun for all as we pass the evening and both girls go to bed tired but content and happy, too, and I don't hear a peep from them five seconds after I shut their door for the night. Here's why...
I find this page in a coloring book that will begin our night with Elmo...
Next, Alex reads her Twinkle, Twinkle song, practicing and following the words and pictures.With our PJ's on,
we read our bedtime storiesGood night, Elmo! is an interactive book. On each page are stars to count and move around according to the words.
Amy works hard at buttoning up Elmo's pajamas and she does it all by herself. I miss it the first time, so she does it again so mom can see her do it.Our pillow book is a lot of fun as we say good night to all the characters on Sesame Street. The girls cuddle up with Elmo.
I purchase a glow-in-the-dark sand kit at Walmart for about five bucks. I tell the girls we are going to make our very own moon dust creatures to light up our bedroom at night. I embellish a little and tell them the sand is really from the moon along with some star dust as well. They are "starstruck!"
Taking the pictures while I help pour the sand is hard to do. They love telling me when to stop for each color that they choose to fill their little plastic sand bottle, making a rainbow of beautiful colors. I am having as much fun as they are. It really is a pretty bottle when they get done..Using pom poms, googly eyes and pipe cleaners we glue legs, arms, eyes and noses to our critters.
Ta Da! Alex loves her little alien.Can't miss the nose on Amy's cute little glow creature.
I guess we should thank our lucky stars , because the next morning we wake up to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse friends going to the moon as Alex informs me with great excitement.
They even do star constellation shapes, wow! ...and build moon sand castles, this is exciting for my little space cadets who know all about it, I can't stop laughing as I watch them revel in what they already know as they point out the world and rocketship. What they don't know is that I have been searching for an episode of Little Einsteins since the weekend, trying to find one that includes Mozart to go along with our learning, I guess I was searching the wrong show. Wednesday
__________________________________________________________________
This past weekend we make a visit to Build-A-Bear Workshop
since Saturday happens to be Hug-A-Bear Day, and will tie in nicely with our bear lessons the rest of this week.Someone is sitting in teacher's chair! (hint for the story we are going to be doing this class)
Is it a scary bear? No! It's just a giant old teddy bear I tell my students when we arrive, as I give him a big squeeze.
They are having a good time as they watch teacher, and give their own teddy bears a squeeze, too.
Our exercise is the Teddy Bear song:
Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground...
For How Do You Feel, we draw bear faces instead.
Activity 1 begins with the classic reading of Corduroy by Don Freeman, another one of C.J.'s, I can't find it but youtube comes to the rescue as there is a reading of it already done for us to watch and listen to. T is for teddy bear, so our craft today is Corduroy the teddy bear.I find a great printable off one of my favorite sites, http://www.first-school.ws/.
After coloring and tracing letter T, we thread yarn through holes to sew our teddy bear together. This one is great for fine motor skills as I watch their little fingers work, even teacher feels like she's all thumbs as she trys to help with this one.
Next Alex traces a C onto Corduroy's green overalls.
Amy demonstrates what pockets are, and where to find them so we can glue Corduroy's on in the right spot.
Check out the tongue sticking out and her head high in the air, as she is very proud to be chosen for this special job.
Our Corduroy bear overalls are glued just to the top of teddy's shoulders so that we can still see our handiwork underneath. Amy's finished bear, complete with one button glued on (thank you, Grandma for saving all those extra buttons) and one buttone missing (if you are not familiar with this great story, you need to be, check it out on youtube.)We must get in one more story that will lead into our snack for today. We can't do a lesson on bears without a reading of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Besides teddy bears, I ask my students, what other kinds of bears are there? How about the ones that are real and live outside? We watch and listen to a reading of Goldilocks on youtube, did I say how much I love youtube? It gives me a break from reading, someone else has done all the work and I can just sit back and enjoy the story right along with them.
We head back to circle for a song. I make my own poster drawing for this sing song that I find on another blog online, what a cute idea! The net has been the best source for teaching, hands down. We sing the song below to the tune of Three blind mice, I point to the words, numbers and pictures as we sing.
We do the song with hand motions, here they are doing "Papa's porridge was much too hot!"...and here they are singing "See 3 beds."
We read the story one more time. I have printed out the words off the web, and this is strictly a listening exercise. All the repetition with the song and the extra reading have a purpose, and have been leading up to my final exercise for this story. Also from the First School website, I find a printable for Goldilocks that shows the different sized bowls, chairs and beds....I cut out the pictures from this handout...
plus this site also has Goldilocks and the Three Bears puppets. I color everything, and
come up with my own exercise to test their memory, listening and recognition skills.
The "game" starts when teacher reads a line from the story, such as "This porridge is too hot!" Alex must then answer the questions using her puppets and the cutouts of the bowls, chairs, and beds. I state, "So, Alex, whose porridge is too hot?(Papa bear)...and who said that the porridge is too hot(Goldilocks)...and which porridge bowl is it, point or show me the right one..." A lot of thinking goes on with this one! We do this game for every single statement in the story (This chair is too big, whose chair is too big, who said that? which chair is it?...Someones's been eating my porridge and they ate it all up!, who said that, who ate it all up?, point to the porridge bowl...Someone's been sitting in my soft chair...Someone's been sleeping in my bed and she's still there!) I am so pleased with this, Alex is having a lot of fun and it is challenging for her as she must spend a lot of time thinking about the story. 
plus this site also has Goldilocks and the Three Bears puppets. I color everything, andcome up with my own exercise to test their memory, listening and recognition skills.
The "game" starts when teacher reads a line from the story, such as "This porridge is too hot!" Alex must then answer the questions using her puppets and the cutouts of the bowls, chairs, and beds. I state, "So, Alex, whose porridge is too hot?(Papa bear)...and who said that the porridge is too hot(Goldilocks)...and which porridge bowl is it, point or show me the right one..." A lot of thinking goes on with this one! We do this game for every single statement in the story (This chair is too big, whose chair is too big, who said that? which chair is it?...Someones's been eating my porridge and they ate it all up!, who said that, who ate it all up?, point to the porridge bowl...Someone's been sitting in my soft chair...Someone's been sleeping in my bed and she's still there!) I am so pleased with this, Alex is having a lot of fun and it is challenging for her as she must spend a lot of time thinking about the story. Whew! That was a lot of hard work! So we rest up with a fun story that is the author's version of what happens after Goldilocks runs away. Those bears go to Goldilocks house and make a big mess. With cute pictues and words, "These Munchos are too crunchy!" as they raid the cereal bowls...
But the biggest laugh happens when the house they raid happens to be the big bad wolf's house...
But the biggest laugh happens when the house they raid happens to be the big bad wolf's house...While they take a play break, teacher sets up snack. They arrive to the table but three bears have taken over! With a big, medium, and small bowl...I start to act out the story, "someone has been sitting in my chair! Someone has been eating my porridge!"
...Alex must finish acting it out by testing each bowl of "porridge" (instant oatmeal, one I have heated up very hot, the other is cold, and of course the little one is just right!)
...Alex must finish acting it out by testing each bowl of "porridge" (instant oatmeal, one I have heated up very hot, the other is cold, and of course the little one is just right!)This porridge it too hot!
But as you can tell by their faces, this porridge is just right! They split the little bowl,while teacher takes on Papa Bear's hot bowl.
But as you can tell by their faces, this porridge is just right! They split the little bowl,while teacher takes on Papa Bear's hot bowl.After our porridge it s time to head outdoors on this beautiful and unusually warm November day. But first! Yes, it's another story! I discovered this book with Alex at toddler time a couple years ago. At the year's end, each child was allowed to pick a book, and Alex ran straight for this one, neither of us could forget the fun story reading by Miss Cheryl, our librarian. An entire family decides to go outsite on a bear hunt but they must face a deep dark forest, long grass, mud, the howling wind...each page states "Oh no! We can't go under it, we can't go over it, we have to go through it!"...complete with sound effects for each one, squelch squerch! sounds for the mud...
Can you guess what we are going to do when we get outside? I test out the video camera so you can see how much excitement this book, We're Going on a Bear Hunt, brings.
Can you guess what we are going to do when we get outside? I test out the video camera so you can see how much excitement this book, We're Going on a Bear Hunt, brings.I can't tell you how much fun this Bear Hunt outside is, I should have continued to film but I didn't...otherwise you could have heard them repeating words from the book, tiptoeing and whispering "We're going on a bear hunt, we're gonna catch a big one, tiptoe, tiptoe through the deep dark forest, and running through grass that is swishy, swash, swishy swash." I do have a plan, one of my favorite pasttimes is putting cute outdoor decorations along our trails, so I know what and where they will find a said bear, so as we come up to the trail I start to growl and roar. Amy is terrified while Alex plays along right with me, including acting surprised when we finally see it, or maybe she isn't acting, it is hard to tell, 
all I know is that this is one of the funnest moments with my girls that I will remember and treasure forever.
We come back inside for a reading of Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What do you See? Eric Carle's picture books end up being a lot of fun over the next couple weeks, they want to do the exercise over and over again. I am so pleased that I thought of this cool idea. Using a color copy from the back of the book, we color and make puppets after the reading. All of this is in the hopes that they will recognize and remember the animals in sequence for our main activity.
Here is Alex doing the activity. Using her colored puppets she reads the entire book. I can't believe both girls' memories, they remember the book almost for word after two readings, one with the book and one with the puppets where I sit down and show them how. C.J. is just home from school and afterwards asks how the heck she knows it so well, I am so proud. What a great idea with this series. (We will do another one for another class as I have rented them all at the library.) We give C.J. a hard time, and it is comical to watch, as Alex and I attack him I realize later, and I notice he leaves the room! Poor C.J. He won't be interrupting again, poor guy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuiUy44dq0k
all I know is that this is one of the funnest moments with my girls that I will remember and treasure forever.
We come back inside for a reading of Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What do you See? Eric Carle's picture books end up being a lot of fun over the next couple weeks, they want to do the exercise over and over again. I am so pleased that I thought of this cool idea. Using a color copy from the back of the book, we color and make puppets after the reading. All of this is in the hopes that they will recognize and remember the animals in sequence for our main activity.Here is Alex doing the activity. Using her colored puppets she reads the entire book. I can't believe both girls' memories, they remember the book almost for word after two readings, one with the book and one with the puppets where I sit down and show them how. C.J. is just home from school and afterwards asks how the heck she knows it so well, I am so proud. What a great idea with this series. (We will do another one for another class as I have rented them all at the library.) We give C.J. a hard time, and it is comical to watch, as Alex and I attack him I realize later, and I notice he leaves the room! Poor C.J. He won't be interrupting again, poor guy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuiUy44dq0k
After our counting, I make up our own counting worksheet from the Baby Bear book. Which animals have 4 legs? Which animals have 2? How about none?
Our last counting exercise and an end to our day is a gummy one. I have a bag filled with different color gummy bears that I have counted out ahead of time. I can't take any credit for this one, this is the coolest idea yet that I get off the web, I think it is from Enchanted Learning (thanks, Jamie!). Using a gummy bear color chart printed from the site, Alex must chart her gummies according to color.
She is really enjoying this one, taking her time, going slowly as she chooses what gummy color she wants to put on next, I am so excited to see the end result that I have to stop myself from telling her to hurry up, so I grab a cup of coffee and enjoy watching and chatting gummy bear talk with her as she goes.
Our last counting exercise and an end to our day is a gummy one. I have a bag filled with different color gummy bears that I have counted out ahead of time. I can't take any credit for this one, this is the coolest idea yet that I get off the web, I think it is from Enchanted Learning (thanks, Jamie!). Using a gummy bear color chart printed from the site, Alex must chart her gummies according to color.
She is really enjoying this one, taking her time, going slowly as she chooses what gummy color she wants to put on next, I am so excited to see the end result that I have to stop myself from telling her to hurry up, so I grab a cup of coffee and enjoy watching and chatting gummy bear talk with her as she goes.
She is smelling those gummies and so am I. She keeps asking teacher if they are candy and can she eat one. I realize she has never had a gummy bear before! Mean teacher makes her wait until she is done, because if we start eating them there will be none for our chart.
There are counting questions at the bottom of the graph...how many orange bears do you have?...Which column has the most...the least? She has trouble with that word "least" and keeps pointing to the wrong pile. It is hard to explain as I say it is the littlest pile.
But this one is all about the beauty for my romantic Alex, she comments on how pretty it looks. It really does look like stained glass with the sun shining through on our rainbow of gummy bears. I love her satisfied smile. Alex teaches me patience as she sits and just admires her beautiful creation, I stop and realize how much my own children are the ones who slow me down. To just admire something that I would probably miss in my always rushing around stressed out state, preschool is teaching me plenty, too.
Ahhh, gummy bears, they are so goooood as we engulf our chart. Such a sweet and beautiful ending...
_Friday________________________________________________________________
We start our day with Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear exercises, following by the book Deep in the Forest by Brinton Turkle. I have one request with this book, and that is the girls must tell the story as there are no words, only beautiful pictures showing our Goldilocks story, but this time it has a clever twist, a baby bear makes his way into Goldilocks house. I have to coax them to read it though, they are being shy, I want to see how well they remember our stor. Alex says the words very softly, she knows them, she just won't say it!
We follow with summertime, and it is raining blueberries down on our bear cub so we paste a cloud, and fingerpaint our blueberries over the ones in the picture.
For each page, the girls spend a lot of time coloring, they are really enjoying this, and we spend such a relaxing time chatting and being creative, they really start to talk and this activity stretches into almost a full hour! For our fall season picture, bear in now old, and I spend some time talking about how bears sleep all winter and our old bear will need a cave so we glue one on and add some colorful leaves to represent autumn.
Now our bear is hibernating, so we add some cotton ball snow to our winter picture...
But we can always count on the return of spring so we end with old bear waking up on a beautiful spring day complete with grass that Alex cuts into strips for our old bear to walk on. We then add some spring stickers to our scene...butterflies, bugs, and flowers complete our season.
And now we put it all together in our 4-seasons poster.
After working so hard, we take a break with a great Scholastic dvd that Alex has been asking about since it is her favorite story every year at this time. We hear and watch a story reading of Alex's all time favorite book, and mine as well, Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson. Afterwards we go to circle to test their listening skills, as I ask them questions about the story that I think are somewhat hard but Alex does pretty well. What animal comes into the cave first?...And what does the mouse do?..Start a fire!...What animal arrives next with mouse? Rabbit!...And what do they do together? Make popcorn and tea...Do you know what animals come next? Badger brings the nuts, and then it's the gopher, mole, wren and raven ( I help her remember this one but that's the only one). Why does Bear start crying when he wakes up? Alex isn't sure. I explain it's because he thinks the animals are all having a party without him, and he has hurt feelings. What do the animals do to make bear happy? Pop more corn and make more tea!....
Next I teach them a cute poem / song that we do with hand motions, our fingers make the cave and our thumb is the bear:
"Here is a cave, inside is a bear, now he comes out to get some fresh air. He stays out all summer in sunshine and hot weather. He hunts in the forest for berries to eat. When snow starts to fall, he hurries inside to his warm little cave. And there he will hide, snow covers the cave like a fluffy white blanket. Inside the bear sleeps all cozy and protected." I find this on the web and change some of the words because I like it better!
Snack is the biggest hit yet, and all weekend, Daddy is making them bear caves over and over to munch on. So simple, just a graham cracker cave held together with peanut butter and a gummy bear inside. They just love it, and are so delighted, I love to watch them play with their bears better than some toys we have.
Also included for snack are homemade blueberry muffins, both girls love blueberries like our bears, amazingly it is one other fruit that they will eat with no coaxing.
There are counting questions at the bottom of the graph...how many orange bears do you have?...Which column has the most...the least? She has trouble with that word "least" and keeps pointing to the wrong pile. It is hard to explain as I say it is the littlest pile.
But this one is all about the beauty for my romantic Alex, she comments on how pretty it looks. It really does look like stained glass with the sun shining through on our rainbow of gummy bears. I love her satisfied smile. Alex teaches me patience as she sits and just admires her beautiful creation, I stop and realize how much my own children are the ones who slow me down. To just admire something that I would probably miss in my always rushing around stressed out state, preschool is teaching me plenty, too. Ahhh, gummy bears, they are so goooood as we engulf our chart. Such a sweet and beautiful ending..._Friday________________________________________________________________
We start our day with Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear exercises, following by the book Deep in the Forest by Brinton Turkle. I have one request with this book, and that is the girls must tell the story as there are no words, only beautiful pictures showing our Goldilocks story, but this time it has a clever twist, a baby bear makes his way into Goldilocks house. I have to coax them to read it though, they are being shy, I want to see how well they remember our stor. Alex says the words very softly, she knows them, she just won't say it!
After our alphabet and doing our 3 Bears poem and poster (sung to the tune of 3 Blind Mice, the same one from the other class) , Activity 1 begins with Old Bear by Kevin Henkes, a beautiful book with watercolor pictures, and great themes going on in the book as we watch time pass through seasons, and our baby bear cub changes into an old bear, we go full circle from a baby in spring to waking up the next spring as an old bear. For this class we will be talking about seasons and our trees again. I make black and white copies from our bear book for each season. We jump right into our craft for the day by coloring the pages of each season, as I talk and repeat with them each season's name. I add some handwriting C is for Cub and O for Old Bear. Here Alex is cutting her sun rays to glue on her spring scene.
We follow with summertime, and it is raining blueberries down on our bear cub so we paste a cloud, and fingerpaint our blueberries over the ones in the picture.For each page, the girls spend a lot of time coloring, they are really enjoying this, and we spend such a relaxing time chatting and being creative, they really start to talk and this activity stretches into almost a full hour! For our fall season picture, bear in now old, and I spend some time talking about how bears sleep all winter and our old bear will need a cave so we glue one on and add some colorful leaves to represent autumn.Now our bear is hibernating, so we add some cotton ball snow to our winter picture...But we can always count on the return of spring so we end with old bear waking up on a beautiful spring day complete with grass that Alex cuts into strips for our old bear to walk on. We then add some spring stickers to our scene...butterflies, bugs, and flowers complete our season. And now we put it all together in our 4-seasons poster.After working so hard, we take a break with a great Scholastic dvd that Alex has been asking about since it is her favorite story every year at this time. We hear and watch a story reading of Alex's all time favorite book, and mine as well, Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson. Afterwards we go to circle to test their listening skills, as I ask them questions about the story that I think are somewhat hard but Alex does pretty well. What animal comes into the cave first?...And what does the mouse do?..Start a fire!...What animal arrives next with mouse? Rabbit!...And what do they do together? Make popcorn and tea...Do you know what animals come next? Badger brings the nuts, and then it's the gopher, mole, wren and raven ( I help her remember this one but that's the only one). Why does Bear start crying when he wakes up? Alex isn't sure. I explain it's because he thinks the animals are all having a party without him, and he has hurt feelings. What do the animals do to make bear happy? Pop more corn and make more tea!....
Next I teach them a cute poem / song that we do with hand motions, our fingers make the cave and our thumb is the bear:
"Here is a cave, inside is a bear, now he comes out to get some fresh air. He stays out all summer in sunshine and hot weather. He hunts in the forest for berries to eat. When snow starts to fall, he hurries inside to his warm little cave. And there he will hide, snow covers the cave like a fluffy white blanket. Inside the bear sleeps all cozy and protected." I find this on the web and change some of the words because I like it better!Snack is the biggest hit yet, and all weekend, Daddy is making them bear caves over and over to munch on. So simple, just a graham cracker cave held together with peanut butter and a gummy bear inside. They just love it, and are so delighted, I love to watch them play with their bears better than some toys we have.
Also included for snack are homemade blueberry muffins, both girls love blueberries like our bears, amazingly it is one other fruit that they will eat with no coaxing.Another beautiful November day, I can't believe it, so we head outside, with another bear mission. Winter is coming and shouldn't we help our bear find a cave? So we go back to our bear, 
and we also find another one on the way, so we help two bears get ready for winter, 
hopefully they will stay warm and dry through the long winter hibernation. And hopefully brother does not decide to go out to his summer camping shelter or he will get a great big roar I tell the girls, since that is where we put them.
and we also find another one on the way, so we help two bears get ready for winter, hopefully they will stay warm and dry through the long winter hibernation. And hopefully brother does not decide to go out to his summer camping shelter or he will get a great big roar I tell the girls, since that is where we put them.After our number song 1 to 20, we read Let's Count it Out, Jessie Bear, perfect since we have to count items 1 through 20 in the book.
A star counting page...
We also read The Furry Bedtime Bood, which is all about a bear cub and his momma.
The bear cub worries about a tree branch and the wind lifting him out the window into the sky...
But momma tells her baby that she will go after him..."Dear Lovie, we will laugh and dance, and float as far as Paris, France." This book is dear to my heart and I know the words by heart since it is one that I would read to C.J. at bedtime and the words rang true as my son had to leave all the time since he was two years old, and it was so hard for him to do and this book really helped up both through some rough times when we couldn't be with eachother.
A star counting page...We also read The Furry Bedtime Bood, which is all about a bear cub and his momma.
The bear cub worries about a tree branch and the wind lifting him out the window into the sky...
But momma tells her baby that she will go after him..."Dear Lovie, we will laugh and dance, and float as far as Paris, France." This book is dear to my heart and I know the words by heart since it is one that I would read to C.J. at bedtime and the words rang true as my son had to leave all the time since he was two years old, and it was so hard for him to do and this book really helped up both through some rough times when we couldn't be with eachother.From enchantedlearning.com, I love this site!, I find a star counting book. I want to really work on writing our numbers 1 through ten so this is perfect.
After counting the number of stars, even the star points, and coloring, she then will trace the numbers...
we end our week here, with our star book becoming our homework as well.
After counting the number of stars, even the star points, and coloring, she then will trace the numbers...we end our week here, with our star book becoming our homework as well.
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