word search

I made this super easy word search for the girls to do today to go along with our Dr. Seuss book ~ One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish! I will definately be making more for them to do using their sight words. Let me know if you are interested in these too so I can make them accessible for you.


dr._seuss_word_search.zip

red fish, blue fish

Yesterday, I had the kids color fish for a venn diagram activity. They could only use their red and blue crayons. After they cut their fish out, I told them we had to group our fish on the diagram. I asked them what fish we should put in the red circle, what fish should we put in the blue circle and what fish should we put in the middle? They did this activity two or three times. For the second time, we turned the fish over and they "fished" one and placed it in the corresponding circle.

dr. seuss

This week we are learning with One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish! Yesterday, I started the week off by reading the book to the kids. Then, they made up a rhyming story (3 sentence minium) and drew a picture to go along with their rhyme.
Ella, age 5 - "A flat mat had a flat cat. The cat had a flat bat. A bat had a rat on back."


Gracelyn, age 6 - "This is Flink. Flink likes to drink drink drink. Flink is a pink gink. Flink likes to wink wink wink."


They also did some patterns (abab, aabaab, aabbaabb) on a cute worksheet that I found on What the Teacher Wants.

me on the map

I saw this awesome idea on Pinterest! Once I saw it, I pinned it to my school board because I knew we would do it this year. I figured it would fit in nicely with our continent unit and help them see how learning about the continents relates to them. It was also a nice way to review our home address! The state, united states, north america and earth outline images all were found on google images.

map activity

Today I had the girls do a map activity that included listening skills and following directions. I provided them each with a blank world map. I would then call out a direction like, "Color Africa green. Color North America orange." and so on. I am amazed that they can already locate and identify all of the continents on the map. Oh, and they LOVE The Continent Song! The other activity that had to do today was copy work. Their least favorite!

The Continent Song -
Let's name all of the continents.
There are 7 on earth.
There's Europe, Asia and Australia
North and South America too.
Now don't forget about Africa
And Antarctica too.
For there's 1...2...3,4,5,6,7 continents!

map work

Today the girls made a world map by pin punching around each continent. We just used large push pins to punch around the continents. Why didn't we just use scissors, you ask? Because the contienets were small and I knew it would be hard for the girls to cut something that small and keep the shape of the contients. It was also really good practice for hand-eye coordination which is a necessary skill in writing. It was a lot of prep work on my part (my finger is still sore from using an exacto knife last night!), but I think the end result turned out nice!


materials -
pattern of continents
construction paper - orange, pink, red, green, yellow, brown, white and blue
large push pin
exacto knife
glue

directions -
1. print and cut out the paper templates
2. trace onto cardborad
3. use an exacto knife to cut around the continents
4. trace the continents onto the appropriate color of construction paper
5. have student pin punch around the outlines
6. cut 2 circles out of blue constructions paper
7. glue the continents onto the world

world geography

This week we will be learning about world geography. Each day they will do some type of work related to the continents. Today, we started out by learning that there are 7 continents. I made a push pin world map for them out of some very inexpensive materials. We also learned a song about the continents sung to the tune of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". I will be using the traditional Montessori continent colors for this unit: North America - Orange, South America - Pink, Europe - Red, Asia - Yellow, Africa - Green, Australia - Brown, Antarctica - White.




materials -
print out of the maps
2 sheets of foam
rubber cement
7 white push pins

directions -
1. print out the maps
2. cut out the 2 maps and glue each one onto a foam sheet
3. provide student with 7 push pins and the continent labels
4. the control map is the map already labeled with the continents; the other map is blank and that is where the student will do their work
5. have students pin each continent name onto the continent; students can use the control map to check their work

busy boy

Ethan has been busy at school, too. As with most 3 year olds, his attention span is only about 3-5 minutes per activity! Needlessly to say, he finishes "school" very quickly! Maybe next week I can offer him more activites. But, this week he has been busy -

pouring water

finger tracing ABC tactile cards

using his magnifying glass to look at small pictures and then match it on the board

cutting play dough

harold and the purple crayon

This week we have been rowing Harold and The Purple Crayon. We have done lots of different learning activities and an art project to go along with this book.

art -

materials - chenile sticks, pom-poms, button, sequins, felt shapes

Ethan, age 3 (had a little help!)
Gracelyn, age 6
Ella, age 5

math - fractions (1/2, 1/4 and 1/8)

cutting purple playdough pies into halves, fourths and eighths

exploring fractions

math journal - Harold had 12 pies. He ate 2 and gave 5 away. How many pies did he have left?

math journal - draw a triangle above a square. draw a circle next to a rectangle

copy work and poem -

illustrate a monster to go along with the poem

war!

This week we have been reviewing math concepts that we learned last year. To review greater than/less than, we played the classic card game - War! The kids really enjoyed this game too! They even challenged their granddad who is visting us this weekend to a game! I think they enjoyed how animated he made the game :) We only used playing cards 2-10 and took out the face cards.

go fish!

This week we have had fun playing Go Fish! during math. I can't take credit for this idea because it came from our math curriculum - Singapore Math 1a. It's a great idea and easy to make. While the girls can recognize numerals 1 - 10 and can count (one-to-one correspondence), they still needed help reading the number words. So, this game was perfect and fun for them!

materials -
30 blank index cards
magic markers

a set of 3 cards is a match!

read to learn ~ chrysanthemum

"Until Chrysanthemum started kindergarten, she believed her parents when they said her name was perfect. But on the first day of school, Chrysanthemum begins to suspect that her name is far less than perfect, especially when her class dissolves into giggles upon hearing her name read aloud. That evening, Chrysanthemum's parents try to piece her self-esteem back together again with comfort food and a night filled "with hugs, kisses, and Parcheesi." But the next day Victoria, a particularly observant and mean-spirited classmate, announces that Chrysanthemum's name takes up 13 letters. "That's half the letters in the alphabet!" she adds. Chrysanthemum wilts. Pretty soon the girls are making playground threats to "pluck" Chrysanthemum and "smell her."

We read this book last week and did a couple of learning activities to go along with it. We did a text to self writing activity and talked about adjectives.

writing prompt -
"If I could choose any name, I would choose ____________________ because____________________________________."

adjectives -
We took each letter of the girls name and thought of an adjective that started with that letter.

Great
rowdy
awesome
crazy
intellegent
elegant

Elegant
loving
loveable
awesome

*I would love for you to share a read to learn activity that you have done with your child/children!

math journals

This year I want to focus a little more on math than I did lastyear. We will be doing math journals every morning during our math time. Can I just say that the girls LOVE math journals (so far)! It's simple and inexpensive and a quick way to reinforce math skills already learned.

Monday's journal entry was to draw different shapes -

Ella, age 5

Gracelyn, age 6

Today's journal entry was to do 25 tally marks -

Ella, age 5

Gracelyn, age 6