September 8-11: Apples!

We spent this week learning about apples. Sorry for the lack of lesson plan, but I've had a lack of energy this week. I will try to post some of our other activities later this weekend, but I thought I'd share a few art projects we did.

Apple Cut out project

Materials: construction paper, markers, crayons or paint in apple colors
Activity: Trace out an apple shape onto your construction paper. For younger children cut the shape, for preschool age children allow them to cut the shape themself. Have children color or paint their apple. This is a great time to talk about the different colors of apples. Add details- such as stem and leaf. I added the letter A to the apple since that was a focus letter for us this week.

A is for Apples!

Materials: Construction paper cut outs of apples and a big letter A and glue sticks
Activity: Have the children paste the apples to the letter A, focusing on the fact that Apple starts with A and the sound of A.

Fingerprint Apple Tree

Materials: Green construction paper, brown construction paper, red paint, scissors and glue stick
Activity: Either pre-cut or have your child cut out a tree top and trunk. Use the glue stick to appropriately assemble the pieces. Using their finger your child with print apples onto their apple tree. Great project to do when introducing the Apple Tree Fingerplay.

My Name Painting

Materials: construction paper, paint, paint brushes, and contact paper or masking tape
Activity: To prep, cut out letters of your child's name from contact paper and stick onto construction paper. If you don't have contact paper, you can use masking tape to form the letters. Next, have your child paint over the letters. Once dry peel up letters and your child's name will be left in the paint.

September 1: Letter A coloring page, Finger painting and Crunch Munch Mix

Letter A coloring page: Today we have introduced letter A and colored a letter A coloring sheet. The sheets I use are very basic. Today's paper had a large apple picture and the letter A at the top. I am using very basic sheets because the kids I am working with are 2 years old. For older children, you can use sheets where they may trace or attempt to write the letter on their own. For my purposes, I am using the sheet as a basic introduction to upper case letters and to expand vocabulary words.

Some resources for finding alphabet pages:
Alphabet Coloring Pages
DLTK Alphabet Coloring pages (variety)
ABC Printing Pages
Alphabet Activities (various printables)
First School Alphabet activity pages

*There are lots of resources out there for alphabet learning. If you have a link you'd like to share, please post it in the comments section. Thanks!

Finger Painting
Materials: paint, paper, fingers
Activity: Kids use fingers to paint on paper. You can also tailor this to go with theme(s) you are currently working with. Example: If you are doing apple activities you can finger paint with red, green and yellow for apple colors.

Crunch Munch Mix:
Ingredients: banana chips (i broke these up so they wouldn't be a choking hazard), chocolate chips, cherry craisins, cinnamon graham goldfish, banana nut cheerios, and almond slivers.
Directions: Put 1 cup of each ingredient into a big ziplock (1 for each child) and have them shake. Eat some as a snack and save the rest to take home or eat later! :)

Other things we are doing today:
Singing "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" and reading accompanying book.
Discussing parts of our bodies and reading Pooh Has Ears.
Counting out 5 red m&ms for our after lunch treat (and to practice our rational counting).
Taking photos for our All About Me! booklets.

Happy Learning!

September 1-4: All About Me

This week we will be learning about ourselves. Specifically our activities will focus on our names, feelings, and bodies. We will also focus on the letter A and the number 1.

Books:
Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes by Child's Play
Pooh Has Ears by Ann Braybrooks
Pooh's Bathtime Bubble Book: Feelings
Smile! by Roberta Grobel Intrater

Circle Games:
*Sing: "I Am Special"
*Talk about parts of our bodies
*Sing: "If You're Happy and You Know It!"
*Talk about happy and sad
*Apple Fingerplay

Art Projects:
*Finger painting
*trace and color our bodies
*my name project
*hand and foot prints
*apple project

Literacy and ABCs:
*Introduce letter A and color a letter A coloring page
*Create "All About Me" booklets
*Letter A cut out craft
*What we can do with our hands/feet
*A is for Apples

Math and 123s:
*count out 5 m&ms
*Only 1 me!!
*circle project
*number 1 coloring page
*count 5 apples for apple project

Blog Break

Just wanted to let everyone know that I will be taking a blog break until mid-July. We will be moving in the next 10 days and we just have so much to do. Then we will be having my son's bday party and vacationing in Disneyworld. See you all in a few weeks!

Footprint Butterfly

Materials: Paint, white paper, colored construction paper, black marker, glue stick
Activity: Paint your child's feet and then print each foot on the opposite side of the paper leaving space for the "body" of the butterfly. Create the body of the butterfly out of colored construction paper and glue between the 2 wings. Add details using your black marker. Older children could decorate the body of the butterfly or add patterns to the wings.

Monkeys and Shapes!

Two of my son's favorite things are monkeys and singing the song "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". We've been doing some activities based on these interests lately! Magnetic Monkeys: I copied 5 monkeys, colored them and then laminated and put magnets on the back. I made corresponding number cards. We sing the 5 monkey song and take one away as each falls of the bed, as well as the highest number. My son is really into counting right now, also. So often we put the cards up or count the monkeys out.
Jumping Monkeys: This is an activity that they do at our library story hour. They give each child a stuffed monkey and have the child make their monkey jump as they sing the song. You can put this on a CD or just sing it. We like to put on the CD and jump along with our monkeys.
Shape Matching: This game helps with identifying shapes, hand eye coordination, and one to one correspondence. All I did was create a "mat" with shapes on it. I kept it simple at 4 shapes, but you can include whichever shapes you want. Then make a matching shape to use as your "piece". Your child will match each shape to the one on the mat. While playing this with your child you want to be saying the name of the shape (and colors too!).
Twinkling Stars: Nothing is as fun for a little one as something hands on. That's why I created these twinkling stars for my son. We simply use these when we sing "Twinkle Twinkle" and wave them in the air. A simple activity that is really a favorite with my little guy.