Sunday, July 31, 2011

Preschool lessons

Two of my favorite lessons that I have taught this spring have been dinosaurs and colors.  Everyone learned new things and had lot's of fun.

Arrival to 9:30 Welcome and Gather
Sharing time
Letter Q and number 3
9:45 – Story/ Lesson time
All about dinosaurs. What was the biggest dinosaur? What was the smallest?(practice page) What did dinosaurs eat?
Book : Count-A-Saurus by Nancy Blumenthal

10:00-Activities

Crackled Eggs
Hard boiled eggs get rolled on a paper towel, cracking the shells but not crushing them. Then they get placed in some water that has been mixed with food coloring. After the eggs have soaked for a while, the children will remove the shells and notice the tie-dye look on the egg. We will discuss that dinosaurs hatched from eggs but they were a lot bigger than these .

Digging for bones
Mix some sand, cornstarch, uncooked rice, in a bowl. Put some slightly broken noodles which will represent the bones into the bowl. Have the children dig through the sand and find the bones.
10: 20 -Snack
10:30 – Craft :Dinosaur Skeleton

Colors

Sharing time
Letter V and number 8
9:45 – Story/ Lesson time
All about colors. Primary colors are red, blue, yellow.
Secondary colors are made by mixing primary colors.
Secondary colors are purple, green, and orange.

Book : Eric Carle's paintings

10:00-Activities

Color mixing on paper
Science
Colored Jars
Collect five large clear jars. Fill 3 with red water, 1 with yellow water, and 1 with blue water. Show children the 3 red jars. Discuss the color red. Show them the yellow jar. Add yellow to red. What happens? Add blue water to other red jar. What happens? Discuss color mixing

10: 20 -Snack
10:30 – Craft

Modern Art Mazes
    Need: paint, paper, marbles, boxes or pie tins, spoons
Pour paint onto plates. Place a sheet of paper in each box. Ask children to dip the marbles into the paint, spoon them out, and gently drop them onto the paper. By moving the boxes children can create maze-like designs.

 10:55 - Singing time
Finding Colors
Oh, can you find the color blue,
The color blue, the color blue?
Oh, can you find the color blue,
Somewhere in this room?
I See Blue
I see blue, I see blue.
Yes, I do. Yes, I do.
I see a blue...
(take turns with all the colors)

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Chess tournaments

Jasmine participated in quite a few chess tournaments this spring. She has done an amazing job in every one of them and received a medal each time. This fall she will continue to be part of the math and chess club at her school. We are very excited because Andrew will join Jasmine in the chess competitions in his first year in school.


Everyone is busy during break time:)





Thursday, July 28, 2011

Hello again!

It's been so long since I blogged I don't even know what to post first. I took some time to look through my previous posts so I can try to remember the series of events that happened this year in our lives. I have so many things to post. I hope I can update most everything :)My dates will be close but not as accurate as I would like them to be for our family journal. With that said let the new posts fill this blog. Most of them will be highlights due to time restrains. I sure have missed writing and posting our little adventures.