Thursday, March 7, 2013

March 4 - 8; Eric Carle's Hungry Caterpillar

It felt so nice to have one strong focus point this week. We studied Eric Carle's book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". There were new things we learned each time we read the book. We worked on sequencing the items the hungry caterpillar ate and discussed the life stages of a caterpillar. First the egg, then the caterpillar, then he gets fat, makes a cocoon, and then at the end, turns into a beautiful butterfly.

Some Eric Carle inspired activities we did this week were:

Each child filled in with "writing" what their hungry caterpillar might eat. Then drew a picture to accompany. We will have this book for you next week (except if we have a snowday friday!). We'll keep it near the fish, so you can find your child's page and check it out.

We did some caterpillar math. Some students used round counters while other used circle stickers to count. There were numbers in front of our caterpillars then corresponding circle outlines. Kids practiced counting the circles then took a look at the number. I'm hoping the afternoon class learned some number recognition in the process and for the morning class, they just solidified their counting skills.

We practiced writing our names on our very own constuction paper hungry caterpillar cut out. For the morning class, many of them are just beginning to independently write their names (some letters might need a creative eye to be seen!) and some of them are still practicing with hand over hand help (a teacher places their hand over the childs hand to help them form muscle memory of how the letters of their name are formed). We will hang them up on the wall for parents to see.

Using pictures of the foods the caterpillar ate, we worked in groups to sequence the book. For example, the caterpillar ate one apple first, then two pears, then three plums, four strawberries, five oranges, then a whole bunch of sweets, and finally a leaf to settle his stomach.

We also used our finger prints to make a hungry caterpillar. We then found pictures of food to glue next to our caterpillar to show what he might eat.

Next week, we will continue to look at some Eric Carle books and sequence a variety of stories.
Mrs. Reid

Monday, March 4, 2013

Feb. 25 - 28 Dr. Seuss Week!

We celebrated Dr. Seuss this week! One thing I love about Dr. Seuss is his creativity and imagination. His books and ideas lend themselves to many fun preschool activities. Some things we did this week were:






Making our wonderful Cat in the Hat hats. This was a great opportunity for children to practice painting a red and white patterm, just like the Cat!

We also measured truffula trees! There were some that were tall and some that were small. We used rubix cubes to count how many cubes high each of the trees were, then we practiced ordering them from largest to smallest.

The morning class worked on color matching after we red the book "Red Fish, Blue Fish" by Dr. Seuss. They are getting quite good at matching, so we played a memory game using colored fish!

At snack time, we graphed colored goldfish for snack. I was so impressed with preschoolers as they sorted, graphed, and counted their goldfish before eating them!

Afternoon students worked on rhyming words by producing words that rhyme with "cat". Teachers recorded ideas onto a hat cut out and the kids colored them however they liked. Rhyming is an important early literacy skill and it's great to see the kids getting excited about it.

On Thursday, we made Dr. Seuss's Oobleck! We mixed water with cornstarch which makes an oobleck that feels like a solid when squished then feels like a liquid when left to rest.

Next week, we will be beginning a new author study about Eric Carle with particular focus on "The Very Hungry Caterpillar".

Mrs. Reid