Tuesday began our week of DINOSAURS. Seriously, though, folks have you ever met a kid who isn't at least mildly obsessed with dinosaurs? Me either. They love them. And really, so do we. This is evidenced by the many (MANY) movies marketed to adults with dinosaur themes. We did not watch any movies, kid appropriate or not, this week in preschool, however. We did learn what a paleontologist is and how they work with other scientists to discover and preserve fossils. Oh, yeah, we learned what fossils were, too. We even tried to dig up a few of our own in a wading pool filled with 50 pounds of dry pinto beans (I will do a lot for my students but allow them to chisel through limestone in my school room is not one of them). We did find a few dinosaurs but what we mostly found were SIGHT WORDS! If we could read them we could put them on the magnet board, but if not, we buried them again and tried to remember them for the next time they were dug up. Later in the week we did some digging for answers to some mystery math problems. Who knows what is hiding in those beans. . .uh. . .I mean layers of sedimentary rock.
As Tuesday is the day we typically focus on art we learned how to draw a stegosaurus step by step. We are still studying line and have started noticing how lines form shapes and that all pictures are made of shapes and lines. Each step of our drawing used a shape, some of those shapes we knew the names of like diamond, or half-circle, but some we did not. We made up names for some (squiggly triangle) and just copied down the others. We knew that stegosaurus ate plants because we had read about that in a book before we started our drawing, so we drew grass, trees and plants all around our dinosaur. Scientists don't know what color stegosaurus or any dinosaur was. Skin and scales are not preserved in the fossil layer. We tried to guess what color our dinos would be. . .of course the kids had to tell me in Spanish, as we have learned the colors in Spanish and now we need to practice them whenever we can.
We still had to practice our sight words, even during Dino Week. We used them to practice our handwriting this time and got a sticker next to each one we could read by ourselves. Most of the kids passed off their home reading books on Tuesday. I was so proud of them! They were happy to put a sticker on their book chart. Remember parents: four stickers earns them a book to keep out of my special 'book box'.
More on dino week to come. . .blogging is hard! Seriously, though, try typing with my 1 year-old in the room, I dare you.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Top Ten Home Preschool Tips
A friend of mine is starting a co-op preschool with 2 other moms. She asked me if I had any suggestions (because I have 2 going on 3 years of experience and no training in education. . .guess she wasn't picky!). I put some thought into it and came up with my Top Ten Tips for home preschool. If you have ever been to school for education you will probably laugh at me. You may even want to comment to correct my horrible ideas (that is encouraged. . .please help me any way you can) but this is what I have learned so far. In two more years, I am sure the list will be even better. For what it is worth (approx 65 cents) here is my list of things to consider when planning a preschool in your home.
Meg's Top Ten Preschool List
1. Plan every minute. Do not allow for "free" time. Yes, kids can play but it should be guided. Trust me on this. Do not allow 3 year olds to "play" without some serious guidelines. They must be taught to play. I did not know this before, but it is true.
Set out one or two things for the kids to play with during 'play time'. Then, either show them how to play with it or give them a scenario. For example, when we talked about inventions (this was with my 3 year old class) we talked about men and women who solved problems. They made new things out of parts of old things to solve hard problems, gave examples, showed pictures, read a book etc. Then, at play time I put out wooden blocks and tiny plastic horses. I told them that these horses have a problem. It rains on their heads at night and gets all of their hay wet. Can you help solve their problem? Then I let them play for 15 minutes. Some of the kids took right to the building of a stable of some sort. Some just played with the blocks and some with just the horses, that was fine. I didn't interfere other than to compliment each kid in a different way "oh look how kind Savannah was to Brooke, she gave her the gray horse even though Savannah had it first!" "I love how Addy made a roof on her stable, that will keep the hay dry" etc. I did not really care if all the kids got the invention thing. The point was they had been given a way to play. They had been instructed and had a purpose. Trust me on this one. Free reign of the toys with a group is a recipe for disaster especially if you are rotating homes. What happens is the kid whose house it is gets the short end of the stick because they have to share EVERYTHING. It is their stuff, afterall. but, if they have a guided purpose for play time, sharing isn't as much a factor, neither is boredom or wandering around into bathrooms and such.
Meg's Top Ten Preschool List
1. Plan every minute. Do not allow for "free" time. Yes, kids can play but it should be guided. Trust me on this. Do not allow 3 year olds to "play" without some serious guidelines. They must be taught to play. I did not know this before, but it is true.
Set out one or two things for the kids to play with during 'play time'. Then, either show them how to play with it or give them a scenario. For example, when we talked about inventions (this was with my 3 year old class) we talked about men and women who solved problems. They made new things out of parts of old things to solve hard problems, gave examples, showed pictures, read a book etc. Then, at play time I put out wooden blocks and tiny plastic horses. I told them that these horses have a problem. It rains on their heads at night and gets all of their hay wet. Can you help solve their problem? Then I let them play for 15 minutes. Some of the kids took right to the building of a stable of some sort. Some just played with the blocks and some with just the horses, that was fine. I didn't interfere other than to compliment each kid in a different way "oh look how kind Savannah was to Brooke, she gave her the gray horse even though Savannah had it first!" "I love how Addy made a roof on her stable, that will keep the hay dry" etc. I did not really care if all the kids got the invention thing. The point was they had been given a way to play. They had been instructed and had a purpose. Trust me on this one. Free reign of the toys with a group is a recipe for disaster especially if you are rotating homes. What happens is the kid whose house it is gets the short end of the stick because they have to share EVERYTHING. It is their stuff, afterall. but, if they have a guided purpose for play time, sharing isn't as much a factor, neither is boredom or wandering around into bathrooms and such.
- 2. Plan more things than you think you will need. It is okay to not get to everything. It is not okay to have 5 3 year olds at your house playing duck duck goose for 40 minutes.
- 3. 3 year olds will not sit for 5 books in a row. Even if they are awesome books. Even if they are beautiful books. Even if you love them and you are the best reader ever. Do something active between each book. Sing a song with actions, make them run around the room matching big R and little r, have them act out the story, SOMETHING. If they can be an active participant in the story (repeat a line that is repeated in the story, hold an animal that is a character in the book, take turns turning the page, etc.) they will listen better. As much as we want them to love reading, they won't sit their forever. Not even if they do at home 1 on 1. When their friends are there, you have about a 1 book at a time window. . if that.
4. Less worksheets, more action. Check out the books 'Worksheets Don't Build Dendrites" (Marcia L. Tate) and "Smart Moves" (Carla Hannaford) They give some great ideas, although I am sure you have tons of great ideas from your schooling. I, on the other hand, am an education idiot and had to learn all that stuff since I spent my college years learning useful stuff like symbiosis, animal classification and protein synthesis. So glad I took Organic Chemistry. . .riiiiiight.
I like to to buy lots of workbooks and then use the worksheets to inspire active games. For example: One worksheet had an apple tree on it. The apples had A or a on them. The child was to draw a line from the A's to the basket that had an A on it and the same for the a. I got a hold of a giant faux tree, attached velcro circles to it and laminated a bunch of paper apples. I can now write on the apples with dry erase markers. I put the apples all over the tree with A and a on them. I had two baskets one with A and one with a. . .you get the picture, right? the kids pick and apple, say the sound, put it in the basket. Of course, worksheets are essential for teaching writing. they have to build the muscles in their hands for writing and they have to practice practice practice. There is just more than one way to skin a cat. . .or to teach a kid to add.5. State your rules the first day. Don't assume they will know or pick up on ANY rule. They. and you, will feel more comfortable if you state the rules from the very beginning. It is easier to ease up later on than to make new rules (although this is pretty much unavoidable. I now have a 'no touching the couch at preschool rule' and a 'no building guns at preschool' rule, two things I did not anticipate ahead of time).- 6. Dress up. They love it. If you are silly, you will have them.
- 7. Have a snack.
- 8. Do not allow sugar to ever be a part of that snack. Be strict on this. Cheese and apples. Ham and celery. No sugar. Trust me, it is for the best. Protien, baby. Don't underestimate it.
- 9. Songs. Lots. Of. Songs. With actions.
10. Always give their hands something to do. Do not expect them to hold still. They cannot. If you are going to explain something or tell them something or read them a longer book, let them squish playdough, hold an animal, play with string (kids love this. . .not sure why. . .give them 1 foot of yarn and you can read them The Odyssy), anything to hold, manipulate or keep them from poking their neighbor.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Island Life
(pictures to follow. . .maybe)
Our theme this year for preschool is Around the World. Each month we will travel to a different continent. To prepare for our trip around the world, we have spent September learning about maps and the early Earth. All the land on the earth started as a single island and island fever was high this week as we learned all about what it means to be an island.
On Monday, we found out what makes an island. . .namely, a lot of water, and pointed out islands on the map. We introduced our new words for the week: on, my and jump and read the beautifully illustrated book "On My Island" by Marie-Louise Gay to help us get a feel for those words. The kids helped me put the new words on the apple chart and we took turns bringing them up to class and putting them back. Then, we had our daily Word Picker pick out our challenge words for the week: legs, monkey, red, crawling and bib. We learned the colors in Spanish (as tropical islands are very colorful) and learned that each Spanish color has it's own action!
We learned what an ukulele is and sang "Pineapple Princess" while I played.
Then, we took turns being the teacher and circled words that had the 'short e' sound on our big chart. At table time, we used our markers and white boards to practice writing some of the words that have the short e sound in the middle. Some of the kids are getting to be good writers! Others are good drawers. . .but we are working on the difference!
After a yummy snack and some play time, we introduced Geoff Slater, a modern artist who lives in New Brunswick. Check out his website at geoffslater.com. He paints beautiful pictures of things he sees outside using a techniques called 'Amaze Art' that uses one continuous line to paint a picture. Our study of line and preparation to study shape was really enhanced by looking at his art and trying to make one ourselves. It is hard to leave space between lines like he does! It really is Amaze-ing!
Wednesday is always our music focus day and while we still practiced our weekly words (with a little wild running to help out!) we spent a little more time on island -style music. We started the day with a math challenge and all the kids did a great job matching the answers to the problems and counting our their beans.
We learned that in Hawaii, they do a dance called Hula which tells stories with hands and body. We learned some hula to our Pineapple Princess song and even did the Alphabet Hula to help us learn the correct ways to draw each of our letters! At table time we tried to remember our hula moves to help us practice tracing and writing the letters with our markers. It was tricky to move our bodies to the letters in the right order, but we had a chart to look at! Our next hula song was The Hukilau. Hukilau is a fishing party and after dressing up in some Hawaiian-style clothes and dancing and singing the Hukilau song, I thought it would be fun to go fishing ourselves! So, we jumped on our boat (the table) cast our our line (fishing pole with magnet) and then took turns catching fish (paper fish with numbers on them and paper clips to stick to the magnet). We compared the poundage (numbers) on our fish and decided which ones were the biggest or smallest. Our numbers were all from 13-20 as those are the ones which seem to need the most review. We were a little tired after snack and play time so we had a rest time. We chillaxed island-style while I read "When I am Quiet on Maui" by Judi Riley. Some fun, new Hawaiian words and pictures were introduced to us in that book. We ended the day with one more Hawaiian song with the ukulele, Aloha Oe. I almost forgot! We designed our very own island with things that we love. We used our weekly words from this week and last week to start the sentence "I can jump on my. . ." and took turns reading the sentence and filling in the blank. Many of the kids put those things on their island. We decided our islands were jumpy islands. The answers to the fill-in sentence were so hilarious! I love how they started plausibly and slowly drifted to ridiculous and finally ended in aggressive. Classic. I had to share them:
I can jump on my. . .
Logan: trampoline
Claire: bed
Jonah: house
Lily: head
Penny: brother
How to make your own island: cut a potato in half and put it in a bowl or plastic container. Color pictures of things you would want to see on your island (or jump on). Cut out pictures and tape them to toothpicks. Stick toothpicks in island. No island is complete without water! For water, use food dye to color corn syrup blue and pour around the island. Let the 'water' solidify overnight. Ta da! Then, during stations, the next day, tie in last weeks theme and draw a map of your island (don't forget map essentials, like a compass, key, and symbols!)
Thursday:
Lei Day is May 1. . .but four year olds in Utah don't know that! I had all the kids bring a lei they had made at home to school on Thursday. Man, were they cute! We had a lei made of family pictures, one of crazy fabric, herbs and flowers, one with sticks and leaves and a fairy-themed lei! We tried to find words in some island-themed books (weekly words) and then had our daily circle time activities. Then, I gave each of the kids another lei I had made that had buttons on them. They could earn fabric flowers to button on their leis by completing tasks at four different stations. We did individual readings with me, letter writing practice and spelling practice with the wooded word cards. I have one super reader in my class so I had her practice making sentences and alphabetizing words (yes, she can alphabetize. . .). The kids really loved trading stations and earning a flower at each one. I handed out more flowers during the day. The kids were so excited to take their first book home to work on for the weekend. I hope they are motivated to read them. Remember, parents, if the kids can pass off their book, they can get a sticker on their chart and when one row is filled, they get to pick a book from my book box. . .to keep!
Thursday is our science day and my favorite day. I made a bowl of homemade pudding (YUM) and placed a giant (gluten-free, of course) cookie on the top. Then, I came in to the room and told a dramatic tale of Early Earth and it's humble beginnings as a single island, Pangea. I told them of earthquakes, liquid cores and movement deep inside the Earth. Then, with a dramatic stab, I cracked the cookie and the pieces spread throughout the pudding. I pulled out the globe and pointed out the continents. We noticed that some edges of continents seemed to fit together like a puzzle. We looked back at the cookie and noticed the same thing about our infant continents. Then, we ate the Earth, er, cookie and pudding. Normally we do not have sugary treats at school, but we bend the rules for science. Preschool and plate tectonics? Abbbbbbsolutely!
Our island festivities ended with a hula show for parents on my stage (porch. . .ahem. . .lanai). The kids looked great with their leis and although they were much more timid in their singing and hula dancing in front of the parents, they still did a great job! I was very proud. I had an award for each of the kids' leis. Everyone won something on preschool Lei Day. . .even if it wasn't in May.
Stay tuned next week for a continuation of our introduction to the planet and early Earth (cue suspense music) DINOSAURS!
I am sure there is more I have left out. The smallest moments of learning or the sweetest look of a child cannot be written down. I sure love these kids and I sure love teaching.
One last thought. . .I will try to take a picture of this. . .I have a magnet board that has alphabet magnets as well as word magnets. I try to change the word magnets every so often. The kids, mostly my baby, sometimes play around with the words during play time (or, at table time, when they are supposed to be working. . .hee hee). Well, for the first time I hope that the kids are not as good readers as they seem to be as this is what was left on the magnet board this week:
bad teacher poog(upside down 'good') of is green a book
Bad teacher poo? Hmmmmm. . .I guess we all have room to improve!
Our theme this year for preschool is Around the World. Each month we will travel to a different continent. To prepare for our trip around the world, we have spent September learning about maps and the early Earth. All the land on the earth started as a single island and island fever was high this week as we learned all about what it means to be an island.
On Monday, we found out what makes an island. . .namely, a lot of water, and pointed out islands on the map. We introduced our new words for the week: on, my and jump and read the beautifully illustrated book "On My Island" by Marie-Louise Gay to help us get a feel for those words. The kids helped me put the new words on the apple chart and we took turns bringing them up to class and putting them back. Then, we had our daily Word Picker pick out our challenge words for the week: legs, monkey, red, crawling and bib. We learned the colors in Spanish (as tropical islands are very colorful) and learned that each Spanish color has it's own action!
We learned what an ukulele is and sang "Pineapple Princess" while I played.
Then, we took turns being the teacher and circled words that had the 'short e' sound on our big chart. At table time, we used our markers and white boards to practice writing some of the words that have the short e sound in the middle. Some of the kids are getting to be good writers! Others are good drawers. . .but we are working on the difference!
After a yummy snack and some play time, we introduced Geoff Slater, a modern artist who lives in New Brunswick. Check out his website at geoffslater.com. He paints beautiful pictures of things he sees outside using a techniques called 'Amaze Art' that uses one continuous line to paint a picture. Our study of line and preparation to study shape was really enhanced by looking at his art and trying to make one ourselves. It is hard to leave space between lines like he does! It really is Amaze-ing!
Wednesday is always our music focus day and while we still practiced our weekly words (with a little wild running to help out!) we spent a little more time on island -style music. We started the day with a math challenge and all the kids did a great job matching the answers to the problems and counting our their beans.
We learned that in Hawaii, they do a dance called Hula which tells stories with hands and body. We learned some hula to our Pineapple Princess song and even did the Alphabet Hula to help us learn the correct ways to draw each of our letters! At table time we tried to remember our hula moves to help us practice tracing and writing the letters with our markers. It was tricky to move our bodies to the letters in the right order, but we had a chart to look at! Our next hula song was The Hukilau. Hukilau is a fishing party and after dressing up in some Hawaiian-style clothes and dancing and singing the Hukilau song, I thought it would be fun to go fishing ourselves! So, we jumped on our boat (the table) cast our our line (fishing pole with magnet) and then took turns catching fish (paper fish with numbers on them and paper clips to stick to the magnet). We compared the poundage (numbers) on our fish and decided which ones were the biggest or smallest. Our numbers were all from 13-20 as those are the ones which seem to need the most review. We were a little tired after snack and play time so we had a rest time. We chillaxed island-style while I read "When I am Quiet on Maui" by Judi Riley. Some fun, new Hawaiian words and pictures were introduced to us in that book. We ended the day with one more Hawaiian song with the ukulele, Aloha Oe. I almost forgot! We designed our very own island with things that we love. We used our weekly words from this week and last week to start the sentence "I can jump on my. . ." and took turns reading the sentence and filling in the blank. Many of the kids put those things on their island. We decided our islands were jumpy islands. The answers to the fill-in sentence were so hilarious! I love how they started plausibly and slowly drifted to ridiculous and finally ended in aggressive. Classic. I had to share them:
I can jump on my. . .
Logan: trampoline
Claire: bed
Jonah: house
Lily: head
Penny: brother
How to make your own island: cut a potato in half and put it in a bowl or plastic container. Color pictures of things you would want to see on your island (or jump on). Cut out pictures and tape them to toothpicks. Stick toothpicks in island. No island is complete without water! For water, use food dye to color corn syrup blue and pour around the island. Let the 'water' solidify overnight. Ta da! Then, during stations, the next day, tie in last weeks theme and draw a map of your island (don't forget map essentials, like a compass, key, and symbols!)
Thursday:
Lei Day is May 1. . .but four year olds in Utah don't know that! I had all the kids bring a lei they had made at home to school on Thursday. Man, were they cute! We had a lei made of family pictures, one of crazy fabric, herbs and flowers, one with sticks and leaves and a fairy-themed lei! We tried to find words in some island-themed books (weekly words) and then had our daily circle time activities. Then, I gave each of the kids another lei I had made that had buttons on them. They could earn fabric flowers to button on their leis by completing tasks at four different stations. We did individual readings with me, letter writing practice and spelling practice with the wooded word cards. I have one super reader in my class so I had her practice making sentences and alphabetizing words (yes, she can alphabetize. . .). The kids really loved trading stations and earning a flower at each one. I handed out more flowers during the day. The kids were so excited to take their first book home to work on for the weekend. I hope they are motivated to read them. Remember, parents, if the kids can pass off their book, they can get a sticker on their chart and when one row is filled, they get to pick a book from my book box. . .to keep!
Thursday is our science day and my favorite day. I made a bowl of homemade pudding (YUM) and placed a giant (gluten-free, of course) cookie on the top. Then, I came in to the room and told a dramatic tale of Early Earth and it's humble beginnings as a single island, Pangea. I told them of earthquakes, liquid cores and movement deep inside the Earth. Then, with a dramatic stab, I cracked the cookie and the pieces spread throughout the pudding. I pulled out the globe and pointed out the continents. We noticed that some edges of continents seemed to fit together like a puzzle. We looked back at the cookie and noticed the same thing about our infant continents. Then, we ate the Earth, er, cookie and pudding. Normally we do not have sugary treats at school, but we bend the rules for science. Preschool and plate tectonics? Abbbbbbsolutely!
Our island festivities ended with a hula show for parents on my stage (porch. . .ahem. . .lanai). The kids looked great with their leis and although they were much more timid in their singing and hula dancing in front of the parents, they still did a great job! I was very proud. I had an award for each of the kids' leis. Everyone won something on preschool Lei Day. . .even if it wasn't in May.
Stay tuned next week for a continuation of our introduction to the planet and early Earth (cue suspense music) DINOSAURS!
I am sure there is more I have left out. The smallest moments of learning or the sweetest look of a child cannot be written down. I sure love these kids and I sure love teaching.
One last thought. . .I will try to take a picture of this. . .I have a magnet board that has alphabet magnets as well as word magnets. I try to change the word magnets every so often. The kids, mostly my baby, sometimes play around with the words during play time (or, at table time, when they are supposed to be working. . .hee hee). Well, for the first time I hope that the kids are not as good readers as they seem to be as this is what was left on the magnet board this week:
bad teacher poog(upside down 'good') of is green a book
Bad teacher poo? Hmmmmm. . .I guess we all have room to improve!
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