October

I guess I was a bit of a slacker in the October posting arena.  I think it is because I hate to download pictures from my camera.  I really do.  I don't know why.  It isn't hard.  I just don't like it. We did have a lot of fun in October and I did like that. We went to Africa.  Or at least as close as we could get.  We learned the names of African Safari animals in Spanish, studied the pyramids of Egypt and made an African Aguapa doll

 (whose handmade jewelry we used as an abacus to help us practice adding.)

 Some highlights: Art: We studied the cut out works of Matisse and made our own Matisse-like jack-o-lantern window hanging.

Picasso Pumpkins:  I cut out ears, eyes, noses, mustaches, jewelry, mouths, etc. from magazines.  At our field trip to the pumpkin patch the kids reviewed their Spanish body parts and glued the parts on their pumpkins.

 They were maybe my favorite thing we did all month.  They all turned out so darling and unique.  The best part?  They needed very little help.  They really could do it all by themselves.  A great alternative to carving for little ones. . if I do say so myself.

Our Aguapa Angolan Fertility dolls. Children in Angola carry these around (they are made of wood, not cereal boxes, in Africa) in hopes of having their own children someday. Much like our little baby dolls!

Math:
The kids are getting so much better at counting (several can count to 100 already and most can identify any number 1-100) and adding.  We are still working on adding with manipulatives but we had fun practicing with beans, handmade beads (the kids rocked the handmade bead project! ) and jack-o-lanterns.  The kids are all doing really well telling time, and identifying the coins.  They loved singing "Five Little Pumpkins" and learning those ordinal numbers.  We have been counting all the way up to 20 in Spanish and last week one little preschooler had to correct me!  They all loved that.
I tried to get tricky and ask the kids how many legs I would have if I had 2 zebras or 1 elephant and 1 ostrich.  They are too smart for me, but it make them think.

History:
Um. . .ANCIENT EGYPT!  I loved teaching this.  The kids loved learning about it.  It was pretty much awesome.  I ordered a kit that came with hieroglyphic stencils, stickers of Egyptian stuff and lots and lots of info.  The kids each became an "expert" on 3 Egyptian topics and went home with the stickers that corresponded to their subject.    We practiced using the stencils and making hieroglyphics.  We made our own cartouche (name tag) and had fun thinking about writing with pictures instead of ABC's.

Our Cartouche and some random hieroglyphics (from stencils).
Writing:
Still practicing our numbers and our names.  We have been trying to learn the correct way to make letters and have even practiced that by doing a few dance moves.  We have practiced our sight words and short vowel words by using letter dice, wood letters, scrambled words, color by word worksheet, and lots and lots of games.

Phonics:
We finished up our review of short vowels and have started learning digraphs.  TH, SH, WH, CH man, that letter H is tricky.  The kids loved making their own flash cards to use while singing the TH, SH, CH, WH song and they loved playing the flash and dash game with their cards.  They love to try to beat me!  Parents, keep reading the Sam books and send them back as soon as they are ready for the next one so they can get a sticker on their reading chart.

Music:
Beethoven.  The kids really enjoyed learning about his life, listening to some of his intense pieces and learning some sign language (Beethoven was deaf).  They thought it would be hard to learn songs if you couldn't hear them.  We will be doing a little more Beethoven this coming week as well.
We learned The Garden Song  as our folk song this month.  It is sort of long and has some harder lyrics but the kids love to sing it.  They like to help me strum the guitar and use the actions to plant their own garden.  This is one of my most favorite songs and I was so happy to teach it this month.  I think it will be one to perform at the closing show.

Halloween:
You know when you prepare a lesson and you think "I hope someone asks this.  . ." or "I hope someone says this" or "I hope they make this connection.".  Halloween was that day.  The day when everything was perfect.  Scripted almost.  Besides misplacing 2 books I wanted to read just before class (turns out Baby Noli stole them and brought them to me right after all the kids left. . .of course) everything was perfect.
I started by pretending I had forgotten all about Halloween.  "I just can't remember what it is all about!" I lamented to the costumed kids amid the Halloween bedecked preschool room.  "Can you help me remember some Halloween words?"
Then, as the called out the words I asked them to try to spell them, even if they could only get the first and last sound.  They did really well and as they spelled the words I wrote them on some special cards I had prepared and posted them on the chalkboard.  Our words were:
Mummy, Bat, Boo, Ghost, Jack-o-Lantern, Pumpkin, Spider
See what I mean about scripted?  Not yet?  You will. . .
Then we played a game with our word cards I had made.  I also had pre-made some cards that had a pumpkin on them and one that had a witch hat.  At the back of the room I had 36 foam jack-o-lanterns hanging on the wall.
I would show them a card (flash card style) and they would say the word on the card.  I wanted to figure out a way to make flash cards fun, and motivate the kids to actually look at the cards.  Even if they cannot read the word, they benefit from hearing the kids say the word. . .but only if they are looking.  This is where the witch hat and pumpkin cards come in. . .if a pumpkin card came up they had to all yell PUMPKIN! and race to the back to grab the foam jack-o-lantern and bring it back to their seat.  If they saw the witch hat they would have to cackle like a witch and take a jack back to the wall.  I do a lot of copying of ideas from the internet, books, people smarter than myself so when I have an idea like this one, I really feel proud of myself.  I mean, come on, reading, Halloween, addition, subtraction and running all in one game?  You know!  So they were loving life.  Yelling, running for pumpkins, giving me an updated total of how many they have, etc.  I rigged the game so each kid ended up with five and then I pulled the word 'pumpkin' from the stack and we sang "Five Little Pumpkins" and "Pumpkin on the Vine".
Then, I asked one kid to pick another one of the words that we had written on our cards.  The next word picked was "Spider".  I posted it on the board next to "Pumpkin".
I turned over one of the bulletin boards that I had covered in spider webs and had 6 spiders on it.  None of them had 8 legs.  I started to tell the kids about spiders.  "Some people think spiders are scary, but I don't" I said. "Spiders help eat insects that eat my garden.  I love spiders.  Most spiders don't bite us and they help keep other bugs from making too much trouble."  We had already talked about insects so I asked if they remembered how many legs an insect has.  "SIX!" they said.  "Spiders all have 8 legs.  Are spiders insects?"  They thought about that and decided that they were not.  Smart kids.  Then, as if I had prompted her, Sweet Cambell says "Miss Meg!  Miss Meg!  That spider does not have 8 legs!  Hey, neither does that one, or that one!"  I could not have been happier.  I said they were right, those spiders had a problem, they were missing some legs, but we were in luck, I just so happened to have some extra spider legs hanging around.  The kids then helped me figure out how many more legs each spider needed until they had 8.  They were doing math and they didn't even know it.  They thought they were just helping out a few spider friends.  This is where I would have liked to read my spider book, which is a great non-fiction with big bold words they could actually read and then name a spider at the end. . .sigh. . . my sweet Noli!. . .I read them the book the next week when they came back and they still seemed to love it.
We then picked another word from our cards.  Bat.
I had them all go under the bunk bed and into our Bat Cave.  I had a cut out paper bat (that even folded it's wings over its body) and asked them if they thought bats were scary.  They said 'yes' but after we learned about them, they all said they did not think they were scary at all.  We even learned what vampires were.  Vampire bats, that is.  Science rules. . .even on Halloween.  Again, as if I had given them a script, one of the kids said "I don't think that there are bats around this part of the world, I never see them."  Many of the kids already knew the word 'nocturnal' but it was new to some.  We learned that their nocturnal habits is why we don't see bats too often, but they do live near us. This is where the other book was to be read. . .oh well, it made a good supplement on the next preschool day.  I guess you just cannot expect everything to be perfect.  Not with a Noli to help anyway.
Back to the chalkboard to pick another word:  Mummy.
Up to the top of the buck to hide in our Egyptian pyramid.  We talked about mummy's, who made them, how, why and where (we have been learning question words so that worked out).  Then we played a fun game of mummy making (minus the embalming. . .which I did not discuss with preschoolers).  They loved wrapping each other up in toilet paper.  I expected more sillyness at this game, but they were very serious about their mummy wrapping.  It kind of cracked me up.
We ran out of time for 'boo' and 'ghost' but I did have something planned (really!  See how perfect the words they suggested were!  I thought for sure no one would say spider or mummy and that we would have a few random ones like candy or witch and I would have no activity for those.  It was CRAZY how perfect it was).
We had our snack of goblin meat (honeydew melon), ghosts (bananas with craisen eyes), and Mummy Wraps (refried black beans in white corn tortilla strips).   Then I let the kids play while I cleaned up and waited for our special guests.
For our Halloween Party I had each of the kids invite a grandparent to come.  Each grandparent came prepared with a Halloween story, tradition, game, song or story about their special preschool grandchild. It was awesome.  I was worried that it would take too long and the kids would get bored and have to get up and wiggle around but no one made a peep.  They all were totally fascinated with what the grandmothers had to say.  Everyone did an amazing job.  We had a variety of things from a great song/story book, to my mom who brought pictures of me as 4 and 5 year old and some of the toys I played with at that age, to a jack-o-lantern decorated by Mr. Potato Head parts to Halloween traditions.  It was quite magical.  Then, the grandparents helped the kids make a Halloween craft.  It was a spooky tree with a full moon (a perfect segue to our discussion on trees of all seasons that we did the next week).

Phew!  Now. . .NOVEMBER!

Bring it on.  We venture to South America!

All Around the World

C-O-N-T-I-N-E-N-T-S! Continents! Continents! Oh, YES!
 How many are there? SEVEN! SEVEN!
Now can we name them? OH YES!
 We started around the world today and boy was it a good trip! I can't wait to start our study of Africa tomorrow. I have some great Caldecott winners and some traditional African art and music to share.

 As for today, we played a reading game with ping pong balls, practiced writing our numbers, started learning our poem for October and reviewed our colors in Spanish. We did a worksheet to help us remember to look for shapes in all pictures and read a book about counting money. We started our 'continents book' and sang a song about the 7 continents.
 Interested in details about what we did today? Don't hesitate to ask!

 Our October recitation:
 Fall Song
 Ellen Robena Field

 Golden and red trees
Nod to the soft breeze,
As it whispers 'winter is here'.
 And the brown nuts fall
At the loud wind's call,
For this is the Fall of the Year.

 Good-by, sweet flowers!
Through bright Summer hour
s You have filled our hearts with cheer
We shall miss you so,
 And yet you must go,
 For this is the Fall of the year.

 Now the days grow cold,
As the year grows old,
And the meadows are brown and sere;
 Brave robin redbreast
 Has gone from his nest,
For this is the Fall of the year.

 I do softly pray
 At the close of day,
That the little children, so dear,
May as purely grow
As the fleecy snow
That follows the Fall of the year.

October Newsletter

There are so many things that I would love to do in school. There just isn't enough time. Unfortunately, a lot of things, a lot of really COOL things have to be cut to make room for, well, cooler things. So, in order to sleep at night I have to assume that parents are supplementing at home.
Last year I did a really big, huge, awesome unit on Columbus. I don't think I will have time to go in depth this year. It is up to you Mom and Dad. Fill it in. I am taking the "Columbus Day is on a Monday, when we don't have school" excuse. I feel okay with that.

Also National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day. It doesn't fit into our schedule. You know it will fit into MY schedule. . .maybe weekly. I hope it fits into yours, too, because if not that is just sad. I mean, skipping Columbus is a slight to our country history, but skipping cheesecake? Now that is a slight to humanity.

Diggin' on Dinos

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.

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.

• 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.

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!

The Windy Day

The wind blows up
The wind blows down
In and around all over the town
The children run and laugh and play
Because they love a windy day.

I don't know if they typically love windy days (mine usually doesn't) but I had them all shouting this song and begging for wind last week.
March is a fickle month.  I guess all of spring is fickle.  It is hard to plan activities outside.  I lucked out (just barely) on our leprechaun gold hunt day and knew it would be pushing it to order wind on my kite-flying day.  I opted to make a kite that could have some potential at flying even if the wind did not come through for us.
I introduced our wind theme by having the kids close their eyes and think about wind.  I had them share what words they thought of or could see.  Wind, Blow, Cold, Kite, Leaves, March, Storm, all of these words were perfect, as if scripted, suggestions by the kids.  We tried to spell some of the words.  It was amazing to me, that, with minimal help ("remember which letters make the ch ch ch sound like in chair") they were able to spell the words.  What an a feat!  I had them take turns on the chalkboard and then we practiced writing them at table time.
We read some great windy books this year.  I didn't do Winnie The Pooh and the Blustery Day, although, it is great.  I had just read a bit of Pooh last month and thought I would branch out.
We read:
When the wind stops  by Charlotte Zolotow
The Same Wind  by Bette Killion (GORGEOUS illustrations by Barbara Bustetterfalk)
Bag in the Wind by Ted Kooser
 We didn't get to Wind Garden (McAlister) but it is also a good one.

On Wednesday we made double kites.  We had been really pushing addition and I wanted to test their pattern spotting skills.  We used cups with numbers and dry beans as counters.  I gave each child 2 cups and they had to put the correct number of beans in the cup.  Then, they dump the cups together and see what they make together.  I then handed them a diamond shape paper that has 2+2=____  4+4= all the way up to 9+9= .  I had the same pattern written on the chalkboard.  We all used our cups and beans to solve each problem and the kids took turns writing the answer on the board.  They then filled in their diamond paper and glued it to a blank piece of paper.   I then had them attach another paper to the bottom and draw a squiggly line like a kite string.   On the ground I scattered triangle shaped papers of all colors with the problems on some and the answers on some.  To make it a little easier I had the colors of the correct answer match the problem.  They had to then find matches and glue them to their kite tail.   It was quite hard for some but all could do it with just minimal assistance.  Some needed no help at all!  We hung the kites up in the classroom before taking them home.
The next day we read Bag in the Wind.  This is a longer book for preschoolers but it is quite nicely written.  It is what I would call a ''quiet" book.  It isn't thrilling or silly or funny.  It is quiet, peaceful, thoughtful and easily related to.  It is wordy but they kids listened to it.  They had all seen plastic bags flying in the wind, or caught on trees or even on their own lawns.  After the story, we made our own bag kites to fly in the wind.  I opted to use paper bags because I wanted them to be able to decorate them.  They colored, stamped and cut out shapes to make pictures (we had been studying Matisse and his cut out art).  We taped ribbons to the back and I tied a thin dowel to a ribbon connecting the handles of the bags.  I used bags from Target because they are sturdy, have large handles (less for me) and not as much print on them.  Also, they let me have 9 of them free of charge.  Awesome.

All set up, ready to count, ready to add.

Make a match. 3+3=_____ 6!

Our doubles kites. What a fun math craft!

The kids adored making the bag kites and they loved flying them.  They could run and run and the kite would flutter behind them.  Then, as if on cue, a gust of wind jetted through the yard inflating the bags and tugging at the ribbons on the sticks.  The children squealed and laughed and begged the wind to blow past again.  The gales obliged just long enough for fingers to be chilled and parents to pull in to rescue them.  Pure, windy bliss.  My own little summerophile begged me to let her stay out in the brisk wind and she ran up and down the sidewalk in front of the house while Little Sister pounded on the glass from the front room watching her, as if begging me to talk her out and run with her in the early spring air.  It was a success.  Of course I took no pictures of them flying their kites, but they were so cute and they all had a good time.  More importantly, I think they all appreciate the wind more.  Whether or not they absorbed my explanation of how varying temperatures and pressures result in air movement is yet to be seen.