April is National Frog Month…

Did you know April is National Frog Month. In honor of the little amphibians, I decided it would be good to take a moment to learn more about them. Did you know that they are one of the earth’s oldest living creatures.

Before we learned and honored our little amphibian friends, we did some rhyming, and phonics.

    

I taught them “5Little Speckled Frogs.” I had to take pictures of them doing the actions. Especially “yum, yum.” They all smiled big when it was time to sing that.

“5 little speckled frogs sat on a speckled log…”

“eating the most delicious bugs. Yum, Yum”

“one jumped into the pool, where it was nice and cool…”

We read a cute little story about Fredrick the Frog. He is a very handsome amphibian who lived in Lily Pad Pond. He liked to to be noticed, so he would fill his throat with air until it looked like a balloon and make the deepest, froggiest croak of all of the male frogs.  We learned that he is a vertebrate because he has a backbone. We learned about the life cycle of a frog, and how they go through many changes called metamorphosis. They start out as an egg, then become a tadpole. At this point they grow legs, and loose the tail. Then they are a Frog. We also learned that Frederick hibernated in Lily Pad Pond for the winter, and will wake in the spring. A sure sign that spring has sprung is when we hear the croaking of the frogs. It was a very cute little story.

Look how cute they all turned out…

    

Then it was upstairs for a treat. Little Miss Emma had snack today, and she brought Capri Sun’s, and a bad full of all sorts of goodies. Everyone really enjoyed them. THANKS Emma.

While they ate, we did our site word flash cards. The current words we are working on are; are, as, but, go, had, here, his, like, my, on, see, she, they, was, we and with. I am so impressed with these 5 kids. They truly make my heart smile. I am so proud of them and there desire to learn. Makes my job so much easier.

TO MY PARENTS: I am sending home the remainder of your flash cards. Please continue to review the words with your kids. I am confident that with your help, they will know over 40 words before preschool is over.

ALSO, if weather permits us to, we will have a field trip to MD Nursery on Thursday. Arbor Day is Friday, so I wanted to explore trees with them. Please dress them appropriately. If the weather is yuck that day, then we will reschedule the field trip.

Happy Easter

First off, we sure missed Deegan today. Hope you feel better soon!!!

Today we celebrated Easter. It was a great day of fun and excitement for the kiddos. But before we started the “Fun” we did a little “work.” I wanted to make sure that all of the kids could match the uppercase and lowercase letters. I found a great little game to do just that. So after the morning routine it was onto this game. They each really enjoyed it.

They each took a turn choosing a lowercase letter out of a bag, and them matching it with the uppercase letter. {Each child will go home with a black & white copy of this game. If your interested in printing it in color, and laminating a copy of it, let me know and I will give you the link I found it at.}

A big part of the fun of Easter is of course the Easter Eggs. So today we made tissue paper eggs. It was a fun project full of great fine motor skill building activities. Take a look…

The finished project…

    

I like to see the difference between my 3 year old Addi, and Taylor who is 5. There is so much growth in those two years.

While they were working on their eggs, I was getting my own little surprise ready with eggs. An Easter Egg Hunt… oh my were they ever excited!

Ready… Set… Go…

   

They were very excited about the candy in the eggs…

Bridger had snack today, and he chose Bananas and Fruit by the Foot. Then we made the cutest little bird nests. I got the idea HERE.  I used marshmallow instead of white chocolate because I had it on hand. It made for a really sticky sticky mess, but a cute little presentation.

   

Then they were off in a fast hurry to take turns hiding and finding the eggs! I think that was the highlight of the day.

HAPPY EASTER everyone. I hope you have a wonderful wonderful holiday weekend.

Alphabet Review, Site Words & Cookies…

Today was all about reviewing what we have learned. The Alphabet A-Z, and the site words we have been working on.

First thing on the agenda… Lowercase Letter Identification worksheet. I really think this was a great activity for these kids. They have to look at a list of 4 letters and identify which letter is the lowercase letter that goes with the uppercase letter at the beginning of the row. They did great, there are just those “tricky letters” that get them almost every time, but they are really starting to learn them well. 

    

After a few other activities it was time for snack. Addisyn had it today, and she wanted to make cookies. This is always a favorite for the kids. They love to be in the kitchen, and do anything hands on.

I have everything pre-measured and ready to go. To make things even, there were 10 containers of stuff, allowing each tot to put in  ingredients each.

In order to make everyone “happy” we drew names to see who got to put in what ingredient first.

         

What great team work!!!

While the cookies were baking, it was time to try and do a little reading. I have a series of Easy Reader Books that focus on the Level 1 site words we have been learning. I told them that the letters we have been learning form words, and that the words for sentences. 

These little books are great. I have been impressed with what the kids can do when they set their minds to something.  I am very proud of them.

FOR MY PARENTS:

I did an assessment today of the site words we have been working on; a, and, for, have, he, I, in, is, it, of, play, said, that, the, to and you. I sent that home with them today. I also made them each a set of laminated site word flash cards. The above listed words were sent home. Please continue to work with them on these words. Unless you are going to participate in the Summer Preschool Program, I don’t think that I will be reviewing these any more this year.