Farm Unit Week 1 What is a farm? January 17-20

January 16: No School MLK Day
Unit Book:
What is a Farm

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:

What is a farm?
(barn, farmer, wool, silo, gate, map)

Literacy Small Groups

-Same Sound Bingo- We will practice identifying rhyming pairs with farm rhyming bingo.  After listening to the teacher say a word, children will repeat the word and then find a rhyming farm picture on his/her mat while working to get five in a row.

Letter Z We will learn what the uppercase and lowercase letter Zz looks like.  We will sort magnetic letters to find matches forZz.  We will also hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We will use crayons to hunt for them on our papers. Search for Zz's with your child at home- ask him/her if it is upper or lowercase.  

-We share sounds- We will be listening to sounds we hear in the beginning of words. We will match words that share the same sounds in the initial sound of each word. For example, cow and corn share the same sound. Gate and goat, wig and wagon, etc.

-Journal Writing-We will be writing in our journals. We will be writing about our the foods we eat from the farm. We will focus on the directionality of our writing (staring at the left and continuing to the right of the page) and continue our  practice turtle talking and listening for sounds in our words.  Remember, writing is a developmental skill and we are all working at our own pace and improving each week. (I like to eat........). We will discuss foods that come from the farm to brainstorm.

Handwriting/Letter Groups

-Handwriting Without Tears Program-Letter Z
-Monthly Self Portraits

Math Small Groups

Stack and Take Down 5 (Subitizing to 5)- We will use farm pictures to sort by number.  Using the skill of subitizing we will recognize quantities in dots and fingers.  We will decide quickly whether there are 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5.  We will work to be sure this skill is automatic.  The more practice we have with this the more automatic our responses will become

All the Ways to 5-We will play a game and try to show different ways to make 5 such as 2 fingers, 2 dots, or the number 2 are all different ways to show 2. We will play a game to demonstrate this skill up to the amount of 5.

Centers

Art Table- Barn animals for a farm mural/Farm animals for individual books (This will be an ongoing activity at the art table)

Block Area- farms

Sensory Table- Corn kernels (feed for hungry chickens)
Book Area- Exploring Books about community
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table- Upper Case and Lower Case Letter Z coloring
Dramatic Play-Farm Stand
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives- Letters in a room hunt using clipboards
Science -
Rug- legos

Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
-Farm Food Sort
-Animal Differences (2 legs/4 legs animals, animals that lay eggs/not lay eggs)
-Farm to Store process
-Farmer To Do List: What would be on the list?

Preschool Life Skills 

- We will be focusing on our curriculum of Preschool Life Skills during this time to help us transition into our new classroom.

1. When I call your name, stop what you are doing, look at me, and say ,"Yes".
2. When I give you an instruction, do it "right away"
(Ask your child what do you do when your teacher tells you to do something.  They should reply "I do it right away." You can reinforce this at home too.  "Put your legos away and do it "right away""
3. When I give you  instructions, do them "right away" (multi-step directions)
4. When something is too hard say "Help me please"

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Our Good Morning Chant

-Farmer in the Dell
-Growing Sound (Things that grow)
-Listening to Rhythm in music

Classroom Motivational System
We will be learning classroom routines and expectations within our new classroom.  In order to create a successful and rewarding environment, each child will have a motivational system. Our classroom system promotes positive classroom behavior through positive peer modeling and teachers providing positive reinforcement for desired behaviors.