Gingerbread Unit (December 10-14 and 17-21)

Reminder Our Winter Family Celebration will be on Friday, December 14 from 10:30-11:00
December 10-14

Books This Week:

Gingerbread Man

Gingerbread Girl

Concept For This Week:

-Patterns (Pattern in books and patterns in the environment)

-Rhyming Pairs

Small Groups This Week:

-Gingerbread House matching- We will be cutting pictures of rhyming picture pairs.  We will mix up our pictures.  Then we will place the rhyming pairs in the house.  We will put them in a baggie to take home.  Practice finding the rhyming pairs at home with your child.  

-Gingerbread Shape House- We will color a blank house.  We will be using shapes to create a gingerbread house.  We will name a shape then roll a number cube.  Then we will find the shapes from a field and count the correct number on the cube.  We will use the shapes to decorate our houses. We will also stamp the number of each shape we used in our house.  

-Gingerbread Man Problem Solving-  We will be given objects to help the gingerbread man make a bridge to get over the river. (straws, pipe cleaners, and popsicle sticks) We will experiment using each material to build a bridge across a pail of water.  We will talk about which materials worked the best and why.  We will also talk about which material did not work well and why.  

-Gingerbread Turn Taking Game- We will take turns spinning a spinner and then record what the spinner lands on.  We will observe which colors the spinner landed on the most, least, or equal.

Handwriting Activities

(Letters this week are Jj and Dd)

Letter Activity: We will learn what these uppercase and lowercase letters look like.  

We will sort magnetic letters into groups of uppercase and lowercase groups for each letter. We will hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates

Centers

Art Table: making gingerbread men in trays

Block Area: blocks with the gingerbread man

Sensory Table: role play of how the gingerbread man tried to get across the river (water, gingerbread man, fox, and other animals to watch)

Book Area: books about gingerbread

Independent Table: Write the room

Dramatic Play: Gingerbread Bread Bakery

Puzzles and Manipulatives: gingerbread man ten frames

December 17-21

December 15 Family Show

Books This Week:

Gingerbread Baby

Gingerbread Friends

Concept For This Week:

-Social thinking -Thinking with our eyes- Looking at unit books to reinforce this concept

-How can we solve a problem (related to gingerbread story)

Small Groups This Week:
-Rhyming Cookie Pairs- We will be labeling 2 cookies on a tray.  Then they will identify if the words rhyme or not rhyme.  We will then sort our cookie trays on our papers
-Turn Taking Games- (Candy Land, Shoots and Ladders, and Zingo) Inspired by our gingerbread unit. We will reinforce turn taking language in this classic fun game.

-Gingerbread House Letter Matching- In groups we will cut and then match letters onto our houses (matching uppercase to lowercase or lowercase to lowercase)

Handwriting Activities

Handwriting Books (Letters this week are Jj and Dd)

Centers

Art Table-Brown finger painting on gingerbread

Block Area:blocks to build gingerbread houses

Sensory Table: gingerbread “moon sand”

Book Area: books about gingerbread

Easel:gingerbread painting

Dramatic Play:Gingerbread Bakery continued (more materials will be added to extend)

Puzzles and Manipulatives: Ipads

Community week 4- The Ugly Vegetables

Unit Book:
The Ugly Vegetables

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:

What kinds of communities do people live in?
(neighborhood, vine, stem, sprinkle, neighbors, aroma)

Literacy Small Groups

-Put out the Fire- We will pull letters out of a bag and then label the letter and repeat the letter sound. After we find the letter on our fire engine papers we will put the letter in a bucket of water for an extra fun step.

- Community Houses- We will be rainbow writing our names on houses and cutting out squares and triangles to create a house name for each of us.

-Onset/Rime- We will be working on listening to sounds in words specifically onset and rime. Onset is the first part of the word we hear and the rime is the second part. For example: dog /d/ is the onset and /og/ would be the rime.

-Map of our school community- We will be talking about how maps help people get from one place to another in our communities. After looking at one in a book and then finding the high school map and looking at how it helps us we will create our own maps. The maps will show how we get to school and places we see on the way as well.

-Rhyming Bingo- We will review how rhyming words "sound alot alike" such as bat and cat. Then we will play a game of bingo by listening to a word then finding the picture that rhymes with the word we heard.

-Shape Bingo- We will each create our own bingo boards by cutting and gluing shapes to a board.  Then we will play bingo to identify the shapes we know. 

-Handwriting Without Tears Handwriting Book- G and S

-How Tall Can It Be? We will combine foam cubes to build new shapes. After exploring the cubes, we will stack the cubes on top of one another to see how tall it can be. Then we will record on a data sheet how tall the tower became. Then we will identify which number was the most, least, and if any were equal.

Centers

Art Table- Painting with Vegetables (rolling vegetables in paint) 

Block Area- blocks and vegetables to make gardens

Sensory Table- Garden (Dirt, shovels, seeds, seed packets)
Book Area- Exploring Books about community
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table- Gingerbread coloring
Dramatic Play-Pizza Shop
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives- Puzzles
Rug- legos

Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
-Soil (What is it and what is in it?)
-Describe a garden
-Food We Like to Eat

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Thumbs Up to rhyming and non-rhyming pairs
-Syllable Sound Off, Compound Boogies

-Our Good Morning Chant

-Compound word break up game song

-Neighbors Chant

Happy Thanksgiving

Community Week 3 Nov. 26-30

No School Thursday -Parent Conference Day

Unit Book

The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:

What can you do in our community?
(delicious, ingredient, lovely, sip, delicatessen, hardware store)

Literacy Small Groups

-Letter Gg and Ss- We will learn what the uppercase and lowercase letters Gg and Ss look like.  We will sort magnetic letters to find matches for Gg and Ss.  We will hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We used crayons to hunt for them on our papers too.

-Fire Hydrant Letter Matching- We will match letter pairs in small groups.

-Pizza Crust Letter Matching- We will be matching uppercase and lowercase letters on our pizzas in small groups.

-Compound Chef- We will each receive a word. Then each child will cut the word into two parts. We will say each part of the word in isolation then put them back together. Then we will draw a picture of each word.

-Favorites and Not-Favorites- In our unit story, the characters had items they liked and did not like. We will be creating a favorites list and making a list of items that are not our favorites. We will talk to friends at our table and compare items that are the same and not the same on our lists.

-Story Sequencing- We will sequence story elements from our unit story the Little Red Hen makes a Pizza. We will reinforce left to right progression as we use the pictures to retell the story in small groups.

-Journal Writing-We will be writing in our journals about community helpers that keep us safe and healthy. (ie police, firefighters, doctors, etc)

Centers

Art Table- Painting Pizzas with toppings/Firefighter hats

Block Area- blocks and community people

Sensory Table- Mixing bowls/spoons/Cups
Book Area- Exploring Books about community
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table- Making Lists
Dramatic Play-Pizza Shop
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives- Pizza Mania Math Game
Rug- legos

Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
-Mixing Ingredients
-Shopping Lists
-Healthy Choices

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Syllable Sound Off, Compound Boogies

-Compound word break up game song

-Neighbors Chant
-Make a Pizza song

Community Week 2 Nov. 19-21

Half Day- Wednesday 10:40 Dismissal

No School Thursday and Friday Nov. 22&23

Community Week 2 
Unit Book
A Day in the Life of a Firefighter
Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:
What do workers in our community do? 
(firefighter, emergency, equipment, protect, community helper, rescue)

Small Groups
-Roll and Paint the Fire- We will roll a cube and subitize the number rolled. We will then find the number on our papers and use Q-tips to paint the fire with red, yellow, and orange paint.

Turkey Subitize- We will subitize amounts of objects on turkey feathers and sort them quickly onto our turkeys.  Subitizing is recognizing a set of objects without counting.  This is an important skill to master before reading.  

-Handwriting Without Tears Books- Letters O  and Q

Centers

Art Table- red, yellow, and orange paint(fire colors)

Block Area- blocks and community people

Sensory Table- red, yellow, orange shredded paper(to look like fire) and cotton(smoke)with firetrucks and firefighters
Book Area- Exploring Books about community
Easel-Markers and paper
Dramatic Play-Airport/Firestation
Rug- tracks and roads

Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
-Take Away Stories
-Locating things in our neighborhoods
-Safety in our neighborhoods
-Jobs in our community

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Syllable Sound Off, Compound Boogies

-This little light of mine

-Neighbors Chant
-Firetruck Song
-Nursery Rhymes: Hush Little Baby, Hickory Dickory Dock

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. 

Class Reward

On Wednesday, we earned a class reward and was able to eat our snack in the high school cafe.  We had been working on following the "group plan."  Every time a teacher noticed that the whole class was following the same plan we earned a pom-pom in our bucket.  We earned 10 pom poms.  It was a fun reward. 

Community Week 1 (November 13-16)

Community Unit 
Unit Book

The Two Promise Walk

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:

What is our community?
(bridge, traffic, restaurant, airport, forget, remember

Literacy Small Groups

-Letter Oo- We will learn what the uppercase and lowercase letter Oo looks like.  We will sort magnetic letters to find matches for Oo.  We will hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We used crayons to hunt for them on our papers too.

-Letter Qq- We will learn what the uppercase and lowercase letter Qq. looks like.  We will sort magnetic letters to find matches for Qq.  We will hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We used crayons to hunt for them on our papers too.

-Journal Writing-We will be writing in our journals about our favorite place in our community.

-Positional Word Train-Students will work to use positional terms to move a train around a train station scene based on a teacher’s directions.  We will practice words such as above, over, below, behind, next to, in between, in front of and beside.  Then we will challenge a partner to follow directional terms while using positional words to place the train.  

-Popcorn Letter Game- We will take turns pulling a "popcorn" out of a bucket and labeling the letter on it. Then we will record the letter we pulled out. To add a twist, some popcorns have the word POP on it. When a child pulls out the word POP they say pop and stand up. The group stands up with them and says pop as well. This encourages everyone to attend when their turn is over.

Band-Aids on Bears- We will be cutting and gluing bandaids on letter boo-boos onto the bear to match the letters on the bear. Some matches will be uppercase to uppercase and others will be uppercase to lowercase.

Centers

Art Table- Doctor Kits

Block Area- blocks and community people

Sensory Table- bridges and boats
Book Area- Exploring Books about community
Easel-Markers and paper
Dramatic Play-Taco Shop
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives- Puzzles
Rug- tracks and roads with trains

Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
-Take Away Stories
-Locating things in our neighborhoods
-Safety in our neighborhoods
-Jobs in our community

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Syllable Sound Off, Compound Boogies

-Our Good Morning Chant

-Neighbors Chant

-Firetruck Song

A note from our school nurse

Dear Parents and Guardians,

As we approach flu and cold season I wanted to take a moment to remind everyone about Burlington Public Schools policy and procedures regarding when and when not to send your child to school. Please review the "Red, Yellow, Green Light" illness guidelines found here. It is imperative that every student and staff member abide by these guidelines to keep our school healthy and safe. At school, we encourage and teach proper handwashing to limit the spread of disease. Please help your child with this at home as well. Please remember that this is important to keep every child safe, especially our students with immunodeficiencies. I kindly ask for your cooperation with this and please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns. 

Sincerely,

Jessica Gearin MEd, BSN, RN

BECC School Nurse

Family Unit Kevin and His Dad week 3

Unit Book

Kevin and His Dad

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:

How does everyone in a family help?
(chore, clean, inside, outside, tidy, slippery, dust)

Literacy Small Groups

-Sequencing of our supplemental story The Little Old Lady who was not afraid of anything. We will trace numbers and put them in order on our papers then sequence the pictures. We will also trace the letters for the words in the story.
-Family Project: Children will be discussing their family projects.  We will be encouraging them to speak to the class and answer questions their friends ask.  They will sit in the teacher chair too which is always a treat.
-Journals- We will write more about our families.  We will write about something special we do with our family. Like in our unit book we will talk about how we can help them with chores or other jobs. 
-Zones of Regulation- Our friend Kate (social worker) will come in for an activity related to our emotions and how to regulate them appropriately. 

Handwriting/Letter Groups

-Handwriting Without Tears Program- Letters Uu and Cc.
We will learn what these uppercase and lowercase letters look like.  We will sort magnetic letters to find matches.  We will hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We used crayons to hunt for them on our papers too.

Math Small Groups

-Subitize Memory Game- We will use memory cards with pictures of set(ie. 2 fingers up, 3 dots, 1 dot, etc) We will use our skill of subitizing to say how many without counting the sets to play a memory game.

--Inside/Outside- We will use mats and counters to tell math stories with a up to a set of 5. After we tell stories to our group, we will draw a picture of our math story and explain our math story to our group.

-How Many in the House?-We will use house mats and people counters to act out math stories. Partners will take turns telling stories about a number of family members that were in the house and some joining the group. They will show these problems with their counters and tell how many altogether.  Our house will have 2 five frames and stairs to challenge us to use both five frames in our math stories.

Centers

Art Table- Family project

Block Area- House and families 

Sensory Table- washing dishes with bubbles (related to story)
Book Area- Exploring Books about families
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table- Draw a picture of your family and things you like to do with them
Dramatic Play-Dress Up Area
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives- Letters in a room hunt using clipboards
Rug- dollhouse and families

Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
-House Chores? What are they? How can we help?

- How to take care of pets?
-We all need food. Why?  
-How many are hiding? (5 objects all together, hid your eyes, cover 2 objects and ask how many are hiding)

STEM Week in the Cub Cadets

STEM Week in Preschool

In an effort to boost students’ interest and raise awareness of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, the Baker-Polito Administration has declared a statewide STEM Week from October 22-26, 2018, and is asking educators at all grade levels to participate by planning lessons, events, and activities focused on science, technology, engineering, and math throughout the week.

Students from pre-kindergarten through high school and postsecondary institutions will be encouraged to take part in hands-on learning that aligns topics across STEM subjects and connects to other curricula.

This week our class conducted a variety of STEM activities:

Exploring Gravity

- We looked around our classroom for materials to use in an experiment.  A teacher held the object out and then we observed the speed it fell to the ground.  For example, the block fell quickly and made a loud sound, the feather took longer to fall to the ground.) We talked about why we think the objects fell differently. We notice the heavier the object was the quicker it fell like the block. The lighter objects like the feather and tissue took longer to fall to the ground.

Marble Mazes in the Sensory Table

-We constructed marble mazes in the sensory table this week.  They enjoyed watching the marbles on ramps, marble wheels, and marble drops.  

Ramp Racing

-We talked about ramps in a whole group. We talked about how ramps are simple machines and they help us move objects from one place to another. We then made predictions which ramp would make the car go further. (long, medium, or short ramp) The children raced the cars down the ramps and we marked the spot where the cars stopped. We discovered the longer ramp made the car go the furthest distance and the short ramp made the car go the shortest distance. We then added cars and ramps to the block center.  We explored on our own how to build ramps and how to change the speed of the cars.  When the ramps were diagonal, the cars moved. When the ramps were flat, the cars did not move.

Building Towers

-We used shaving cream to build block towers.  We used shaving cream to help hold the blocks together.  We counted to see how many blocks we could build in our towers before they fell.  We recorded the colors we used on our papers too.

Observing Physical Changes

- We found pieces of ice on the playground.  We took the ice into our school and placed them in two bowls.  We placed one in the freezer and one we left in our classroom. At the end of the day, we compared both pieces of ice and made some conclusions.  (ie The freezer is cold so the ice stayed ice. The ice melted in our classroom because our classroom is warm.)

Family Unit week 2 September 22-26

Unit 2 My Family

Unit Book
Quinito, Day and and Night
Noisy Nora

Read Aloud:A Family is a family
*We will also have a special reading of The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything to go along with seasonal happenings

 Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:

Who is in my family?
(Family, messy, neat, busy, hush, sticky, loud)

Literacy Small Groups

-Sound Eggs- In our unit story, Nora made a variety of different sounds.  We will be listening to different mystery sounds in eggs and trying to match them to objects we think are inside of them.  We will cut and glue our results. 
-What's in My Bag- We will be listening to parts of words(onset-rime) We will be listening to 2 parts of word and saying the word together. (ie C- AR). We will have an object in the bag and having them guess what is in the bag by presenting it in onset-rime.
-Family Member Syllables- We will draw members of our family and then recording the number of syllables for each member. 
-Journal- We will be "writing" about our families in our new journals.  We will draw a picture about who is in our family and tell a teacher our words.

Handwriting/Letter Groups

-Handwriting Without Tears Program- Letters T and I

Math Small Groups

-Block Towers- We will be creating sets of 5 by building towers of 5 and recording the colors we used for each set.  We reinforced 1:1 correspondence and the concept of "total" (in all).
- Sequencing- We will sequence our story of the scarecrow by writing numbers and discussing the ordinal position of each element

Social Thinking Small Group

-Kate will continue working in our Zones of Regulation Books

Centers
Art Table- Family Portrait Frames

Block Area- House and families 

Sand Table- marble maze
Book Area- Exploring Books about family
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table- ABC stamps
Dramatic Play- Apple Pie Bakery
Rug- trains

Science/Social StudiesCircle Concepts
Food Groups/Everyone Has A Home

Family Unit Week 1 (Oonga Boonga) Sept. 15-19

Unit Book
Oonga Boonga/Quinto Day and Night

Read Aloud:Keisha Then and Now

 Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:

How do family members care for one another?
(lullaby, sob, tear, care, baby, pediatrician)

Literacy Small Groups

-Letters in My Name Class Book- We will be counting and comparing letters in our names to create a new class book. It will come home with your child shortly.

-Journals- We will do more journal writing to write about our families.  

Handwriting/Letter Groups

-Handwriting Without Tears Program-We will learn what the uppercase and lowercase letter T and I looks like.  We will sort magnetic letters to find matches for Qq and Gg.  Then we will hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We will use crayons to hunt for them on our papers.

Math Small Groups

-Subitize How Many?- We will be subitizing (knowing the total of how many without counting) with quantities 1, 2, and 3. We will try to know how many are hiding under a bucket quickly before the teacher covers the total. This is an important skill to learn in both math and reading readiness.
-How many people in the house?- Using a five frame we will develop math stories using people counters.
-How many on the bus? Using a five frame and pictures of friends, we will count 5 friends and then develop math skills about the people on the bus.

Centers

Art Table- Pumpkin Heads

Block Area- House and families 

Sensory Table- washing babies with soap
Book Area- Exploring Books about families
Dramatic Play-Taking care of babies/Pediatrician
Science -Making Sound Harmonicas
Rug- farms (animal farmilies)

Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
-How do we grow up?

- Math Concept- Stack & Take Down Four Cubes-We will work on understanding that no matter the order we count them, objects in a set remain the same.  We will use a set of blocks to build a house and counted them carefully.  Then, we used the same set of blocks to build a new house.  Each time, we counted the blocks to find the quantity stayed the same no matter what order we counted them in.  

Unit 1 Friends Are Special Week 4 Oct 9-12

Reminder No School Monday
Unit 1 Friends Are Special

Unit Book
Matthew and Tilly

Additional Read Aloud:The Door Bell Rang

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:

How Do Friends Get Along?
(happy, apologize, argue, accident, sad, mad)

Literacy Small Groups

-Syllable Segment:We used this week’s story, Matthew & Tilly to clap and sort pictures by their number of syllables.  We sorted by 1 and 2 syllables.  Have fun clapping syllables at home.
-Zones of Regulation Activity - Weekly we will be working with our friend Kate (social worker) to create a zones journal. At the end of the year we will have a journal book to bring home.
- My name/Your name- We will be creating a special
-Matthew and Tilly- We will cut and sort pictures from our unit book Matthew and Tilly to retell the story.
-Letter/Not a Letter- We will be sorting letters and non letters.

Handwriting/Letter Groups

-We will be writing in our straight line letter books focusing on the letters E and H. We will focus on formation and include fun practice with chalkboards.

Math Small Groups

Monkey Sharing- We will be sharing bananas with 2 hungry monkeys.  We will try to give each amounts to each monkey so they are both happy.  We will sort 4 bananas so each monkey gets 2 bananas, they 6 so each gets 3, etc.  Then we will glue down our final amount after practicing this skill. 

Centers
Art Table- Chalk drawing

Block Area- foam letters to make a hopscotch

Sand Table- Searching in colored rice for uppercase and lowercase letters
Book Area- Exploring Books about friends
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table- ABC stamps
Dramatic Play- Ice Cream Stand
Rug- Legos

Science/Social StudiesCircle Concepts
-Sorting and Classifying Objects

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Building Syllable Ice Cream Cone Chart Whole Group

Back to School Night Oct 3 6:30-7:00

Cub Cadet Classroom Back To School Night Presentation Time is 6:30-7:00. 

Information from the BECC Blog:

It's time for Back to School Night at the BECC!  We hope you can join us on Wednesday, October 3rd from 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM (our class is from 6:30-7:00) for this opportunity for you to see what is happening in your child's classroom on a daily basis.  Please check your child's classroom blog for specific times of presentations. 

This night is designed for parents and guardians only. Because of the large amount of families attending, we cannot accommodate individual conferences.  We look forward to seeing everyone on Wednesday!

Unit 1 Friends Are Special Week 3 October 1-5

Unit 1 Friends Are Special

Unit Books

Oscar is Cold

Read Aloud:We Are Friends
-We will reenact the story of Oscar is Cold with props

 Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:

How Do Friends Help Each Other?
(listen, arrive, exclaim, share, help, shiver)

Literacy Small Groups

-Syllable Segment: We will begin segmenting the syllables in our names in small groups. We will be clapping the sounds in our friends names and creating a chart to show how many claps are in each name.

-Sequencing The Story Oscar is Cold
-Journal Writing."How do friends help us?"
- Big Letters and Little letters- We will be looking at our friends names making every aware than our first letter always starts with a big letter and then little letters.  We will create a chart to show this.
-Your name/My name- We will be drawing self portraits of ourselves and looking at our friends to draw a picture that looks like them.  We will note similarities and differences.
-Number cube game- Using a die with numbers 1-5 and a 5 frame, we will roll the die to identify the number then count the correct number of objects to place in our five frames. 

Handwriting/Letter Groups

-What’s My Letter? Small Groups E and H

We learned what the uppercase and lowercase letter Ee look like.  We sorted magnetic letters to find matches for Ee.  We hunted for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We used crayons to hunt for them on our papers.  Search for these letters at home.  Remember to help your child name the letter.

Centers
Art Table- Color color painting (blue shades)

Block Area- blocks

Sand Table- leaves and acorn sorting 
Book Area- Exploring Books about friends
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table- Friendship writing
Dramatic Play- Camping (Making Smores)/ Role play of story
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives- Finding Letters in a room hunt using clipboards
Rug- tracks and cars

Science/Social Studies/Social Thinking Circle Concepts
What keeps us warm?
Living and Non-Living
hought Bubbles/

Bring a stuffed animal to school day tomorrow

Tomorrow is a special day.  We have been reading Corduroy this week and we are inviting our class to bring in 1 special stuffed animal friend to spend a day at school with us.  Please be sure the stuffed animal can fit inside of your child's backpack and has a tag with your child's name. 

Unit 1 Friends are Special Week 2 September 24-26

Unit 1 Friends Are Special

Unit Books
Corduroy

Read Aloud: Friends Share

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:

What is a friend?

(friend, play, laugh, admire, together, enormous)

 Small Groups

-Corduroy Sequencing Story Pictures
- Letters in our name/Not in our name- We will cut a variety of letters and then sort on our papers letters in our name and not in our name.  We will also compare at our tables if our friends share letters.
-Letters in our name hunt- We will use special glasses to hunt for letters in our name around the room on post its.  We will find them and match them on our papers. When we find all the letters we will practice writing our names (rainbow writing)
-Corduroy Lacing- We will color a picture of Corduroy from our unit book.   Then with a teachers help we will put holes on him and lace a string around him.
-Journal writing- We will begin writing in our journals.  Children will draw a picture of their stuffed animal they bring to school and tell us one thing about their "friend". Teachers will write their words to reinforce how oral language can become words/text to describe their pictures.

Handwriting/Letter Groups
-Letters L and F-We will be using a hands-on approach(ie. sand, colored chalk, shaving cream) to reinforce correct letter formation.  Then we will practice in our Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) books

Centers
Art Table- Corduroy Button Design

Block Area- blocks  and bears (building bed for Corduroy)

Sand Table- buttons
Book Area- Exploring Books about school
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table- crayons and paper
Dramatic Play- Shoe Store (related to Corduroy)
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives- Letter Puzzles
Science -ramps
Rug- Jungle Animals

Science/Social Studies Circle
- 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".
-Discussing how we sit and listen in a group (our community classroom)
2. When a teacher tells me to do something, "I do it right away."

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Nursery Rhymes: Hey Diddle Diddle / Mary Had a Little Lamb

-Our Good Morning Chant

-ABC Rock by Steve and Greg

-Number Rock by Steve and Greg
-Shake Breaks (Go Noodle)
-Sing and Move- We will sing a song that has the word friend and together.  Each child will have one word and one instrument.  When they hear their word they will play their instrument.

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.

Unit 1 Friends are Special Week 1

Unit 1 Friends Are Special

Unit Books

The Lion and The Mouse 

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:

What makes each of us special?

(thank, help, protect, kindness, patient, mighty)

Small Groups

-Sound Search- We will use Ipads to listen to the sounds we hear.  We will use descriptive language to describe each sound. This game reinforces listening skills and gets us ready to listen to sounds in words.

-Letters in my name game- Each child will have their name card.  Letters will be in a bag.  Each child will pull out a letter from the bag.  If they have the letter in their name they will keep it.  If it is not in their name they will find a friend that has the letter and give it to them.  The goal for everyone to make their name.  We will compare letters their letters in their name to a friend.  

-Digging for Treasure-In sand, each child will dig and find objects in the sand. We will find 5 objects then we will find objects based on size, color, shape.

--Mouse Tails- We will color and cut out paper mouses.  Then we will put on a tail. Then we will put on 5 beads on the mouse tail.  

Handwriting/Letter Groups

Name Formation- We will be working with our name cards and looking for the letters in our name. We will match manipulative letters. Then we will trace our letters on dry erase cards. Then we will write our names by looking at our model. Please remind your child to start each letter at the top.
-What’s My Letter? (L l)

We learned what the uppercase and lowercase letter Ll  looks like.  We sorted magnetic letters to find matches for Ll.  We hunted for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We used crayons to hunt for them on our papers.  Search for these letters at home.  Remember to help your child name the letter.

-What’s My Letter?(F f )

We learned what the uppercase and lowercase letter Ff looks like.  We sorted magnetic letters to find matches for Ff. .  We hunted for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We used crayons to hunt for them on our papers.  Search for these letters at home.  Remember to help your child name the letter.

Centers

Art Table- Lion painting with plastic forks to create manes for lions

Block Area- blocks and cars

Sand Table- sand exploration

Book Area- Exploring Books about school

Easel-Markers and paper

Writing Table- crayons and paper

Dramatic Play- Taking care of babies

Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives- Letter Puzzles

Rug- Jungle Animals

Science/Social Studies Circle

- 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".

-Discussing how we sit and listen in a group (our community classroom)

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Our Good Morning Chant

-ABC Rock by Steve and Greg

-Number Rock by Steve and Greg

-Dino Stomp

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. 

First Full Week of School September 10-14

First Full Week of School
We will begin our school year getting to know each other and establishing classroom routines. During the month of September, we will be focusing on developing classroom expectations, routines, and getting to know each learner. Our books for the first several weeks will pertain to transitioning to school and feelings about coming to school.
We will also use these books to have the students become familiar with our curriculum approach which is to use books to build on our classroom activities.
We will begin our first unit during the week of September 23rd.  Our first unit will be "Friends".

Books These Weeks:

The Kissing Hand
Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom

Small Groups:
Literacy Small Groups/Fine Motor

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
-Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Bowling- We will roll a "coconut" to knock down bowling pins with letters on them.  We will stamp on our bowling recording sheet which letters we knocked down.
-Coconut Tree Letter Bean Bag Throwing- Each child will receive a bean bag with a letter.  They will name the letter, then gently toss it onto a coconut tree(brown paper with green leaves on top)
Kissing Hand
-Feed Chester- We will be cutting letters both in our name and not in our name.  Then we will use the letters in our name to make our name on our papers.  The letters not in our name we will feed to Chester Raccoon. 
-Story Sequencing-After listening to our story, we will discuss events that happened.   Then we will cut pictures from the story then place in order to retell the story to reinforce left to right progression.  Students will verbally retell the events.

Math Small Groups/Fine Motor Small Groups
Kissing Hand
-Patterning- We will create patterns using pictures from the Kissing Hand
-Graphing- We will spin a spinner that has pictures from our story.  Then we will record by coloring one box to show which picture the spinner landed on. We will then count to see which picture we recorded the most and least.
-Using a coconut tree mat, we will use playdough to create letters and coconuts for the tree. 
-Coconut Pick up- Using clothespins we picked up "coconut" pom poms and move them into cups. This will help strengthen our fingers in this fun game. 

Centers
Art Table- Tissue Paper Collages for the first letter in our names to make letter mosaics

Block Area- blocks with coconut leaves

Sand Table- Sand/ Chicka, Chicka Trees, beans(as the coconuts), and letters
Book Area- Exploring Books about school
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table- crayons and paper
Dramatic Play- dishes, cookware, and food (restaurant role play)
Rug- Legos

Science/Social Studies Circle
- 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".
-Discussing how we sit and listen in a group (our community classroom)

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Action Bingo Song:

There was a class that had a boy/girl, and _____was his/her name-o

(Each child chooses an action for others to follow)

Jump, Jump, (name), Jump, Jump, (name), Jump, Jump, (name) ,

We're glad you're in school today.
-If your happy and you know it.
-Here we are together at school
-Our Good Morning Chant
-ABC Rock by Steve and Greg

-Number Rock by Steve and Greg
-Dino Stomp

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.  This system can be explained more thoroughly in a tab on this blog.