School is Back with Some New Friends!

We kicked off our summer session last week, and it has been so exciting to have new friends to play with!  We played the "Friends and Neighbors" game where we examined different scenarios of friends in need, and decided how to help them.  This game was helpful in guiding our conversation to different emotions, and why the character felt sad, or frustrated, or hurt.

We played another game where we matched our friends' names with their letter links.  This helped us practice saying our friends' names, but also helped us to listen to the way the names sound... especially the beginning sound of the name.

But most of all, we practiced BEING a friend by playing with friends!  This is our 'S' for Summer explore table!  (Everything in here starts with the 's' sound: sand, sea shells, suns, stars, sandals, sun glasses, stamps, and spoons.)

Friend "Alarm Clock" collected all of the sun rings.  She showed her friends how to put them on her fingers, and helped her friends do the same.  It was pretty tricky for some of our younger friends to slip those suns on each finger without dropping any!

But it was also cool to have a handful of sunshine too!  One of the best things about playing with friends is that they introduce new ideas and new ways to play.  :)

The Apple Game! (Gross Motor Skills and Sorting)

We LOVE the Apple Game at Harmony's House!  We mix up our "apples" in a basket, then say, "On your marks, get set, GO!" at which point all the balls ("apples") get dumped!

Then quick as a wink, we all run to pick up the balls and toss them into either the red tub or the blue tub (I wish I had a green one!) according to color.  All around, you hear, "Red!  Green!  Red!" as the children name the colors that they find.  Occasionally you hear, "Oops!  Wrong one!"  Then we fish out the "apple" that doesn't match and toss it in the correct tub.

By far, this is the MOST fun way we have practiced sorting by color and even the toddlers love it and can accurately sort by colors.  Yay by for apples!

Pumpkin Starts with P!

One of our school friends went to the pumpkin patch on her home days.  What a great way to kick off our "Pumpkin" theme at school.  :)

Today in Small Group, we sorted objects by their beginning sounds.  The objects needed to match the /p/ sound like "pumpkin," or the /l/ sound like "leaf."  The school friends were encouraged to listen to the sounds of the words, but also to notice what shape the mouth and tongue made when figuring out where each item went.  They worked carefully and correctly sorted all of the things in the basket.  It was also quite funny to name each object with the "other" letter sound to make the word "pig" sound like "lig," and so on.  :D

The objects for "L" were leaf, lemon, the L acorn, log, and lego.

The objects for "P" were pig, pink, pumpkin, the P acorn, and pom-pom.

During Work Time, anyone who wanted to could work on hammering Pegs into a Pumpkin to promote fine motor skills.  Ms. Harmony had the pegs started so the children could use two hands on the hammer if they needed to.  This really worked out our hand-eye coordination and hand strength!

Additionally during Work Time, the children had the opportunity to work with Play-Doh, or make contact paper art with Pumpkin Parts around a big letter P.  ;)  Friend "K" asked why there was a big P on the sticky paper.  She started sticking on bits of orange, green, and brown things, and then said, "I know!  Pumpkins start with P!  These are pumpkin things!"  It's always super cool to hear children ask and answer their own questions through the process of discovery.  Friends "S" and Baby "K" also worked on this sticky paper pumpkin project.

There were so many times today that we could hear the /p/ sound in our work!

Ways We Play with Math Concepts

"Summer Adventures" has brought new ways to play with math in the last two weeks.  

Counting and Quantifying in Small Group: One way we practiced counting and comparing (most, more, less, least, and equal) was to play this Dice and Lego Game.

  

Each child would roll the dice, count the dots, and stack or line up that number of legos.  Finally, we would put the stacks next to each other and talk about which had more or less, whether we would need to add or subtract legos to make the stacks equal, etc.  Plus we worked our fine motor skills connecting legos!  *This game can be made more challenging for more advanced players by having each child roll two dice and add the quantities of the two dice.*

Counting and Quantifying in Circle Time:  We read the book Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina about the vendor who walked to the countryside for a rest when he could not sell his caps.  After resting under a tree, he wakes to find his caps missing.  They were stolen by many silly monkeys and the man had to trick the monkeys into returning the caps.  He did not carry his caps on his back; he carried them carefully on his head.  After reading this story, the children each got a turn to be a peddler and see how many "caps" (beanbags) they could carry on their heads!  In addition to counting the beanbags, this required the children to hold their bodies very, very still!  It was quite the challenge, but a fun way to practice counting!

Shapes in Work Time:  The Alone Table was home to Imaginets, a fun magnetic suitcase with cards and shape magnets.  Each children enjoyed using the shapes to create their own pictures, or to try to replicate the pictures presented on the cards.  Preschool math is more than counting, number recognition, and naming shapes: spatial awareness is critical and often acquired through playing with shapes in the form of blocks, Magnatiles, or in this case magnets.

Another way we realized spatial relationships was by playing with geoboards and rubber bands.  The children experienced hands-on ways to create lines, change lines into shapes, change shapes into different shapes by moving lines, etc.  We made many polygons and standard shapes.  

*Geoboards were also used during Planning Time by giving each child a standard shape on the board.  Ms. Harmony then described the shape attributes, and whichever child's shape matched the description got to plan next.  For example, Friend "H" had a square and made his plan when Ms. Harmony asked for the child whose shape had "four sides, all exactly the same size."  We counted the pegs of each side to check if each side of the square was the same length.  Friend "K" had a trapezoid and made her plan when Ms. Harmony called for the shape with "four sides, where the sides have different lengths, and two sides slant inward."  

B-B-Beginning Sounds and Work Time Creations

During Small Group today, we worked on a phonemic awareness skill of isolating, hearing, and matching beginning sounds of words.  This was a fun game of sorting toys based on how they sounded.  We started with two forest animals: a fox, and a bear.  We listened to the first sound of the word and matched it to the correct flashcard.  Then we all took turns drawing toys from the basket and matching them as well.  We tested out saying the word with a B-sound and an F-sound.  It made some of the words REALLY funny, like Ffffflashlight Bbbbblashlight or Ffffffeather Bbbbbeather.  

The B-words included bus driver, beaver, beetle, bandaid, and ball.  The F-words were fly, flashlight, feather, fire, and firefighter.  

Once all the toys were sorted, we each took a turn using the toys to tell an alliterative story.  For example, "Fox and fly were camping with a fire.  All of a sudden, a feather flew by and waved the fire into a huge forest fire!  Fly flew off and buzzed in the ear of the firefighter, who grabbed his flashlight and ran into the forest!  He used his giant hose to put out the fire and everyone was saved.  The end."  :)  The children used one collection or the other to create silly stories and we all laughed and laughed.

When we got to Work Time, a lot of the morning was spent in the Art Area.  These children are very creative and work hard.  Here's some of their art plans:

Friend "H" experimented with beads in a few ways.  He started by stringing them onto fuzzy sticks.  This plan evolved into poking them into red play-doh.  Ultimately he chose to use the beads on a paper towel tube.  His process was to drizzle glue all over the top of the tube.  Then he applied tape and cotton balls.  Finally he scooped and poured beads all over the top of the tube.  We carefully took it to the drying rack.  We learned that because the tube had a round shape, instead of a flat shape, the glue, and some beads, would slide off the sides.  We reapplied the beads and hope it will be dry by the time we meet again on Thursday!  It was really exciting to see Friend "H" get so involved in his plan that he wasn't concerned about his hands getting sticky or glue getting on the table.

Friend "K" also wanted to work with beads.  She decided to string hers onto fuzzy sticks to make a necklace.  One fuzzy stick was not long enough to go around, and so we twisted a few sticks together to make it longer.  She also worked through the issue that some of the beads had holes too small to slide over the combined fuzzy sticks.  Finally, without prompting, she decided to count how many beads she had put on her work.  She accurately counted 20 beads on her necklace!  Nice work Friend "K!"

Playing Pirates! Argh!

We have found ways to play with pirates and treasure for the last two weeks.  It has been a total blast!

One place we worked was in the Explore Table.  The table was filled with sand.  There were ships, pirate finger puppets, gems, and treasure chests to work with.  

 The children sorted jewels by color, looked at amounts (what fit in the treasure chests and ships), talked about the parts of the ship like the sails, mast, and crows nest, and produced some excellent pirate dialogue!

We worked with pirate ships and Little People in the Block Area.  It was fun to discover the compartments on the ships for sleeping, keeping a look out, shooting the cannon, and walking the plank!

In Small Group, we decorated treasure chests with gold ribbon, coins, and jewels.  We figured out that the glue did not hold the ribbon very well, so we learned how to use the tape dispenser.  We also figured out how to make glue dots the right size so the glue doesn't fall off the jewels.  It was tricky!

Finally, we worked with the pirate idea in Circle Time.  We read a book about becoming a pirate, and one in which Grandma was kidnapped by pirates!

One of our games included wearing pirate scarves and responding with appropriate facial expressions in the mirror to different pirate scenarios!

 

Some scenarios required us to show brave, happy, excited, disappointed, or secretive faces.

 Once the Explore Table was changed out to have water and ocean animals, the pirates, treasure chests, and jewels moved to the Alone Table.  Friend "K" made the skeleton pirate steal treasure and hide it from the other pirates!

Our last Circle Time activity was to find our treasure that Boss Pirate Bart stole and hid!  We had to follow these five clues:

Our last clue was outside on the tree!  We had to use the shovels to dig up our treasure!

 

 At last the treasure was ours!  We got a shark, spotting scope, sunglasses, gold doubloons, and jewels!  Friend "K" said, "Treasure of my very own!  Wow!"