H is for Hat

Happy hat day!

For hat day we read the book The Hat by Jan Brett In this book the hedgehog gets stuck wearing an unusual hat, a woolen stocking. He encounters many of the animals on the farm who ask him about his unique headwear.  After the story, the kids colored and cut out pictures of the animals and glued them in order of apperance in the book.

G is for Graph

We learned about how to make graphs during letter G week. I provided a paper with all the kid's names listed at the top and a bar graph below that. We counted the number of letters in each name and made a bar graph based on how many letters were in the name. 

Here are a few things I did to make this lesson go more smoothly:

1. When putting the names at the top of the page, I made each name a different color. Since most of my kids can't read, I could ask them to look for the blue name or red name, etc. and then we would count the letters together. 

2. I made a large graph that I displayed and filled in as the kids were filling in theirs so they could check if they were doing it right.

3. At the beginning we did the first 3 names together. The kids who were able to work more independently moved on and the kids who still needed help continued to do it with me. 

 

C is for . . .

. . . caterpillar chains. We made paper chains into caterpillars. We used this as a math focused activity and worked on making patterns with the colors on the chains. For more detailed instructions click here. . . . cookies! We sang C is for Cookie with the cookie monster (on youtube). We read the awesome book, "The Doorbell Rang" by Pat Hutchins about some kids who have to share some cookies with their friends in a fair way. Then we learned how to "share" cookies. Each child got 12 cookie cereal pieces (think cookie crisp) and 6 paper people. They practiced sharing cookies with different numbers of people. 

After they shared their cookies equally, they would write on a worksheet how many cookies each person got.  This is one of my favorite lessons, it is a fun way to introduce division to young children using the idea of sharing fairly. It really makes them stretch and grow.

 To get the full instructions and a free printable, click here.

C is for Caterpillar Chain

We used our math skills to create pattern loving caterpillars during letter c week. 

I provided each child with a premade caterpillar head and the kids used paper strips to give each head a body. The trick was that they had to add the chain links in a pattern. 

Some of the kids did an abab pattern. Some did an abcabc pattern. One of our kids even did an ababcdcd pattern. It was fun to see them catch on so quickly. 

If you want to make your own caterpillar chains, here's what you need:

8-10, 1 x 12 inch strips of construction paper in various colors per student

1, 2 x 12 inch strip of paper for the head per student in a different color

googly eyes

2 small strips of paper for the antennae (curl the strips around a pencil or with scissors)

Give each child a premade head and let them create a pattern for the body. It can help to have them create the pattern completely before they start adding chains to the head. Make sure to remind them that after they link the strip through the chain, they bring it up and over the other end of the paper. They often want to sandwich them together in a tear drop shape instead of a chain. 

Happy learning!

A is for Apple

I love showing our awesome parents what we do each week and sharing with them the learning that went behind the projects that the kids take home. Most of these projects have more detailed posts that I have done before so I am posting a link for each one. Please take a minute to click on the links (the title of each activity) to see what we did and how we did it during letter A week.

Picking apples & working on fine motor skills

Counting the dice pips so she knows how many apples to pick.

Practicing fine motor skills.

Use tongs to pick up apples and drop them in the can.

 Apple Seed Counting (Free Printable)

Practicing number identifying, writing the number, and adding the right amount of seeds to each apple.

Taste testing different types of apples.

 Apple Star Painting and Poem

Identifying numbers and picking apples

We rolled a 12 sided dice, said the number, and picked that apple

10 Apples Up on Top!

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G is for Graph

 We counted the letters of each child's name and graphed how many letters there were. It was a great way to work on a couple of skills simultaneously.  I printed each child's name in a different color to help the younger kids identify which name we were looking at so we could count the letters together.

I got the idea from this website. http://www.teach123school.com/2014/06/back-to-school-books-and-freebie.html

C is for Sharing Cookies

 When I was teaching elementary school, we did  a math lesson about dividing cookies. I loved it and really wanted to figure out a way to make it work for preschool. After a couple of tries, I am happy to say we have achieved awesomeness! 

It all starts with this book:

In the book, the kids start with 12 cookies and two kids to share them. Then the doorbell rings and they have to share with more. Then it happens again, and again. 

So we read the book and talked about what it means to share things equally or divide them. Then we went over to the preschool table and each child got 12 cookie cereal pieces and 6 people. 

I asked the kids to take out one person and tell me how many cookies they would get by putting all the cookies on the person. We wrote down on our paper that we would get 12 cookies.

We took them off, then took out 2 people and shared the cookies between the two people.

It might take some practice to help the kids pass out the cookies one at a time to all the people. We took them off and then we did it sharing with 3 people.

Next it was 4 people.

Last it was 6 people.

As we were going, the kids wrote down how many cookies each person would get in each group. I used the worksheet below for the older class. For the younger class, the numbers were already on the paper in a tracing font for the kids to trace. 

Of course we ended with the kids eating all the cookies! It was a lot of fun and really rewarding to have finally figured out how to make this lesson work. 

To download our cookie sharing sheet for older kids click here.

To download our cookie sharing sheet for younger kids click here.

Math Christmas Trees

Who knew that Christmas was a perfect time to work on math skills? Here are some fun projects we will be working on this month.

The first is math sequencing short to long. Cut patterned papers in varying lengths. Glue a star to the top and let the kids glue the strips from shortest to longest, centered under the star. End with a brown square for the trunk.

The second is practicing counting, number recognition, and one to one correspondence.

One to one correspondence is understanding that when we are counting things, we count one time for each object there is that we are counting. To work on this, I make sure that the kids are touching the things that they are counting, whether it is dots on a number card or objects. I also make sure they count out loud until I feel like they are more accurate with their counting skills. Sometimes kids will count faster than their finger touches things so that they count higher than the number of objects. Or on the opposite, they might touch things faster than they count. We spend a lot of time trying to make sure our finger and our voice are going at the same speed so that we count each thing one time.

This project works on identifying numbers on a dice and one to one correspondence because each circle gets one "ornament."

To play the game, have your kids roll a 10 sided die and add that many pom poms to their Christmas tree until their tree is full.

T is for . . .

 . . . tops
     Where do you find tops you ask? At your local party store of course! Have I told you what a gold mind that place is for finding random things that normal stores don't carry? It's my new favorite place to get preschool stuff!

 . . . truck math
     Check out the full instructions and free printable here.

. . . turtle climbers
      These turtle climbers were a huge success! We used the instructions over at Make and Takes. The only alteration I made was I doubled up the yarn so it didn't slide quite so easily. Thanks for the great idea!