Hop on Pop Hopscotch

Happy Leap year day! 

Here's a great post to celebrate a special day that only happens once every 4 years. March 2nd is a pretty popular day over here at Chipman's Corner. Why? You might ask. March 2nd is Dr. Seuss's birthday. So every year we have a special preschool day completely devoted to activities related to his books. 

Here's a great activity to go with Hop on Pop.

Hop on Pop hopscotch!!

I used butcher paper to draw a hopscotch with the hop on pop characters in the middle. 

Since it was made of paper, I used some cheap Ikea clear, plastic mats to keep the paper from getting ruined. We worked on number recognition as the kids threw the markers on the board. 

Have you ever wondered what the official rules for hopscotch are? Check out wiki how for complete instructions. http://www.wikihow.com/Play-Hopscotch

Letter Walk

 

Good readers notice letters and words everywhere. Here is a great activity for using at school, at home, or even in the car. The activity is simple, but is great for raising letter awareness and working on letter recognition. Simply write letters around the edge of a styrofoam plate. Cut slits between each letter. When they find a letter, they rip that letter off of their plate until they have found the whole alphabet. 

The kids had so much fun looking for letters all around the classroom. 

They even found letters on someone's shirt and thought that was a lot of fun.  

 

L is for Listen

 We had two different listening centers during letter L week that got a lot of traffic from all the kids. 

Loud/Quiet Center

The kids were given various materials and empty easter eggs. 

They filled the eggs with one material and guessed if it would make a loud or soft sound.

Then they shook the egg to test their guess.

After everyone had a chance, we sorted the materials between loud and quiet on a T chart. 

Identify That Sound Center - Click here for more details.

K is for Kite

So once upon a time I lived and taught in Arizona and when it was letter k week, it was January or February and the weather was beautiful and in the 70s. We found ourselves celebrating kite day like this:

Well, now I live and teach in Utah and when letter k day comes around, outside looks more like this:

So our days of making real kites to go fly outside are over and we had to settle for pretty, artistic kites. It's okay, because the kids loved their pretty (non functional) kites too and pretended to fly them around the room. Here are some pictures of how we made our kites. I used the tutorial at Make and Takes.

Here's What You Need:

• clear contact paper
• black construction paper
• multicolored tissue paper squares
• yarn
• letter K cut outs

Here's What You Do:

Cut out a kite frame from the black construction paper and lay it on top of the sticky side of the contact paper leaving the inside sticky.

Cut the excess contact paper from the outside of the frame, but leaving the sticky inside.

Cut out black strips for the support "rods"

Lay the strips across the frame in whatever pattern you want. 

Put the tissue paper squares on the sticky part of the contact paper inside the frame and cover completely.

 Your end product will look something like this:

Glue the letter ks to the yarn

Tape the yarn to the back of the kite. 

Cover the back with contact paper so the kite is sandwiched between the first layer and this one. This holds the tissue papers in place. 

Cut the excess black strips and contact paper off.

K is for Kangaroo

A bunch of joey kangaroos took over our preschool with their kangaroo pouches and their jumping around.

They were focused on filling their pouches with things that start with the letter K. 

They found these pictures around the room and decided which picture would fit into their pouch and took that picture out of an envelope. 

It was a lot of fun using our imaginations and learning at the same time.

Here is a tutorial on making the kangaroo pouches. 

L is for Ladybug

Aren't these the cutest little ladybugs you have ever seen?! 

We made these during letter L week using a tutorial from One Little Project. 

After we made our ladybugs, we sang some ladybug songs:

See the Ladybug - sung to "Frere Jacques"

See the ladybug, see the ladybug.
Watch it crawl, watch it crawl.
See it crawling higher,
See it crawling higher.
Watch it crawl, up the wall.

See the ladybug, see the ladybug.
Watch it crawl, watch it crawl.
See it crawling lower,
See it crawling lower.
Way down low, to my toe.

~Jean Warren

I'm a Little Ladybug - sung to "I'm a Little Teapot"

I'm a little ladybug on the go,
Landing on an arm, now an elbow.
See me fly around and around your hand,
Now watch as on your thumb I land.

I'm a little ladybug searching for some toes,
But watch me quickly land on your nose.
Now I look around and head for your hair,
I muss it up a bit, then pat it down with care.

I'm a little ladybug looking for a knee,
I'm just so happy you're not bugged by me.
Now you see me heading for your chest,
This little ladybug needs some rest.

~Susan M. Paprocki of IL

Ladybugs Fly - sung to "Three Blind Mice"

Fly, fly, fly.
Ladybugs fly..
Fly over here.
Fly over there.
They fly up high and they fly down low.
Around and around and around they go.
They fly fast, and they fly-fly slow.
Oh, ladybugs fly.

~Cheryl's Sweethearts ChildCare

H is for . . .

. . . H's who love to hide.

I hid some capital and lower case letters around the room. The kids found them and sorted them between upper case and lower case. 

. . . hats

. . . hiding. We played hide and go seek together all over the house. It is always a favorite day of mine and the kids. Plus it's a great excuse to make sure my kids all clean out their closets. :)

. . . The Hat by Jan Bret

We did a sequencing activity after reading the book. We used a free printable found at Primary Press. 

G is for Giraffe

I got the idea from this website. http://missmarensmonkeys.blogspot.com/