Day 2 of B and Bears

We started out the day with drawing the letter B on a marker board. As you can see, they didn't do too bad!
Something that I like to do throughout the week when we are not in "school" is to find teaching opportunities while we are doing every day things. There were several times this week when I found the opportunity to talk about the letter B, or the sound it makes. If we put on a brown sweater, I would say "This is a brown sweater! What letter does brown start with?" Or when they were getting ready to go to dance glass, and we packed their ballet shoes, I said "What letter does Ballerina start with?" etc.

After drawing the letter B, we went to the chalk board and we listed some words that start with the letter B. I had to draw them, because if I just wrote the word, they wouldn't be able to read it. So it took some drawing on my part, but it was kind of fun, and they loved the pictures! As we drew the pictures we wrote the words underneath, and found the letter B at the beginning of each. This activity also helped them come up with words that make the B sound on their own. When they would say a word that didn't start with B, like "candy" I would say "Bandy? Does candy start with a B?" They would laugh and think it was SO funny, and say no.

We read "Goldilocks and the 3 bears."
Then we went on a field trip through the house looking for Big, Middle sized, and Little things, just like the bears had with their bowl, chairs and beds.

This is what we found...Books, Balls, Bowls, Spoons, and Keys.

Lastly we did a worksheet on the letter B. It has taken some time to get used to the concept of tracing letters, but I think Tessa has finally gotten it.

Unit 2: The Letter B and Bears

We went to work on a new letter! The letter B. When I am teaching a new letter I start by drawing it on the chalk board, both upper and lower case. Then I make up a "ditty" that I use for the whole unit, for how to draw that letter. With A it was "Up and down and over." For the letter B we are using, "Down, and bump and bump." This seems to help when they are thinking through how to draw the letter.
Next we will sing the alphabet, and see where the letter falls in the alphabet. It helps if they can see the alphabet, and see the letter you are learning.
Then we will talk about the sound that the letter B makes. "Be says 'bu.'" We will try to come up with some words that make the 'bu' sound.
We did the above worksheet on the letter B, and it also had some pictures at the bottom that started with the letter B.

Since we are also learning about bears with this unit, we read the book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?"

And this is a great idea that I got form my friend Linda. I had "Bobby Bear" come and talk to us about his favorite letter, which is the letter B of course! Then he took us on a little hunt around the house. I cut bear prints out of brown construction paper, and taped them in a trail around the house. At the end of the trail was a bowl of things that start with the letter B, that Bobby Bear had left for us!

A baby, bear, backpack, ball, bottle, blanket, book, bathtub, blocks, bread, etc.

The girls loved this, and loved going through the bowl to find things that start with the letter B, although I did hear a lot of "Hey! This is mine!" as we sorted through it. :)

Adding Links!

As requested by some of my adoring fans, I am going to be adding links to the worksheets, and other ideas that I find online. I have already gone back and added links to a few things. I think this is a wonderful idea that will not only help you to use ideas, but also for me to go back and find websites that had great resources.

Alligators day 2

We worked more on the number 1. I wrote a bunch of numbers on a board and had them take turns circling the 1's. They found them all!

We did a lot more on alligators. We "sang" the alligator song/finger play:

"Five little monkeys swinging in a tree
Along comes an alligator quiet as can be
NA NA NA NA NA Can't catch me
SNAP!!"
Then continue with the monkey's down to one little monkey.

We made sparkly alligators.

We also read another book about alligators.

We worked on writing the letter A, upper and lower case. (I had to help some.)

Alligators and the number 1

We learned about the number 1, and also did a lot in math today. (Actually last week, since I am slow to blog this.) Above is a "math mat." We played a game where you roll a dice and count the number on the dice. Then you put that many "rainclouds" (They were cotton balls) in the circle. It was a fun game and helped them count!

This is a booklet that I found online. It has a page for the numbers 1-10, and I thought we could do them progressively, as we learn each number.

More math...I made these "Bean Counters." They are just circles with the number of beans that belong in that circle. Super easy!

We did more with the Letter A. I was surprised that they got this so easily. They were just supposed to circle the capitol A's at the beginning of the word.
We read a book about alligators, and talked about how they live, how they lay eggs, what they eat, where they live, etc.

Alligator worksheet

Day 3 of Apples, and Big A little a

I got this amazing idea from my friend Linda. She does lap books, and so far, my kids LOVE them! All it is, is a few file folders glued together to make a book. You can really do them however you want. Each one has a theme...ours will be on the ABC's. Inside are little activities:
Apple sorting Big A's and little a's, finding the A's in the words, etc.

All of my Big A little A apples came from the same worksheet. I just made copies to make extra apples. With the extras I made the apple basket sorting as seen above in the Lap book, and also for the matching game below. The link is HERE. (Just click on "the Apple tree worksheet pdf" to download and print.)

I also did a Big A, little a matching game. It was just perfect for toddlers.
We also did an Apple Tree coloring page, which I didn't take a picture of. There are apples, with Big A's and little a's that you glue onto the tree.

We read these two books.

Then we went upstairs to make applesauce, just like in our book. This was our last day on apples.

So far pre-school is going great! The kids go around singing the "A says aaaa" song all day, and they keep telling me how much they love apples, and how they grow. After 3 days of class I think they are really learning something and getting the hang of it all!!