Sweet Smiles Preschool: Deep Sea Divers...

I want to start by saying just how much I LOVE MOTHER GOOSE TIME! I really don't say it enough! As this week comes to a close we were presented with a dreary rainy day, and it didn't matter one bit here at Sweet Smiles Preschool! Thanks to Mother Goose Time our days are filled with exploration, imagination, and creativity!!! Our ocean theme is almost over and we have learned so much! Today we learned about divers!

We started our morning reviewing the letter X in our journals. The kids traced their hands, and then drew details and bones to make it look like an x-ray fish. They completed the sentence, "I see ____ in the ocean."

Next, they worked in their literacy workbook. They traced their hand again, but this time they turned it into any sea creature they desired. Check out this cool shark...

For circle time I placed all of our Mother Goose hands-on letters in a big blue pillowcase. We passed it around and sang:

"Dive, dive, dive down deep.

Dive, dive, dive down deep.

(Name) found the letter ___."

(Sung to the tune of "Skip To My Lou.")

Each child took turns reaching into the pillowcase and pulling out a letter (W, O, or X). They identified the name and sound of the letter they chose.

Next, we worked on a letter X book from our literacy workbook. We read the book together and then the kids practiced reading to a friend. They underlined all the letter X's in their book and colored the pages...

Mother Goose provided the following supplies for our craft. The kids made a diver's mask and flippers! These were so much fun for the kids to play with!

Everything looks different when you look through a piece of blue cellophane!

They're all set and ready to go deep sea diving!

The kids learned that scuba divers must wear gear such as a mask, flippers, an oxygen tank and a wet suit to protect them and help them see, swim and breathe in the ocean.

For our next activity, I introduced the kids to six new Spanish words...

I set out a blue sheet that we pretended was the ocean. The kids lifted the sheet up and down to make imaginary waves!

I called one child at a time to go deep sea diving. I gave them one Spanish word, and they had to try and find the matching picture card. It was a super fun way of learning our Spanish words!!!!

For our next activity, I asked the kids what they thought would be dangerous about diving in the ocean. They all replied with, "You could be eaten by sharks!" Lol! I explained that divers have to rise to the surface very slowly so they don't get sick from the extreme pressure change. They also have to watch out for boats nearby. I spread the seashells that Mother Goose provided us all around the floor of the room. I encouraged the kids to crawl or wiggle around the floor to collect them. I told them to listen for me to call out the word "Oxygen." When they heard it, they stood up very slowly as we counted to 18 together (8 & 18 are the numbers we are learning about this month).

The kids had to rise very slowly (much like a deep sea diver does) while we counted to 18. We repeated this a few times, so that we could practice our counting skills!

Mother Goose provided us with the book "Ocean Animals A to Z" this month. This book is AWESOME! The photos are realistic and each page has a letter of the alphabet large enough for children to trace with their finger. This book also has the perfect amount of content to keep the kids engaged throughout the whole story. I read this book to the kids and then set it out with a matching storytelling set. I laminated the set and applied magnets to the back of the pieces so that the kids could play on a magnetic whiteboard.

Two kids at a time could play at the storytelling board. They had fun retelling the story with their own words and matching up the pictures to the pictures in the storybook.

Just after lunch the kids worked on the color blue page in their journal. I encouraged them to draw a deep sea diver, and then use all the shades of blue they could find in our crayon box to make the ocean around the diver. They completed the sentence, "The ocean is _____."

This was the book I read before nap time. It is a fun one! It has repetitive text that encourages the children to interact with the reader. It is a story about a boy imagining his bathtub is the deep blue ocean!

After nap time, the kids worked on a page in their math workbook. They drew the correct number of diver bubbles next to each number on the bottom of their page.

The kids had so much fun looking through their blue cellophane on their diver masks, so I decided to set out our Lakeshore set of color paddles and picture cards at our light table.