On Monday we started a new curriculum theme: Alphabet House!
I am always so thankful Mother Goose writes a monthly newsletter for teachers!
This is the weekly breakdown of our theme! I am pretty excited about this one! Once again Mother Goose has chosen a topic that I would not have been able to think of on my own. They have divided the month up into four subtopics that I know will keep the kids interested. It seems that every lesson I teach touches base on real life concepts. We end up having rich discussions about things that genuinely affect their world. I am so thankful for the daily topic posters and the questions provided in each daily lesson. Yes, I said that right...Mother Goose actually gives you the questions to ask your child. The questions are not "yes" or "no" questions. They require a higher level of thinking, and for that I am so grateful!!!
We are all set and ready to READ!
We started the month of June today! This month we will be celebrating Father's Day, and the first day of Summer! We are also looking forward to starting two new friends on Monday, June 15th! Our two oldest school-agers are going to start a full-time summer school program, so we will be saying goodbye to them on Friday, June 12th. Starting June 15th we will have 12 full-time preschoolers. At the end of the summer we will have 3 kids graduating and heading off to Kindergarten!!!
Mother Goose provided us with this alphabet house. I laminated it and placed magnets on the back of each piece. Each morning during circle time we will add a new letter. By the end of the month we will have built the entire alphabet house!
Today we started with the letter A. I asked the kids to brainstorm a list of things that start with the letter A. Then I put a star next to each item that we might find in a house.
Next, we sang "Can You Find the House?" to the tune of "The Muffin Man."
"Can (Name) find the A house?
The A house?
The A house?
Can (Name) find the A house?
What is living there?"
I inserted the kid's names into the song and asked them to flip up the matching letter on our alphabet strip to reveal what was underneath.
Next, I introduced the kids to our new theme poster...
I asked the kids to describe where the objects on our magnifying glasses were by given positional words (ex: beside, above, under, between, etc.)
Then we answered these questions and acted out these activities...
Mother Goose provided us with these supplies for a "House Painting" craft...
First, I had each child bring in a photo of their home to show 'n' tell. I printed each child's address and attached it to their photo. They L-O-V-E-D sharing their photos, and talking about their home! My hope is that they learn their address this month!
The kids headed to the tables and wrote their house number on their craft. They used crayons to add details...
Then they chose a color of paint to paint their house. They were given the freedom to choose a paint color that matched their house or not. I was very impressed! A lot of the kids wanted to mix their color paint with white to lighten it a bit!
J wanted black to darken his color green a bit...
Next, the kids practiced writing their names on these new name tags that Mother Goose provided us...
We brought our completed name tags over to the block area. The kids tried building the first letter of their name with the blocks..
Next, I read this book to the kids. It is a great and simple book that teaches kids how a house is built! Highly recommended!
I was so super excited to surprise the kids with these new Lakeshore Learning home builder blocks!!!! These are AWESOME! The blocks are solid wood, and the details on them are phenomenal! Some of the blocks even have images on both sides of the block. The door also swings open and closes. The windows have blue curtains for the inside of the house, and red bricks with flower boxes on the opposite side for the outside of the house! The kids LOVED playing with them!
"Oh no!!! Don't go outside! The bears are out there!"
Later in the day I saw the kids playing with the blocks again. I encouraged them to add the other blocks to make their creation bigger. They replied with, "It's cool like this Brenda!" I guess that means that you don't really even need a set of blocks to play with these. I am curious to see what they create as the month goes on though.
In our dramatic play area my wonderful husband set up a BIG BOX for a play house! This is the benefit of having a Packaging Engineer for a husband! Thank you Paul! The kids could color the box any way they desired. Boxes are so much fun!
I also set out a variety of other boxes and containers for the kids to explore fitting stuffed animals or dolls/babies into them. Their animals need homes too!
When we went outside we paid close attention to the details of my home (roof, chimney, doors, windows, etc.)...
I pointed out that my home only has a main level and a basement. The kids were amazed when they realized the preschool is completely underground! We discussed if their homes had a second story or not, and I pointed out some of my neighbor's homes that have two levels.
The kids completed these two pages in their new literacy workbook....
We discussed how a house needs to be built strong in order to withstand big winds and storms. I read "The Three Little Pigs" to the kids...
For our closing song the kids passed around a heart as we sat in a circle and listened to the song, "Home Is Where Your Heart Is" on our Alphabet House CD.
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