Sweet Smiles Preschool: Zebras...

Monday, January 18, 2016

Zebras...

On Friday our Mother Goose lesson was all about zebras...

During circle time the kids traced our hands-on letter Z with their finger.

Then I encouraged the kids to trace a Z in the air as big as they could and again as small as they could. Then I named a body part and the kids used that body part to draw the letter Z in the air. Here they are drawing with their feet...

The kids made stripe lines across their midline as they sang, "Zebra Has Many Stripes" to the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

What would you do if someone scary was chasing you? What do you think a zebra would do if a lion was chasing him?

I made a large zig-zag line on the floor with masking tape. I placed a clipboard with a piece of paper and a pencil at the end of the tape line. I invited the kids to pretend that they were zebras and a lion was chasing them. They ran along the zig-zag path, and then wrote the letter Z on the paper and then got in line to repeat the activity. This was a lot of fun! The kids had fun learning and moving their bodies at the same time!

How do you look different from other boys and girls? I taught the kids that all zebras have a unique stripe pattern. Zebra's recognize their friends by looking at the stripes.

I gave each child a piece of paper and a pile of ten Popsicle sticks. I encouraged the kids to play with the sticks first any way they desired...

A lot of the kids made the letter Z with their sticks...

Then I asked the kids to fold their paper in half and draw a line down the center...

The kids were asked to split their sticks into two groups to make math problems that equaled 10 every time.

Once they decided on a math problem they liked, they traced their sticks and then wrote the math problem on their paper. I was amazed at how well the kids did with this! I encouraged the kids to keep practicing their math with their sticks at home with mom and dad!

Next, the kids worked on the letter Z page from their monthly journal. They completed the sentence, "My zebra is ________."

How is a zebra different from a horse? We walked around the room and found objects that have stripes on them in our classroom. Then the kids used the following supplies that Mother Goose gave us to make a zebra craft...

L thought the mouth he drew on his zebra was so funny!

Next, the kids watched a super silly mini video about a zebra and his stripes online. (You can watch the video here.)

The kids worked on the following pages from their math and literacy workbooks...

This was our book for the day...

How does your skin feel? How does your hair feel? How does an animal's fur feel?

We explored different textures in our classroom: smooth, rough, bumpy, sticky...

Then I showed the kids the following animal fact cards that Mother Goose provided us...

Lastly, I set out a new pattern card building station. The pattern for the month is an ABCD pattern...

I also set out our letter Z alphabet tub. The kids played a game of "What's Missing?"

On Friday the kids were excited to see the Scholastic book box arrive in the mail!!!!

Three kids ordered this month (K was absent).

Because our book order reached over $50.00 we were sent a stack of free book coupons to use for next month's order!!!!

I purchased 3 new BIG books for our library, and a My Plate book to go with next month's theme: Food & Fitness. I received 2 CD's to go along with two our big books as a teacher bonus!