My friend Angie (the same Angie who has done a fantastic job organizing our weekly playgroups) got our preschool organized. She set up a schedule for us to follow in terms of what the main subject would be each week and what letter we would be teaching. She also gave us an outline to follow for the day's activities. Yesterday was my turn to teach. I have been gathering ideas since our first meeting and was looking forward to introducing the Letter of the Day, "D", and the Word of the Day, "Dinosaurs".
The day moved along very quickly. We only spend about 15-20 minutes on each activity. I was glad that I was fairly organized before my teaching day, but I still wished that I had been more organized in some areas. Fortunately, I have another six weeks to prepare my next lesson.
I let the kids have some free play while everyone was showing up (and while I was gathering the last of my things together). When everyone was there, we started with circle time.
Circle time started out with the pledge of allegiance. This photo was taken after the pledge was over. Ryan was trying to straighten the flag out a little. I did make sure that all of the kids had their right hand over their heart, but it looks Charity switched hands when I wasn't looking.
We also reviewed our calendar. We talked about what month it was and counted, adding leaves for the last week, until we reached 29. [Mason looks on while Claire does some counting for us.]
To help introduce our word of the day, "dinosaurs", the kids searched for some little dinosaur skeleton pieces that Ryan had "hidden" for me. Then I had them split into two groups and try to fit the pieces together. The individuals in both groups examined their pieces, then asked me to finish putting them together correctly. [Ryan tries to offer advice to Charity and Amber who are examining their skeleton pieces.]
After circle time, we had a little craft activity. I had precut the letter "D" out of construction paper, as well as some triangles and a funny looking set of teeth for each kid. They glued on the triangular "scales" and the teeth to make their own dinosaur D. I thought that was a fairly successful activity. [Claire, Amber, and Makayla are hard at work creating their dinosaurs.]
We left the D's on the tables to dry and went back inside for some storytime. We specifically read some books about dinosaurs to prepare us for our next activity: digging for fossils. I had caulked the shapes of a dinosaur and a bone on pieces of wood. I put the fossil-covered wood in a little tray and covered it with sand. (Green was the best color I could find at Walmart on Saturday night. They were out of white.) I gave each of the kids a sand toy and a brush for the them to uncover their dinosaur fossil. The kids seems to enjoy it and I was pleasantly surprised that it was not too messy (considering that these are preschoolers). I was happy that it was outside, and that we could just leave it as is when we were done and didn't have to worry about cleaning it all up right away.
The last 15 minutes were a little crazy. We had gone back inside, and I played some music that I had picked out for the day--some fun songs, and some "learning" ones. We listened and danced to the Sesame Street "D" song performed by Ernie. (This is a lesser-known song, but surely you have heard the "C is for Cookie" song performed by Cookie Monster.) I also played a LeapFrog song called "All the Colors of the Rainbow." I gave each of the kids a different colored Lego for them to hold up when their color was called. Basically, almost all of them just held their Lego and looked at me like I was crazy. I got interrupted from my music time by a bathroom break and from that point on, most of our structure was gone. Fortunately, it was only about 5 minutes before the moms were going to be showing up, so I just let the kids listen to our "Dino Train" book on CD (a favorite of Todd's and Ryan's), or look through some of the books I had out for them on the floor.
We went inside and I individually washed everyone's hands. (I knew we would be having snack soon and wanted to be sure that there wasn't any sand left anywhere.) We sat down again for a little more storytime, this time with some stories about the letter of the day. We had a successful storytime activity (no photos) with the book "Little d". I had scanned pictures in the book, had printed them on card stock, and cut them out. I passed out 2-3 pictures of items that started with the letter "d" around to each child. As I read the story they were supposed to identify their picture and tape it to a dry-erase board I was holding. After the story, we reviewed all of things we found that started with the letter "d".
After another story we were ready for snack. I served deviled "dinosaur" eggs, dinosaur-shaped peanut butter sandwiches (thanks to a nifty sandwich cutter I bought at the grocery store for $1.99--totally worth it; my boys love it.), and some chocolate graham crackers. (I ran out of time and wasn't able to make my dinosaur- and bone-shaped sugar cookies.)
We cleaned up snack and stayed at the tables for some writing practice. I had printed out some good worksheets online for the kids to trace the letter "d" and practice writing. Unfortunately, between cleaning up the food and tables, bringing out the crayons and pencils, and passing out the worksheets, I found it difficult to go around and show them one-by-one how to write the letters. So it ended up being more of a free-for-all coloring time. I'll try better next time.
The last 15 minutes were a little crazy. We had gone back inside, and I played some music that I had picked out for the day--some fun songs, and some "learning" ones. We listened and danced to the Sesame Street "D" song performed by Ernie. (This is a lesser-known song, but surely you have heard the "C is for Cookie" song performed by Cookie Monster.) I also played a LeapFrog song called "All the Colors of the Rainbow." I gave each of the kids a different colored Lego for them to hold up when their color was called. Basically, almost all of them just held their Lego and looked at me like I was crazy. I got interrupted from my music time by a bathroom break and from that point on, most of our structure was gone. Fortunately, it was only about 5 minutes before the moms were going to be showing up, so I just let the kids listen to our "Dino Train" book on CD (a favorite of Todd's and Ryan's), or look through some of the books I had out for them on the floor.
Despite the fact that it felt a little crazy, I still think it was a successful day. I am already started to think of ideas for my next lesson: the letter "J".
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