J is for Jellybean

This week was my second chance to teach preschool. As I mentioned earlier, I am part of a preschool co-op with five other moms from church. Our kids range in age from a little over two-and-a-half years to four years old (Ryan is the oldest and the only four-year-old). Each Monday we take turns teaching the six children from 8:45am to 11:00am. Which means that for five weeks in a row I have two hours to myself, which I have to chosen to spend volunteering in the library at Todd's elementary school. [Today one child was sick, leaving me with only five to teach.]

This week went more smoothly than my first week. I just knew what to expect a little more. I also planned on things for them to do during the transition times. My first time around I moved the kids as a group from activity to activity. That was a little troublesome because some of them finished more quickly than others. It was also difficult when I needed to help out in the bathroom washing hands, etc. By having activities for them to work on between activities, they were more productive and were not running around getting a little crazy.

I understand the need for flexibility, especially if the kids are having a hard time focusing on an activity and you need to deviate from your schedule to keep everyone happy. However, I was able to follow the outline pretty well without it feeling too forced. The schedule helps me to budget my time and I was able to accomplish most everything I wanted.


[Click on the photo for a larger version if you have trouble reading the text.]


The activities in the parentheses are the suggest activities for each time slot.
8:45-9:00am Circle Time (Free Talk, Game, and the Pledge)
I welcomed everyone and had the kids sit on their carpet squares in a semi-circle. We did the Pledge.
We looked at our calendar and the kids took turns adding numbered leaves to the calendar since the last preschool day (good practice counting). We briefly reviewed what month this was and the days of the week.
We looked at our circle weather chart. The kids were a little bothered and had a hard time agreeing where the pointers should be. In the end, we agreed that there should be three points rather than two. The weather was sunny, windy, and cold.

9:00-9:15am Intro to Lesson (Letter and Word of the Day)
I spent a little more time on the this section. We started by putting together part of a floor puzzle. The puzzle was an Alphabet Train. I put down the engine piece then gave the kids the letter puzzle pieces to build our train until we reached today's letter, "J". Then we said the names of the letter all together, after which we sang the entire alphabet song.

I read a Sesame Street poem called, "The Jolly Juggler", then gave each child a scarf for them to "juggle" with. None of us was very good (I demonstrated juggling with two scarves-not that impressive to anyone older than three or four), but we all had fun trying.

To continue with the J-theme, I said another little poem as seen on the No Time For Flashcards blog. I changed the colors around, based on what I had available (i.e. no purple), and added a verse so that each child could take home a jellybean.

6 little jelly beans,

that I want to try, [or "that we want to try"]

I'll eat the yellow one,

now there are five!

I did the poem once, and the kids loved it when I gobbled the jellybeans. They asked for an encore. The second time around I substituted their name as I handed them the jellybean and they pretended to gobble it up. Very cute.
Now that we had introduced the letter of the day, it was time to introduce our lesson: shapes and sizes. I focused mostly on shapes. We quickly reviewed our simple shapes. I handed each child a shaped block which they identified and put into a simple shape sorter.

Our next activity was to build a house with shapes (inspiration from here and here). I had cut shapes of different colors which I had taped to the back of my dry-erase board. On the front of the board I had drawn a house, tree, and sun, tracing the shapes I had already cut. I did not let the kids see the front of the board until we were ready to match the colored paper shapes to the picture on the board. First, I picked a paper shape and started singing a song (also seen on No Time for Flashcards). I never got past the second line of the song before the kids had enthusiastically called out the name of the shape. Then I handed the shape to a child. After we had identified all the shapes and each child was holding a paper shape, I turned the board over and they took turns matching their shape to the picture. [I was so bummed that I forgot to sing the Herman the Worm song. I thought it was really cute.]

9:15-9:40am Art (Project or coloring sheets)

Because I spent more time on the lesson portion, I probably only spent 15 minutes on art. We made shape pizzas. I had prepared all the pieces for the kids and just let them identify the shapes and glue them on themselves with Q-tips and glue in a cup. This is what we used to assemble our pizzas.

pizza dough - cream circle

pizza sauce - wavy red circle

pepperoni - jaggedy brown circle

ham - pink squares

green peppers - green rectangles

onions - white squares

pineapple - yellow triangles

cheese - orange rectangles [I messed up with this one. I was thinking: a) We already have a yellow topping; besides, I like cheddar on my pizza. b) covering the pizza with tiny pieces of cheese is going to be a pain; why don't I just make long, thin rectangles? The result was that my cheese ended up looking like carrot sticks! I should have done some smaller yellow rectangles or just let them color their own cheese on before gluing on the toppings. Live and learn.]

I was so impressed that that two of the younger students (in the left photo) were able to do their pizzas completely independently. Even my two older students, my son included (in the right photo), needed a little assistance with the gluing. I was very pleased with the end result of this activity, and the kids seemed to enjoy making pizzas. [Ryan even asked me today when he'd be able to eat his pizza. Ha, ha, ha.]

As the kids took turns washing their gluey-sticky hands, those who were finished played with the alphabet magnets (thank goodness for transition activities in the circle time area!).

9:40-10:00am Story Time
Before beginning story time I took out my Oreo Matchin' Middles game. I let the kids take turns pulling out a cookie, opening it, and naming the shape.

Some books I read for story time included The Biggest Snowball of All, My "j" Book, I'm the Biggest in the Ocean (a big hit), Big and Bird's Big and Little Book (I kept this book from my childhood--it is one that I loved and the kids loved it, too). We also looked at a couple of poems and shapes pictures from some of my Wild Animal Baby magazines.

10:00-10:15am Snack
After story time I started to tell the kids that we were going back into the kitchen for writing. They wasted no time in correcting me. They are evidently familiar enough with our preschool schedule, though it varies a little from teacher to teacher, to know that snack time comes after story time and before writing!

In addition to drinking juice (which starts with the letter "J"), these are the shapes we ate:

circle - peanut butter sandwiches cut out with a small biscuit cutter

circle - pepperoni

rectangle - Club cracker

oval - raisins

triangle - cheddar cheese (I sliced and cut)

square - Alpha Bits cookies (bonus - reinforce letter recognition!)

10:15am-10:30am Writing (Letter of the Day and Name)
I had printed out some worksheets for the kids to practice tracing the letter "J" or they could just work on coloring the picture. I had used a fluorescent market to write their name on the top--"ghost writing"--for them to trace. I found writing time an activity where some kids (the younger ones) were definitely done before others.

Below you see Charity saying hello to Copper under the baby gate before she made her way to the circle time for some transition activities. I love this intense look on Mason's face as he colors.

Don't let her baby face fool you. Amber was a pro at identifying her shapes. Charity found a heart.

Ryan and Claire are still hard at work on their coloring/writing pages.

10:30-10:45 Music and Games

Our preschool group is planning on singing at a nursing home in December, so we spent most of our time reviewing some Christmas songs that we will be singing to the residents, especially "Away in a Manger", "Jingle Bells", "Christmas Bells Are Ringing". The kids will also be reviewing a few more at home with their families.

10:45-11:00am Free Play

The moment they have been waiting for. Charity saw these animals last time, and couldn't wait to spend more time playing with them this week.

Whew! I didn't mean for this post to go on forever. I'm excited about being able to put together ideas for these preschool lesson plans. I was intimidated at first, but I am really looking forward to teaching again in January. (Read: you don't have to hear about my minute-by-minute account again until then).