We are working on letter recognition, not memory. To help reinforce this idea -we have went with a scrambled theme. So instead of going in order A-B-C, we’ve mixed it up. The first week we did A…followed by J, K and N.
Originally I planned to do one word / one letter for the entire week. But after being introduced to my group of freshly turned three year olds, that plan went out the window. Now we are doing one letter a week -with a different theme everyday. We covered the letter A with an apple theme before moving on to a varied theme that helps keep the learning fun and varied and holds their attention A LOT better.
J was for Jam, Jellybean, Jellyfish, Jaguar and Jump:
Not gonna lie, I was kinda stoked about the jam. It was hair-gel, food-dye and glitter. It legit looked like jam and the kids LOVED it. I am still sweeping glitter up weeks later…so would probably add some clear glue in next time, but it was a major hit.
K week was all about Kittens, Koalas, Kings and Kindness.
I was kind of bummed when I realized I didn’t get a picture of our kindness project, which was supposed to be similar to this:
My intentions were good, but I am on my own with 9 preschoolers who have a very short attention span. I was planning to have them each choose something about their friend that they liked but it turned into a “quick tell me something about your friends that makes you happy” sort of event. We made it, Although some friends got some really random happiness petals that said “My mommy” because that is all I was getting out of some. Ah well.
The koalas were paper plates, the kittens were black paper and chalk and the kites…were a spur of the moment thing. When we were reading books about kites all the kids were excited about making their own. Which is when I realized I had failed as a teacher and did not have a kite craft planned. While they played, I whipped up these ‘fancy’ kites and let them paint with water colors. They were super pleased with them. I tied a second string on the other end with a handle so they could ‘fly’ them. No one had to know I didn’t spend weeks preparing it 😛
N week was: Numbers, Nest, Night, Nature and Nuts.
I think I confused them with N being for Numbers because some of them still call letters, numbers. So when I said N was for Numbers and then threw numbers at them I got some bewildered looks. A favorite book is “Chika-chika A-B-C” which talks about letters. I found Chika-chika 1-2-3, which talks about NUMBERS and knew we had to read it. The kids were in LOVE. Then we made “Number trees.” This was the layout:
And the finished product:
For nature, we read a book about nature then took a nature walk and collected random bits: leaves, grass, sticks, pine cones…then came back inside and painted with it:
Night:
They painted their ‘night’ skies, I cut out the stars and moon.
And finally, Nest:
I feel like this is an accurate representation of me most of the time:
I think N might have been a favorite week thus far!
Tangled Thoughts 