Preschool Mommy

We are currently learning all about plants, and I wanted to help the children learn about seeds in a way that was fun and hands-on. This was definitely it.

I purchased some fruits and vegetables at the store: tomatoes, green beans, lemons, oranges, cucumbers, and grapes. After talking about how plants grow from seeds, I sat the children down at the table and told them that we would be looking inside all of the fruits and vegetables to see what kinds, and how many, seeds they had. One at a time, I showed them a fruit or vegetable and had them take turns guessing how many seeds were inside it. Then, I cut it open, and we counted the number of seeds to see who was the closest..... then we ate them.

The children had a ton of fun guessing the number of seeds and eating the yummy fruits and vegetables. Not only was it a fun way to learn about seeds, but we got to make predictions and practice counting as well. :)

***A great book that we read to go along with this activity was "A fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds by Jean Richards."***

This is an activity we did to learn to distinguish between living and non-living things.

First, at circle time we talked about the traits of living things: They need air, water, food, and they grow (they also reproduce, but I wasn't sure I wanted to get into this discussion with the kids so I mainly stuck to the other 4. :) ) Next, I held up pre-cut images (with the pictures facing away from the children) and the children each took turns choosing an image, telling the class whether it was living or non-living and placing it on our board under the correct grouping.

The children did surprisingly well distinguishing between the two.



Next, we looked at 3 flowers that I planted, and three rocks I placed in small dishes. I told the children the one flower and rock would get plenty of sun and water, another rock and flower would get no water, and the last flower and rock would get no sunlight. Then, I asked the children to predict what would happen. Now this is where it gets interesting... Most of the children knew that with the proper light and water the flower would grow, and without it the flower would die. However, they thought the same thing would happen to the rocks. Even after I asked them if the rocks were living things and they said "no."
We have been watching these silly flowers and rocks for a week now, and I have to say that those are some pretty darn resilient flowers. They look way too good! I'm hoping they start to wilt a little soon or my lesson may be kaput. :P As soon as I see them start to noticeably wilt, we'll discuss our findings, and I'll have the children plant them outside.

Here is a picture of our science table with the flowers and rocks. The big red thing is the construction paper shielding the one flower from the sun. The other piece of paper is covering the rock.

This is such a cool activity, but I have 2 issues with it:
1. I tried to squeeze this all into one day and it really should have been two. It was a bit too much all at once.

and

2. I'm afraid that by the time these flowers actually start to wilt the children will have completely forgotten why we had them there in the first place. We'll see....

This is a neat activity we do pretty-much every day for circle. What makes it so great is that it accomplishes so much in such and easy, fun way.

Here is what you do:

• Make some flash cards with simple action words written on them in bold print. (Large index cards should be fine). Some ideas for words are: jog, jump, hop, wave, twist, freeze, spin, kick, wiggle, tip-toe, crawl, and clap.
  
• Have your students stand up during circle, making sure they have a bit of room so they aren't hitting each other.
  
• You hold up the first word and say the word ( jump). Then, count together from 1-10 as you perform that action.
• Next, you hold up another word and say the word (spin). Then, count together from 10-20 as you perform that action.
  
• You continue holding up a new card and saying that word every tenth place until you count to 50. The goal is to eventually work your way up to 100, and be able to hold up the cards with out saying the words. Right now we're counting to 50, but I hope we will eventually work our way up to 100.

This activity is great for three reasons:

1. It helps the children learn the sequence of numbers from 1-50 and eventually 1-100. Of course, this is rote knowledge, but it is a necessary step in learning how to count.
2. In the morning some children are pumped and need to get their energy out, and others are still half asleep. This exercise wakes up the sleepy ones, and mellows the hyped up ones.
3. By using the word cards you are helping the children connect the letters with the words, the words with actions, and eventually (hopefully) teaching them some sight words.

It has been soooo long since I posted. I'm sorry. There have been so many things that I've wanted to share, but lack of time (and complete and utter exhaustion) has made it extremely difficult. I am pressing along though and hope that I can get my act together enough to keep up with this a little better from now on.... I hope :)

Anyway....
I have a new circle time song that I wanted to share. I totally stole it from another teacher (not really stole, she shared it with me, but it's more fun to say stole). It's super-cute and the kids have really responded well to it. I use it to lead into circle time. I start out slow so the children can join in with the movements. Here it is:

(Sung to "Do your ears hang low?")

Can you clap, clap, clap?
Can you snap, snap, snap?
Can you wiggle, wiggle, wiggle?
Can you slap, slap, slap? (hand on thighs)
Can you wrap your arms around yourself and give yourself a hug?
Can you sit down on a rug?


I also made up my own greeting song because I couldn't find one I liked. This one is sung to "Row, row, row your boat". The kids and I sway back and forth as we sing it.

(Chorus)
Hello and good morning.
How are you today?
Come along and join with us.
It's time for fun and play.

(I say "Hello to" as I go around the circle signaling the children to say their name when it is their turn, then I come back to myself.)
Hello to Name,
Hello to Name,
Hello to Name,
Hello to Mrs. Courtney,
Hello to everyone!

(Chorus)
How are you today?
Come along and join with us.
It's time for fun and play.

Here is another technique I've been using to model appropriate behavior for the children... Puppets! Kids love puppets! You would be surprized at how even the most figity child will stand at attention when you pull out a puppet. I have a bunch of puppets, but the two I've been using the most are Princess Penelope and Prince Peter (I just made those names up - nifty huh?). I use these puppets to model scenarios, and ask the children what they should do. Here are a couple little shorts I did with the children:

Scenario 1 - Penelope tells the class that she wants to play with Peter's toy. She asks the children what she should do? Should she take the toy, or ask to play with it? The children say that she should ask. When she asks to play with the toy, Peter says that he wants to keep playing, but she can have a turn in 2 minutes.

Scenario 2 - Peter wants Penelope to play with him so he goes and pulls the ribbon on her hat. Penelope gets upset and hits Peter. I ask the children how they could have done this differently? We decide that peter could have asked Penelope to play, and Penelope should have told Peter not to pull on her hat because she didn't like it.

One thing I've noticed through all of my reading is that there is very little out there on classroom management for preschool teachers. So I thought I would post on here some of the interesting things I've used to help the children learn to get along with each other and function in a classroom setting. One of the most important and trying issues a preschool teacher must deal with is hitting. Though it is upsetting for us, as adults, to see our children hit or get hit, it is really normal for this age group. Young children just don't know how to express themselves verbally and hitting, pushing, and yelling at one another is often a result of this. It is our job as teachers and parents to help them learn alternatives to these behaviors. Am I an expert at this? Absolutely not, but I am learning. Here is one activity I've done with the children that I thought was really great:

We began by reading the book "Hands Are Not for Hitting" by Martine Agassi. In this book, the author describes what hands are for like painting, playing, sharing, caring, hugging etc. After we read the book, we threw out some ideas of what hands are for, then the children moved onto centers. As they worked, I pulled them out one by one to make hand prints on pieces of construction paper. The following class, I asked them to tell me what hands are for, and wrote their responses beneath their hand prints. Then I hung them in the room. Now when a child hits I will often say to the whole class.. "Hands are not for..?" and they will say "Hitting!". The I will say, "What are hands for?" and they will respond with things like playing or painting. Here is what the project looked like when finished.

This is a super simple, but fun project, that works really well with a mixed age group like mine. It's simple enough for even toddlers to do, but creating the collage is is an enjoyable challenge for even the oldest preschoolers.

I did this project as part of a study of nature for Earth Day. I gave each child a basket, and asked them to collect natural items found outdoors (i.e. leaves, flowers, pine needles, etc.). I hung contact paper* on the easels outside, and invited the children to stick the items they collected to the paper any way they wanted. The results were beautiful!



*Contact paper is a paper used normally to line the inside of cabinets. It has a printed side and a sticky side. This can be an especially useful material when attempting to do collages with very young children. You can find it in any home improvement store.