Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Hard Work: Little Red Hen

I was a little nervous about teaching preschool kids the value of hard work, but it definitely ended up being a fun day, and they may have actually learned something in the process.  First we started off by reading this book: 
This is a funny, kid-friendly book about Bear and Bunny, who both decide to grow tomatoes.  Bunny is lazy and doesn't do anything to take care of them, while Bear works hard and does his best to help them grow.  Of course, in the end Bear has a bumper crop of tomatoes and Bunny isn't quite sure what happened to his.  It was a perfect way to introduce the concept.

Next we did a hands-on activity with cans (from the FHE lesson attached at the end of this blogpost).  We (the kids and I) thought of lots of different chores that need to be done in a house.  Then we took turns taping little labels listing the chores onto cans of food, like this: 

After all the cans were labeled we put them all into a laundry basket.  The kids took turns trying to lift the heavy basket and carry it across the room.  While the kids were strong enough to lift it....barely...we all agreed that it was too heavy to carry for very long.  We related this to how a mom would feel when she doesn't have any help with all those things to do.  It's possible, but it makes her really tired and makes it so she doesn't have enough time to do fun things with the kids. 

Then we tried distributing the cans to each person.  We all decided that it was MUCH easier to lift our two cans (chores) than it was to try to hold all of them at the same time.  We then related it to how we can help our mommies and daddies by all doing our part to help.

It's a cool object lesson, but I think a couple of the kids took it a little too literally, in that they thought we were actually talking about carrying cans, rather than helping with chores.  Oh well, maybe they'll help you carry in a few bags of groceries next time.  :)


Next we read the story of the Little Red Hen (also included in the lesson below) with the flannel board figures.  The kids had fun holding up their characters and saying, "Not I," whenever I said their name. 

Then we re-enacted the Little Red Hen (without the refusals to help) and made our own bread, starting with grinding our own wheat by hand. 


Then we headed into the kitchen where all the kids took turn adding their own ingredients to the bread. 

Then they kneaded it and formed it into shapes (I had made some bread dough earlier that had already risen, so they could get straight to the forming). 

Then we put them all into our cute little loaf pans. 



...and let them raise.


And while the bread was rising (and baking), we did a little sequencing activity.  First we glued the numbers on in order, then we glued the different scenes from the Little Red Hen on in the right order as well.  I felt like it was a very good activity for them. 


By the time we finished with the sequencing activity, our bread was coming out of the oven. 

Some of the kids started nibbling right away, others just wanted to hold it, and still others were adamant that they save theirs for later. 

After lunch, we headed outside to enjoy the beautiful day! 

Here is the lesson where I got several of the ideas from.  It's easiest to download the file as a PDF (you'll need a free account with Scribd) before printing. 
"Work:  I Can Do My Part" FHE Lesson                                                            

It was another fun day of preschool.  It's hard to believe this year is almost done! 

Monday, April 26, 2010

Plants and Flowers

Today the kids got to plant petunias. First they had to put dirt in the bottom of their pot. Next they made a hole for the plant. They put the plant in and then put more dirt around it and patted the dirt down. At the end, they had to water their flowers. The were told to water their flower every day and put it in a sunny place. Is this happening? :)
Making the hole for the flower.

Watering the plants

We made pretend flowers to go with our real flowers.

The finished product.

Tadpoles and Frogs

The kids loved playing with the 'life cycle' Tadpole/Frog set. Hands-down, their favorite was the tadpole.
Leap Frog Here, the kids were working on their 'F' mini-books and Gavin held up his picture of the frog in front of the tadpoles and told them 'This is what you're going to look like when you grow up". Too cute!!! :)
Our real, live tadpoles.
Did you know that tadpoles like boiled lettuce? It's true. All the kids got a chance to feed the tadpoles. The tadpoles went crazy-- it was so fun to watch.
We also made frog visors. Some of the kids took more creative license than others...

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

A Lesson on Farms

With only 4 boys, I actually had time to take pictures today!! I had a lot of fun teaching this lesson. Growing up among farms in Idaho, I felt completely qualified to depart my farmer knowledge upon the children today.

We started off by reading this fabulous book. We discussed what foods certain animals ate, as well as what each animal does on the farm.


The boys had fun making corrals, fences and farm houses for their animals out of Lincoln logs. I pulled out my little people barn and farm animals for pretend play. After proclaiming them to be baby toys, the boys then played with them for 30 minutes.




Everett loved hanging out with all the boys!

We then headed outside to "Plant some crops". We planted strawberries, romaine lettuce, peas and carrots. They got to pick weeds, prepare the soil, plant the crops and water them.


Seth found a carrot growing down into the soil. They all wanted to get a picture with it! They were all being very silly.





Next we went inside and practiced our coloring skills as we colored the barn red. We learned that Octagons had 8 sides.






To finish off, we played the cow jumping game and duck hunt on the Wii. Both skills that real farmers need to have :) It was a fun day!

Learning About Farms

Today we got a little more serious during circle time and practiced our "kindergarten behavior" by trying to sit still on our mats and raise our hands when we had something to say.  It was definitely a challenge for them (some more than others), but was good practice for their kindergarten debuts in a few months.

We had fun learning about farms today.  We found some cut-out animals and people from a farm in our counting box (which apparently has been lost) and then made sure that we sang B-I-N-G-O and Old MacDonald during singing time.  The kids each held up their animal (or person) during Old MacDonald. 

We had fun with the letter, "F" and thought of lots of great words that began with "F".  Then we let everyone say what their name would be if it began with "F".  Favin and Faylie thought that was particularly funny.  Then we read a couple of silly books about life on a farm.  

"A Guest is a Guest" is a silly book about the Beanbucket family that lets the animals take over their house, while they timidly proclaim, "A guest is a guest, and we must show them our best."  Eventually they reclaim their house and live as a happy farm family.    I made sure the kids knew that this was a fiction book. 


"When the Rooster Crowed" was a little more realistic than " A Guest is a Guest", but still ranked pretty high on the silliness level as the farmer would not get out of bed until all the animals and his wife called for him at the same time. 

Next time I would probably just read one of the silly books and then this one.    This one was great and featured actual photos of all the animals and shared interesting facts about each one.  It's still very simplistic and perfect for this age level, but the kids were getting pretty restless by the time I got to it. 



Next we decided to try some of our own farm work and went to milk a cow.  I poked tiny holes into the bottom of each finger of a cheap rubber glove, filled it with water, tied the top close and had it poke out of the shoebox (with the cow picture attached) and let the kids "milk the cows" into a bucket. 


It was a little bit messy, but very worth it.  The kids thought it was super cool doing their own farm work like that. (I couldn't get a good picture of them in action, since I had to hold the cow (and "udder") into place with one hand so it wouldn't fall.  I later figured out a way to attach the glove to the shoebox better with a little packing tape, but that discovery came a little too late for good pictures). 

Then the kids eagerly went to work at making their own farms.  They cut out animals and glued them onto their barns. 

That cutting practice is so good for their development and most of them thoroughly enjoyed the free reign with scissors and glue. 


Then they did this great matching worksheet from Enchanted Learning where they matched the animal up with the product they give. 



It was a bit cold and wet outside, but it didn't stop us from going outside to pretend to be farm animals.  The kids had great fun galloping like horses, waddling and quacking like ducks, crawling and barking like dogs....


 and mostly just running around and chasing each other!
All in all, I thought it was a fun and successful day at preschool.  I can't believe the year is almost done!