Children Around the World Preschool Lesson

Book: What Is Your Language? (one of our favorite preschool books of all time)

Take time to point out the pictures on each page and mention that in different countries they speak different languages and see different sights.  Have the kids repeat the "yeses" in all the different languages.

Activity: Tape the puppets onto popsicle sticks.  We used the countries that were mentioned in the in the book and had them practice more of their yeses in different languages.

children around the world preschool activity by Lara Goold

Man on the Moon Preschool Lesson and Activity

Books:
Goodnight Moon
The Moon Book

Video:

Art Project:  Give each child a paper plate, flag, and a glob of salt dough, then have them make an impression of their foot in the dough.  Make sure that you point out the footprints the astronauts made on the moon.  

Activity:  Have the kids jump and dance around the room like there's not any gravity.  

Preschool Map Lesson and Activity

So my kids are a few years past preschool now, but somehow I find myself teaching preschool lessons on a weekly basis again for our homeschool co-op.  Here's a lesson we recently did on maps:

First we read this very cute book:  As the Crow Flies: A First Book of Maps

The text is simple and narrates where some animals travel in a day.  Then it shows a simple map of where they've gone.  At the end the book shows one big map of where all the animals have gone.

Then we decided to make our own maps:

We used the following materials (one per person):
12 x 18 black construction paper
 white crayons
 matchbox cars

In advance I used the white crayon to draw a windy road and two houses for each child:

Then we helped them label each map to say "{child's name}'s Map" and whose house was whose on their map.

 Then we had the kids draw the lines down the center of the road and add any other landmarks they wanted to add (trees, ponds, other houses, etc).

After we were done labeling and drawing, I gave everyone a matchbox car to use follow their maps.  While they were playing, I reminded them about how people use maps to figure out where they're going.

The kids really enjoyed the book and the activity.

Grandmas and grandpas and respect

Our last circle time until Kindergarten! I tried to sneak in a little place value with our last focus number, 11.

We read a couple of cute books about grandmas and grandpas and other older people. This book was a story about a little boy who goes to visit his grandma and great-grandma every Sunday. In the book, the grandma would tie the great grandma to a chair so she could sit up and visit with the little boy. Ellie asked if this story was fiction or non-fiction, and I was even surprised to discover that it was based on a true story. In the story, both the grandma and great-grandma died, and we talked about where their spirits went since the book didn't cover that.


Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs

So, I tied them to their chairs while I read the story. Here's Gavin, with his tongue flopped out, looking very old. We talked about how our muscles are still very young and strong, but often-times, older people like grandmas and grandpas don't have such strong muscles.

We also looked at pictures of technology from the 1950's when most of their grandparents were about their age. We learned that there were no personal computers, Ipods, CD players, microwaves, or (gasp) movies in cars. We learned that if their grandma or grandpa had a television as a young child, it would have been black/white.

We also read this book, a story about a little boy who lived next door to an old folks' home.
Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge (Picture Puffin)

We shared sad (like when your daddy leaves for the Philippines), warm (like when your mommy holds you), silly (like when you sister makes you laugh), and beach memories with each other, like the old lady and little boy in the book did.

We took a field trip to go visit our grandmas and grandpas. First, Gavin practiced reading our names and seat assignments. He was the ticket-hander-outer-guy:

We practiced matching our tickets to the seat numbers/letters. It took a long time to board the whole plane actually, especially when those already seated got up to help others find their correct seat:

There was a flight attendant. She handed out snacks, and when you were hungry and wanted more, she offered you a napkin. Sounds like Southwest, huh?

But we made it. We went to Texas, Washington, Minnesota (I think), Utah, Massachusetts, California, and Italy (I think someone was confused). Here's Simone, telling about her grandma. We practiced being very respectful, looking with our eyes, listening with our ears, and controlling our hands and voices while others were talking.

We made butterfly magnets. We colored coffee filters,

sprayed them with water to blur the colors,

then added antennae. We were going to give them to residents at the assisted living center, but now you can either send them to your own grandma or grandpa, or add them to the rest of your refrigerator art collection. Or keep them for yourselves, like Ellie wants to do.

While our butterfly wings dried, we worked on dot-to-dot books. "Easy peezy, lemon squeazy!" That's what Gavin says when he thinks something's easy, and he's proud of himself for doing it. The last couple *challenge* pages were a bit trickier, though. Gavin could still do them, and finished Haven's for her.

The kids played so nicely together. It was a really good last day of school. They shared the legos, even the Lego girl dresses:

They hammered and hammered:

Then, they worked together hammering some more:

But Maylie was the most serious about it; she used every second of her free time, working on this. I think we have a future architect/construction manager gal here:

Fun friends, fun teachers, fun year. Thanks, guys!

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! 

Fun with Shadows on Groundhog's Day!

Today at preschool we learned all about Groundhog's Day and shadows.  None of the kids seemed very familiar with the story of Groundhog's Day, so I started off at the beginning  by showing a picture of a real groundhog.

Most of them thought it was a beaver, but quickly grew excited as I told them all about groundhogs.  We learned about how they like to burrow under the ground and on Groundhog's Day pop their heads up to see if they can see their shadows.

Then we colored and cut out our own groundhog hats.  It was interesting to me to see how detail oriented all the boys were in their coloring while the girls were much quicker.  They were all a little intimidated by the cutting, but did a great job themselves. 

We also worked on our Groundhog Day books (while the boys finished their hats), to give them some handwriting practice.   

 
After everyone was finished, we put on our groundhog hats and went outside to see if we could see our shadows...

 

BUT it was way more fun to sled for a while first...

until our hands got cold and people got sad...

  

so we hurried up to check for our shadows before we got even colder.  It was a semi-cloudy day, so our shadows were light, but they were definitely there.  Six more weeks of winter!  The kids didn't seem to mind a bit about the extra winter as they skipped up and down the driveway watching their shadows skip with them. 

  

Rachel was particularly excited by the skipping up and down the driveway activity. 

  

Then we went inside and took turns crushing some Oreos into some fake dirt. 

  

Then we used our imaginations and placed our cookie groundhogs into our cupcake burrow with snowy frosting and Oreo dirt on top for the coolest preschool snack ever...or at least this week.  :)  

  

It was a stretch for their imaginations, but they were as thrilled as can be with the fun snack. 

  

After our freezing cold experience with barely noticeable shadows outside, we eagerly grabbed our flashlights and headed to the warm confines of our bathroom to have more fun with shadows.  We tried to make animal shapes and took note of the fact that an object has to be in front of the light in order to make a shadow. 

  

After that, we headed out to the living room for a quick game of "Beaver, beaver, groundhog", which happens to be exactly like, "Duck, duck, goose".   We had to institute a rule in the middle that each person had to pick someone of the opposite gender, so we didn't get stuck in too much of a rut.  They, of course, had a great time and burned off some more energy! 

  

Last thing before lunch we put our cutting skills to use once again and created these little groundhog burrows.  Now you see them....

Now you don't!

  

Then the kids spontaneously named their little groundhogs and started playing pretend with them.
 

It was quite cute to see how enamored they were with them...

  

and to see their imagination shining through.  Cute kids! 

During lunch time we did a little more reading practice and made sure we used our manners, since they seemed to have a hard time with that at Simone's house last week.  They did great!

It was another fun day at preschool!