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Around the Alphabet and back again!

11/25/2012

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The holiday season is here and the children are excited for all things turkeys, trees and toys!!!  The past couple of weeks we paused on the letter "B" as it made a perfect topic for this time of year to discuss "Blessings."  During our lessons regarding Thanksgiving we learned that the holiday of Thanksgiving is a time to gather together with friends, family and other people at church, school, shelters and hospitals to give thanks to God for everything we have and to remember to say "Thank You!" to others that help us too.  We discussed that a "blessing" is something good that we have, or love.  We named, each day, many "blessings" to help the children understand that a "blessing" can be a toy, a home, a person, a pet, food, feeling healthy and strong and LOTS of other things. 

As we would go around the table each day naming "blessings" and we came up with some pretty cute ones!!  One of my favorite blessings was learning that one of our little ones is going to be a big sister soon :))!!  Congrats to you and your sweet family!!! 

Just a few of the things we are thankful for...

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Pizza Fun Friday with Friends!
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The privilege to VOTE!!! We voted what type of apples we liked best...red, or yellow!
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A little talk time with buddies...
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Learning that our Flag is a made with red, white and blue and is also a blessing!!
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Making turkeys in sooo many ways like this...we discussed colors and numbers of "feathers" and that turkeys have feathers instead of fur...
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Each turkey is a bit different!!
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We can experience a new sensory of poking feathers into semi-circle styrofoam balls, while naming colors, comparing lengths and giving them a little face to make ANOTHER turkey!
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Painting hands, elbows, cheeks, papers, trees, tables, and chairs TOGETHER! (Ms. Donna isn't afraid of a little, or alot of paint :))
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After taste testing yellow and red apples, cutting them open to discover that they all look the same inside no matter what color they are on the outside!! :))
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Getting lots of time to explore and play outside with friends...
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Big ones teaching little ones how to reach, share and accomplish a goal together...
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Getting to read LOTS of books each day by ourselves, with a friend, on the computer and with the teachers...
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Playing together, experiencing leaves, sand, dirt, water, working together and having fun...
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Our hands can make turkeys...
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We can make turkeys with playdough and colored feathers :))
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We can all work together making turkey puppets and practice LOTS of turkey sounds! Gobble, Gobble, Gobble!!!
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One sweet turkey puppet!!

My Thanksgiving Book...

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During Thanksgiving week we focused on the history of Thanksgiving as we made this book.  This was quite a project as we have a very young group, but it turned out SO CUTE!!! 
The story inside is one sentence on each page and what we learned about Thanksgiving.  Page One is pictured to the left.  Page Two says, "The Pilgrims sailed on a boat to discover a new land."  We discussed that a pilgrim was a person that wanted to be able to say prayers to God in his own way and left his home to find a land where he could do that.  Page Three says, "The boat was called the Mayflower."  We learned that they sailed an a large boat and that it was the Mayflower.
Page Four says, "They sailed to Plymouth Rock."  We learned that they finally spotted dry land after months and months of seeing nothing but ocean and water. Page Five says, "They made friends they called Indians."  We discussed that the people already living on the land knew how to grow food and hunt for food and that the Pilgrims were hungry and sick and that the Indians helped them to eat and be healthy in the new land.  The final page says, "The Indians helped them plant lots of vegetables and they shared with each other on a day we call Thanksgiving."  We learned that the Pilgrims and the Indians decided to have a great big meal together to say "Thank you God and Thank you friends," and that we do this each year too to remember that everything good we have comes from God.

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Page 1
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Page 3
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Page 5
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Page 2
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Page 4

Let "C" for Christmas Begin!!!

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Happy Halloween!

11/13/2012

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This week we ditched the letters and did ALL THINGS HALLOWEEN!!!  Did you carve a pumpkin with 10 children?? YES!!!  Did you paint bats??  YES!!!  Did you taste, smell and feel pumpkin guts??  Sorta!!!  Did you color, paint, dance, dress up, bake, party and read??  Absolutely!!!

During this cram-packed week we did our Halloween hardest to pack every itty bitty bit o' fun into each day.  I think it was a grand success!  Pictured here is my FAVORITE fella' with his prize pumpkin.  This year was the FIRST year that he was in charge from, start to finish, in the fine tradition of carving a Jack-O-Lantern.  His pattern choice was the creepy castle that took hours to complete. 

Thankfully, he was able to finish his veggie sculpting prior to the party and excitedly displayed his skills.  You can see him beaming here just moments after he dashed inside to notify me that he needed to capture this before it "melted."

Such a fun time of year...


Kid- 0 - latern!

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When we paint, everyone is involved...no matter how old or young.  Ususally, everyTHING is involved too.  It's a wonderful sensory activity and great for building creativity and fine motor skills.  It is also a wonderful way to discuss vocabulary words like cool, smooth, silky, and squishy. 

It's absolutely the BEST way to teach colors, textures and words like spot, dot, line, curve, etc.  Our children ADORE painting and I love giving them every opporutnity to do it.

This little cutie pie has just recently discovered the joy of painting.  It happened for her when she, as a rather small toddler, realized that I would give her baths in the sink (which she LOVES) post painting.  So now when we break out the paints, LOOK OUT, this babe will colorize every square inch of the walls, tables, floors, other children, dog...you name it.  Then, when she is done, we set her in the sink for a scrub and she giggles and laughs, splashes and soaks. 

No lack of sensory experiences for our children, NO SIR!

Does your child get to do this?  They should!  If you don't want the mess in your home, find a great pre-k program in your area and always pack an extra set of clothes for your little sugar!  Happy Halloween!!!

PARTY TIME!!!

I will only post a few of our Halloween pix here.  If I posted everything it would take us ALL day to get through every little cute photo.  If I have not yet added you to our private photo viewing account and you (mom or dad and grandpa/grandma would like to be added, just give me a call!)
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Have you ever carved a pumpkin with 10 children under the age 5 and under??  Well, lemme' tell ya' it's one big wild bunch of fun!  Each child took turns squishing, pulling and scraping the pumpkin guts out of our great, big pumpkin's noggin. 

We worked and worked.  We had pumpkin goo in our hair, clothes...everywhere.  In true pre-k fashion once they overcame their hesitation for the gooey glop they dove right in and didn't want to stop!

Witch's Broom Race

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We also made our own witch's booms for our race.  We rolled a piece of construction paper widthwise and cut it into strips to resemble broom straw and then glued it to the end of a papertowel roll.  We allowed the children to decorate their brooms with stickers, paint, etc. and then we practiced balance and running while "riding" our brooms! 

Face Painting

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My wonderful assistant, pictured here, was the perfect choice for "face painter!"  As an art major I knew her creations would be lovely!  She did a great job at her post with pumpkin cheeks, butterflies, flowers and balloons that delighted each one of our little party goers.

Pumpkin Painting

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No party Halloween party is complete without pumpkin painting and we were not going to disappoint!  In fact, we painted our pumpkins on party day and then again the next day. 

These were glittered, painted and stickered until there wasn't an orange spot left...and not a clean finger in the house!
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We made all our own games and all the parts and pieces to them.  Pictured here one of our little ones is holding our homemade ghosts for the "ghost toss."  We cut up an old white sheet into 8x8 inch squares and then we filled the middle with about a 1/4 cup of pinto beans.  We tied a black piece of yarn around their necks and PRESTO!  We had ghosts.  Each child then personalized their ghost with two black thumbprint eyes.  We used these with a big white cardboard cutout of a ghost we made with its eyes and mouth cut out to toss the ghosts through.  We made a pumpkin one as well since we were going to have multiple children playing at once.   This was a great game for our children.  They all LOVED throwing their very own ghosts through the holes again and again!

Ghost Toss

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Toilet Paper Ghost Bowling

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We painted toilet paper rolls (not just the rolls but the whole bundle!) with black eyes and a mouth to turn our ordinary white paper into a stackable bowling game fit for toddlers and preschoolers to build, knock down, throw around and build again...

We used our little gourds to "bowl" with though it didn't take our kiddos long to figure out that kicking the "pins" down was equally fun!

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The fun stuff leading to party day...

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We painted, glittered, gutted, glued, and stickered real pumpkins but we also took the opportunity to discuss emotions with this project...

Each child received a pumpkin cut out and several shapes to make eyes, noses and mouths.  We talked about the fun of Halloween and how it would make us feel to get candy, see scary costumes, go to parties, etc. 

As you can see there are many emotions pictured on these little fella's!

CUTE!!!

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"Handy Bats!"
We made these adorable bats with white handprints on black paper that we cut out and stapled together.  We hung these from the ceiling as the children enter and they proudly pointed out their bats each day trying to figure out which set belonged to them.  We talked about the sizes of our hands and guessed which bats must go with each child based on size...great little comparison, pre-math activity!

Please remember if you would like to print pix from our party and you do not have access, give me a call or email and I will resend our photo sharing account information.

Have a GREAT week!

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Zebra's, Zig Zags and Zany fun with the letter Z!

11/4/2012

1 Comment

 
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It's almost unimaginable that we have completed the alphabet once again!  Its doesn't seem possible that we could be another 26 weeks down the road and almost to 2013! 

Each day is so full of that the days, weeks and months simply melt into one another and here we are nearing another Thanksgiving.  Our letter Z week was full of zebras, zig zags and zany fun!  We cut, colored, painted, played, glued, glittered, and sang our way through.

Pictured here was just one of our Z activities.  We used our blue painter's tape to further reinforce the "Z" shape and then we painted our black cardboard "Z's" white.  Once dried, we peeled the tape to reveal the black underneath.  This gave the "Z" a zebra stipe from beginning to end.

Some of our lessons are planned...
some are spontaneous!

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At the end of one of our days after discussing the type of footprints a zebra makes we decided to make some "prints" of our own.  The children discovered that if they colored their hands with the chalk and crawled across the floor their "prints" would appear just like a zebra's in the dirt.  They squealed, "Look, Ms. Donna!"  "We made prints!"  By the end of this fun little lesson we had prints through the kitchen, the hall, living room, playroom, walls, windows and doors.  Thank goodness for Windex!
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We got out the golf tees to practice making zig zags in the playdough.  They LOVED these and you could here a pin drop as they were very concentrated on making patterns, poking, adding and subtracting the tees. 

We also sang Happy Birthday MANY times as we added counted how many candles each child had placed on the "cake" they made.  This became an excellent impromptu math lesson and a FUN way to practice using the words "add," "subtact," and "equals." 

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This Zoo book creation was a great "Z" activity.  We were able to discuss the animals we see at the zoo, like snakes, zebras, parrots, turtles, lions, tigers, monkeys and elephants.  We talked about the sounds the animals make and practiced walking and talking like each animal. 

We further discussed how many of us had been to different types of zoos and the animals that we have seen.  One of our little ones was excitedly awaiting to go to an sea world and she was thrilled to discuss the dolphins she couldn't WAIT to see!! 

We played animal race outside and we walked, ran, galloped, flew and slithered like the animals we named. 

We also sounded out the letters of the word "Z.O.O."   The children's favorite part of this was the MOUNDS of glue they used to attach all their favorite animals! :))

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We LOVE puppets around here.  Ms. Rebecca makes the most AMAZING templates for our little ones!  We take every opportunity we can to make them as our children simply can't get enough of them. 

It's a great opportunity to talk about each animal.  Their hair, animal sounds, features, what they like to eat, if they have fur or not.

With the zebra puppets we learned that zebras make a sound called a "bray."  They have black and white stripes, a mane, two ears, two eyes a nose and they eat grass, hay, grain, leaves, vegetation and fruit for treats.  We discussed that they begin with the letter "Z" and that they have four legs a tail and hooves. 

We learned that some zebras live in the "wild" which just means that they live in places that aren't taken care of by people and they feed themselves and that some live in zoo's. 

We get LOTS of teaching time out of puppets, then they get to take these little creations home to share with the family.  By now, I am certain that our students have a GRAND collection of puppets!  I might add, enough for a ZOO!

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This last little activity was a letter "Z" matching game.  We cut out a zig zag, zebra, upper and lowercase letter "Z's" and glued one set onto paper. 

We then cut out another set and spent time with each child discussing each item and helping them determine what matched. 

We also practiced writing our letters, shaping them with paint, glue, sticks, playdough and spaghetti!

So much to do, see and REPORT!

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So many times I only post a few of our week's highlights.  Each day we do SO much more than what I am able to post in a weekly update. 

We sing our Days of the Week, Months of the Year, Welcome Song, Nursery Rhymes, S.T.A.R. songs, etc.  We read MANY books.  Our class favorites are Brown Bear, Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom; Llama, Llama Red Pajama; The New Potty, Me Too!, and our seasonal favorites or themed books that I list. 

We count crackers, rocks, sticks, each other, blocks, train tracks, crayons and really anything we can each day. We practice counting backward from 10, then 20.  We count forward 1-3, 1-5, 1-10, 1-20 and up to 100.  We play listening games and following directions games like Follow The Leader, Simon Says, Red Light Green Light and Tag. 

We discuss sizes and comparisons, colors and shapes in the clothing we wear and the toys we play with.  We take every opportunity to converse with each little one and discuss what they see and what they are doing.  We NOTICE the positive and ignore the not!

We laugh, love and cry ALL together as one GREAT BIG school family...and that's just the way it should be... :))

 




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    Life is made of moments...

    "There isn't anything more full of hope, joy and peace than a child's smile... It captures the mundane and makes it extraordinary." - LaDonna Woolsey

    I am a Mother Goose Time Blogger. I decided to become one after trying their products because I they are comprehensive and serve my mixed age group well.  I do receive products to review from Mother Goose Time and do so with my own honest and thorough opinions.  For more information, please contact me at Ladonna@woolseyacademy.com

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My husband and I both work full time and during the year 2011 we needed a child care provider for our five year old daughter and our 20 month old son. I am a Special Education Teacher for the Willard RII district in Missouri. I found LaDonna Woolsey on the internet while searching for a child care provider.  I had called numerous places and never felt comfortable with any of them to even make an appointment to meet them in person. I called LaDonna, and almost immediately after the conversation started, I felt a sense of relief and made an appointment to check out her daycare in person, the following day.  When I saw her facility I was absolutely amazed. LaDonna answered all of my nervous mom questions and watching her interact with the children made me realize I had found the perfect person to watch my children during the day. She started providing Child Care services for my children immediately... - Lisa Lassley - Special Education Teacher for the Willard RII 

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