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

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.

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

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!

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." 

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!

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So much to do, see and REPORT!

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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