Our Family...Our Friends!

What a fun week. We got to share about our families. The collages they brought in were awesome...and it gave me so much insight on who these sweet little buddies are! We are really getting to know the friends in our room too...many of them have already made some good connections.

We worked on the letter F and the number 2. We sure have a smart group here!

As we continued to work on our daily routine in our classroom...WOW! They are really getting the hang of it!

Thursday:

Our morning table tops. As the kiddos become more comfortable...these will become more individualized. They are activities that focus on letters, numbers, or fine motor skills. A fun activity that they can do in the morning as they arrive.

Stringing beads is very important for these sweet hands!

Matching pattern blocks is important for eye/hand coordination. A great visual activity.

Now let's meet some friends!...

After reading, A pocket full of Kisses by Audrey Penn. We learned that our parents love us even when they are away.

Before adding the heart we gave it a kiss. As if you were kissing them and we were kissing you!

Masterpiece!
http://kinderlandcalifornia.blogspot.com/2008/09/first-day-project.html

A few of the stories we read on Thursday.

Sharing our family!

Each day during our station rotations These smart kiddos will do a quick independent activity before they head on to dramatic play. I usually try and do something fine motor wise... 

Great coloring Mr. Independent! 

"Ff" is for feathers. Now this simple activity is actually a great fine motor one. Picking up these feathers and gluing them down 1 by 1. Helpful hint: squeezing a glue bottle is great for hand strengthening .
http://www.pinterest.com/pin/239676011391187393/

We are going on a letter hung! I am amazed how quickly this smart friends have caught on to this. Most of them can do this entirely on their own! Each week with our letter of the week...you can play a letter hunt activity at home....something as simple as reading a story and having them locate the "magic letter" on each page. They love being detectives!

OK...this year we will have a big focus on pencil grip. Take a look at this sweet buddy's grip. Now in the next picture I made an adjustment...simply by having him hold onto a penny.

Place a penny in the last fingers and have them hold it in place there....This will force them to use the proper grip. Also...it is best for these sweet hands to use a fatter pencil or crayon when writing or even coloring.
I call this, "The Power of a Penny!"

For math I had asked you to e-mail me a family photo. This turned out to be such a sweet gift to you...however we did a lot with it. My main objective was to work on 1-1 correspondence. What that means is the kiddos point to each person and say the number. This is the foundation of number sense. We used bingo chips to mark each family member and count aloud. After I felt they had an understanding of how many people are in their family we looked at the dotted number...said it and traced it.

Picture Perfect!

Friday:

For their independent station on Tuesday they worked on counting 2 objects. I then gave them a big number 2 and 2 stickers. They counted each sticker...and had to peel them off themselves (another fine motor activity) and then trace the word 2.

Tickling those footsies! The highlight of my day...F is for footprint!

http://www.delightfullearning.net/2008/12/f-is-for-footprint.html

And Ff is for fingerprints

All smiles here! 

Love this cowboy!

A few books we read on Friday

My "All About Me" buddy!

We are number 2 detectives today...I think this was a case that was solved! So smart!

We made a friendship recipe. Each kiddo got to take one home. All week we talked about what it takes to be a good friend and we should treat others they way we want to be treated! 

Ending with a video of our poem:
 Pigs like Mud, Cows like Squash, I like _______, I do by Gosh! Hope this works...I have never posted a video. I hope to do this often...just so you can be that fly on a wall!