Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Pumpkins - Day 8

Math-Pumpkin Patch Subtraction

I found this poem at the following website: http://www.preschoolexpress.com.

You can use the little Brach's pumpkins for this, or a felt board like they suggest. We don't have a felt board so we're sticking to the candy!

FOUR LITTLE PUMPKINS
Four little pumpkins
I can see.
______picked one
That left three.

Three little pumpkins
With nothing to do.
______ picked one
And that left two.

Two little pumpkins
Out in the sun.
______ picked one
And that left one.

One little pumpkin
All alone.
It looked lonely
So I took it home. Jean Warren

L.A. - Alphabet

This really has nothing to do with pumpkins but I've been wanting to do this for a while and today's the day! When I subbed in a kindergarten room we helped the kids learn their letters with flash cards. As I've said in the past, I'm not a huge fan of flash cards because I love active learning, but flashcards can be useful every now and then. I'm going to find pictures on the web and make my own set to practice with my preschooler. She is starting to take in interest in learning the alphabet and the sounds the letters make, so that's why I'm choosing to do this now. Here's an example of the type of set I'm making:

A - apple
B - boy
C - cat
D - dog
E - elephant
F - fish
G - girl
h - hat
i - igloo
j - jump
k - kite
l- lion
m - mouse
n - needle
o - octopus
p - pear
q - quilt
r - rabbit
s - snake
t - tiger
u - umbrella
v - violin
x - x-ray
y - yo-yo
z - zebra

It is helpful to do different motions with some of the letters such as pretend to sew for "n for needle," and really jump for "j" for jump.

The way the kids learned the letters were by saying "A for apple, a for apple, ahh, ahh, ahh" (the last part is to say the sound the letter makes). Another example would be "B for boy, b for boy, buh, buh, buh."

I would recommend that you find out which type of alphabet flash cards your child's school disctrict will use, because it may be difficult to learn one whole set and then switch to another when they start school. If your child is use to saying "b for boy" and the school says "b for bear" it might make them a little confused.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Pumpkins-Day 7



Pumpkin Math!

I used a mixture of Brach's pumpkins and candy corn to do a variety of math activities with my preschooler.

A few ideas of how you can use this candy for math:

Capacity-Use pumpkins to fill various containers. See which container requires the most/least pumpkins.

Counting-line up pumpkins and have your child touch each pumpkin as they count them (this helps develop one-to-one correspondence).

Patterns-create a pattern using the candy such as pumpkin, candy corn, pumpkin, candy corn...and have your child extend the pattern. If this pattern is too each make it more diffcult like pumpkin, pumpkin, candy corn...

Graphing-give your child a handful of candy. Have your child sort and line the pieces up on a piece of large graph paper. Color in the graph.

Sorting-Hand your child a small amount of mixed candy pieces and let them practice sorting them into groups (all the candy corn in one pile and all of the pumpkins in the other).







Language Arts-Pumpkin Writing

OACS-L.A., Writing Process, 5. Dictate or produce "writing" to express thoughts.

You can choose from a whole variety of activities for this lesson. Here are a few ideas:

-Watch the Charlie Brown Halloween cartoon and write about what you would do if you saw the Great Pumpkin.

-Add sentences to photos from the trip to the pumpkin patch to make a scrapbook.

-Write a story about your visit (pretend or real) to the pumpkin patch.

....anything else your child might be interested in!

Craft-Pumpkin Jars



I saw this craft in Family Fun magazine. We took mason jars (accidentally just recycled all of our spaghetti and peanut butter jars right before this craft) and glued long strips of tissue paper to them. We cut out shapes (tying in math) to make a silly face. We used a real candle, but I would definitely suggest using a battery powere tea light to make this silly pumpkin jar light up. This would be a great craft to also do for Thanksgiving center pieces or for Christmas gifts. I will warn you that it can be a little frustrating for the preschoolers because the tissue paper rips easily when it's wet with the glue, and the preschoolers little fingers can get sticky easily, adding to the tearing paper problem. My little one loved this craft, even with the minor annoying parts!

Monday, October 18, 2010

Pumpkins - Day 6



L.A.- Shaving Cream!

Objective-OACS, L.A., Writing Conventions, Handwriting, Indicator 1- Print letters of own name and other meaningful words with assistance using mock letters and/or conventional print.

It’s wonderful when preschoolers to use a variety of their senses to learn. We got out daddy’s shaving cream and wiped a large amount on the table. We took turns “drawing” in it. We reviewed letters and shapes, plus took some time to draw some pumpkins and other silly pictures.

Math- Paper Pumpkins

If you’re like us, you’ll probably need to continue working on your paper mache pumpkins. We are ready to paint our three pumpkins, so that is our goal for today.

NOTE-if going to the grocery you may want to buy a bag of Brach’s “Autumn Mix” for some other math activities later this week.

Science- My mom (who works in an elementary library) found a wonderful book called “From Seed to Pumpkin.” Lily and I are going to read this book and review the life science facts from last month.

Pumpkins- Day 5

Field Trip to a pumpkin patch!

Talk with your child about how the farmer plants the pumpkin, waits for the pumpkin to grow, picks the pumpkin, and then sells it. It would be great if you could actually walk through a pumpkin field or take a wagon ride through one. You can help your child purchase a pumpkin, then bring it home and turn it into a pie or a decoration.

Tip-there are websites that list local pumpkin patches. I know there are a few located in SW Ohio.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Great Resources and Learning Tools!

This has nothing to do with the pumpkin unit but I'm really excited about it and it's worth sharing.

We keep a budget and try hard to limit our spending, especially since I decided to become a stay-at-home mom. I probably take it to extremes sometimes, such as doing my own "up-dos" for weddings, clipping lots of coupons, learning to sew clothes for the girls, and so on. However, there are times when I find learning resources that are well worth any money I may spend on them (after I find the cheapest way to purchase them, of course)!

These are two tools that I just bought for my girls:



These are called "Mini Geosolids" from Learning Resources. The company has their own site, but I bought this set from Amazon, using my swagbucks (see below).

These are wonderful hands on manipulatives for teaching sorting, patterns, classification, 3-d shapes and so much more! They are fun for her to use now for building little castles and things, but it is definitely a tool that she can use for most of her formal schooling.



This is a set of "pattern blocks" or "attribute blocks" that I bought on ebay. I bought them for the same reasons I bought the geosolids. These are definitely multi-purpose and can be used for many years.

Swagbucks is one of my new favorite websites! It is an great easy program for earning a little extra money for items I normally wouldn't include in our regular budget (such as extra toys for the girls).

All you do is sign up for a swagbucks account, open the email they send to verify your account, and then use it as a search engine. You will randomly win "swagbucks" as you search. These can be redeemed for a whole variety of prizes, my favorite of which is the $5.00 Amazon.com gift card. This is how I purchased the mini geosolids, as well as my youngest daughter's birthday present. You can also earn "swagbucks" by reading their blog and finding codes, doing online shopping through their site, and a variety of other ways. I've used the site for almost a year and I am very pleased with it! The link for Swagbucks is posted below:

For some reason my hyper links aren't working so here's the link to copy and paste:

http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/NatalieWaddle

Pumpkins - Day 4

L.A.

Read pumpkin mini book and poem.



Math/Art - Paper Mache Pumpkins!

We aren't going to do very much math today because this activity is mostly preparation for next week's math activities. Today Lily and I are going to attempt to make two or three different sized paper mache pumpkins/jack-o-lanterns. This will only be the beginning of the project as it will probably take a few days to let it dry and then paint it.

For the pumpkins,

1. Blow up a couple of balloons into different sizes. (Blow one up all the way, one up about half way, and so on.)

2. Mix 1 part flour with 2 parts water for the paste.

3. Cut newspaper into strips (shorter strips work best for the curves on the balloons).

4. Paste strips around balloon forming a "bowl" shape.

Tip-cover work surface with lots of extra newspaper or plastic, use old t-shirts to cover goood clothes!

We will use this project next week for our capacity/volume math activities.

If you don't want to give up math for today you can have your child use a paperclip chain to measure the strips of paper. They can also arrange different strips of paper in order from tallest to shortest, or practice counting strips of paper.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Pumpkins-Day 3




L.A.- "The Pumpkin"

I want to work on some basic sight words with Lily, and the best way to teach her sight words is to read them in the context of a story. I'm not a huge fan of flash cards. I think they are fine on occasion, but I definitely prefer teaching new words through actually reading stories. I decided to write a simple little story about a farmer growing a pumpkin to go along with our economics unit.

First, I cut four sheets of printer paper (8.5 in x 11 in.) in half. Then I stacked them on top of each other, folded them in half, and then stapled in the fold.

Here's what I wrote-you can change it to suit your child's needs:

Title "The Pumpkin"
Page 1 - blank
Page 2 - The farmer plants a seed.
Page 3 - Look! It is raining!
Page 4 - The seed sprouts.
Page 5 - The little plant grows.
Page 6 - Look! A little pumpkin is there.
Page 7 - It rains on the pumpkin.
Page 8 - The sun shines on the pumpkin.
Page 9 - The pumpkin is not little now.
Page 10- The pumpkin is big and orange.
Page 11- The farmer picks the pumpkin.
Page 12- We go to the pumpkin farm.
Page 13- We buy the pumpkin.
Page 14- We make pumpkin pie!

I highlighted the preschool Dolche words in the book (Dolche words are a basic list of sight words). We will read this book multiple times. I have Lily point to each word as we read. The illustrations are also key to helping her figure out the words on the page, so take care to match the illustrations with the words.

Here is a list of preschool Dolche words I found on the internet:

a, and, away, big, blue, can, come, down, find, for, funny, go, help, here, I, in, is, it, jump, little, look, make, me, my, not, one, play, red, run, said, see, the, three, to, two, up, we, where, yellow, you.


Math- Pumpkin Face!




Lily is doing fairly well with measurement so we're going to take a little break and go back to reviewing shapes.

I saw in a magazine that one mom took magnetic sheets and cut out black triangles, rectangles, squares and circles, and then let her child use them to decorate a pumpkin that she taped to the refrigerator. While your child plays with the shapes and makes different pumpkin faces you can talk with them about the different shapes. Make sure to keep these away from curious babies!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Pumpkins-Day 2



Field Trip Plans!

If you haven't considered taking your child to a real pumpkin farm-this would be the week to do so! There is a great farm, near Milford, OH, called Shaw Farms. Their website is www.shawfarms.com. You can take hay rides back to the pumpkin fields. It's a wonderful way to show your child first hand farming economics. You can purchase pumpkins at the farm. For extra fun, purchase a pie pumpkin and find an online recipe for homemade pumpkin pie or pumpkin bread.

Children learn through making connections through their life experiences. It is important for your child to take "field trips" and to gain a variety of experiences. I've overheard many teachers observing that students are lacking basic experiences and therefore have difficulties in school because they can't connect what they are learning to their life.



L.A./Math/S.S.

There is a cute book called "The Biggest Pumpkin Ever." It is a great little story to read with your child. As you are reading the book, ask your child to think about what’s happening and to make predictions for what they think will happen next. After reading, use the book to do some more paper clip measurements. It's perfect for continuing the math measurement lesson because the pumpkins in the illustrations are various sizes and can easily be measured with paper clips. This book also presents a chance to talk about the social studies standards of production.

Objective-OACS, L.A., Comprehenstion, Indicator 5. Predict what might happen next during reading of text.

Objective-OACS, Math, Measurment, Indicator 6. Measure length and volume using non-standard units of measure (e.g., how many paper clips long is a pencil, how many small containers does it take to fill one big container using sand, rice or beans?)

Objective – OACS, SS, Economics, Indicator 3. Demonstrate an understanding of the concepts of production, distribution and consumption through play (e.g., food from the farm to the grocery store) and concrete experiences (e.g., food purchased from the store and cooked at home).

Don't forget to read the poem of the week and do your daily calendar activities, too!

Monday, October 11, 2010

Poem of the Week!

Poem of the Week – From Seed to Pie

I love to write poems on big pieces of poster/chart paper. It is a great way to read along with your child and to start teaching them some sight words. It’s also wonderful for teaching fluency, rhyming, punctuation, capitalization and many other language arts skills.

http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/patty_s_pumpkin_patch.html

The website stated that this poem was written by Diane Donovan for Mailbox Magazine

It is sung to the tune of “The Farmer in The Dell”

The seed is on the ground.
The seed is on the ground.
Hi-ho the pumpkin patch!
The seed is on the ground.

Additional verses:
The seed grows a sprout.
The sprout grows a vine.
The vine grows a bloom.
The bloom grows a pumpkin.
We make a pumpkin pie.


I might even add in some like “The farmer picks the pumpkin.” And “The store sells the pumpkin” or “The farmer sells the pumpkin.” These extra verses would fit in well with the economic standards for the pumpkin unit.

Pumpkins-Day 1



L.A.- “P” is for “pumpkins”

Objective-OACS, L.A., Writing Conventions, Handwriting, Indicator 1- Print letters of own name and other meaningful words with assistance using mock letters and/or conventional print.

Help your child practice writing the letter “p” and color a pumpkin. On a side note, your school disctrict probably teaches one of the two different handwriting styles, so you may want to check which style they use before you begin to teach your child to write. Your child's future school teacher (if you do not home school) will probably not be too thrilled if you have taught them to write a different form than what the school uses.



Math- How big is that pumpkin?

Objective-OACS, Math, Measurment, Indicator 6. Measure length and volume using non-standard units of measure (e.g., how many paper clips long is a pencil, how many small containers does it take to fill one big container using sand, rice or beans?)

Cut out a few different sized construction paper pumpkins. Help your child link together paperclips and count how man paper clips long each pumpkin is.

Social Studies –

Objective – OACS, SS, Economics, Indicator 3. Demonstrate an understanding of the concepts of production, distribution and consumption through play (e.g., food from the farm to the grocery store) and concrete experiences (e.g., food purchased from the store and cooked at home).

Plant a pumpkin seed with your child. Talk about how the seed needs soil to live (review from September). Talk about how farmers plant pumpkin seeds. Play farm!

October - Pumpkins!

This month we will be doing a measurement unit in math, an economic unit for social studies, and we will continue with various reading and writing activities. I'm hoping to do at least two mini-units: "apples" and "pumpkins!" This is going to be a fun month for field trips!!

Friday, October 1, 2010

Friday

End of Unit Assessment

This is the end of the unit and a great time to gather information about what your child has learned. I definitely do not recommend any kind of paper or pencil type of test for this age! I would just keep some notes or a checklist of the concepts your child has mastered and ones you need to further review. I would let your child play or read with them and informally assess these objectives by asking questions or observing.

Geometry Unit

1. Match 2-and 3-dimensional objects in the environment and in play situations.
2. Sort and classify similar 2- and 3-dimensional objects in the environment and play situations.
3. Identify, name, create and describe common 2-d shapes like circles, triangles, rectangles and squares.
4. Identify, name and describe 3-d objects using child’s own vocabulary.

Life Science Unit

1. Identify common needs (food, air, water) of familiar living things.
2. Begin to differentiate between real and pretend.
3. Observe and begin to recognize the ways that environments support life by meeting the needs of each organism (plant/soil, birds/air, fish/water).
4. Match familiar adult family members, plants and animals with their young.
5. Recognize physical differences among the same class of people, plants, or animals (dogs come in many sizes and colors).

Thursday

Science-Field Trip!

Objective-OCAS, Science, Life Science, Heredity, Indicator 4-Match familiar adult family members, plant and animals with their young (e.g., horse/colt, cow/calf).

Take your child to a petting zoo with mom and baby animals and help them compare how they are similar and different.

Math- Matching Game

Objective-OACS, Math, Geometry and Spatial Sense, Characteristics and Properties-2.Sort and Classify similar two and three-dimensional objects in the environment and play situations (e.g., paper shapes, 2 balls of different size).

Cut out various shapes in different sizes and colors, making sure to cut out two of each. Put one whole set in a “deck” and another whole set in a pile. Take turns drawing from the “deck” and trying to match your shape to make a pair. This is a good time to talk about congruency.

L.A.- Poem!

OACS, L.A., Reading Applications-2. Retell or re-enact events from a story through a variety of media and play events (e.g., dramatize a favorite story).

Have your child tell what happened in the fall poem and act it out.

Wednesday

Math-Shape Sorting Race!

Objective-OACS, Math, Geometry and Spatial Sense, Characteristics and Properties-2.Sort and Classify similar two and three-dimensional objects in the environment and play situations (e.g., paper shapes, 2 balls of different size).

Use any extra shapes you might have leftover from Monday’s art (or make new ones) and place them in two big piles. Separate out one triangle, one square, and one circle and start three new piles, one for each. Do the same for your child’s pile. Explain that when you say go, you’re going to separate out all of the triangles into one pile, all of the circles into another pile, and finally all of the squares into a third pile. You may need to help them do the first few. Play the game and then change it by having them sort colors next, then whatever else you can think of like size, sides, corners or round, etc.

Science-Picture Time!

Objective-OCAS, Science, Life Science, Heredity, Indicator 4-Match familiar adult family members, plant and animals with their young (e.g., horse/colt, cow/calf).

Get out a picture of your child and of yourself and talk about the similarities and differences.

L.A.

Objective-OACS, L.A., Phonemic Awareness, Indicator 2. Hear sounds in words by isolating the syllables of a word using snapping, clapping or rhythmic movement (e.g., cat, ap-ple).

Read the poem from Tuesday. Go back and find a few words to separate into syllables. Model for your child how to clap for each syllable.