All About Me - Week 3

We are almost done with our All About Me Book! Next week we do that last page, and then I bind it into a book and send it home. I'll post a picture of the finished product next week.

Question of the Day

I asked this question on the day that we had our lesson on families. 

I asked this question on the day we had our lesson on favorite things - food and color.

Centers
Art: This week for the art center I brought out chalk. Remember that I always start small and then add more each day to make the centers new and exciting every day. So on the first day of the week I put out only chalk and blank paper. I modeled for the students how to draw with chalk and how to shade with chalk. Students enjoyed just drawing whatever they wanted and using different techniques.

On the second day of the week, I added stencils to the art table. They LOVED it! A lot of students stayed and did chalk the entire center time...which is about 30 minutes! 

Blocks: I put away the cars this week and brought out the trains. A great way for the students to work cooperatively on a task. 

Computers: I finally brought out the computer center. A lot of students have been asking me since the first day of school, "when are we going to play on the computer?" I change the computer game every month. I have two computers, and both computers have the same game on it so there is no fighting over which computer to play. When I bring out a new game, I take a few minutes and show it to the students and explain how to navigate the game and play each game (though in this technology-crazy world, most of the kids pick up how to play the games VERY quickly!). I also show them how to hold, move, and click on a mouse. I have a mouse like this that I bought on amazon. I love this mouse because it is small and fits the kids' hands, and it has color-coded buttons. So it's easy for the kids to know which button to push. 

Another aspect of my computer center is I have a "Computer Sign-in Sheet," that the students write their name on if they want a turn. Then I start a timer for about 5 minutes, and when it beeps it is their turn. I love this because it's a great motivation for the students to learn how to write their name. 

Candy Land Castle

I bought this version of Candy Land at Walmart a few years ago, and then the company must have stopped making it because I never see it anymore. My students love it though. It's supposed to teach shapes and colors, and it's pretty good at that. I just wish it had some more of the basic preschool shapes on it like a rectangle and circle instead of an octagon, but my kids like it so we play it every year. 

Small Groups/Teacher Directed Centers

Math: We started working on shapes this week. We started by introducing the shapes by playing this shape sorting game that I bought from Lakeshore Learning. I put all the shapes in a bag, and the students took turns pulling a shape out and matching it to the bigger shape mat on the table. The first day we did the four basic shapes- circle, square, triangle, and rectangle. On the second day we did the shapes - diamond, heart, star, and oval.

Literacy: 

Digging for Letters: Students dig for the letters and place them in the puzzle. On of the puzzles is capital letters and the other one is lower case letters. 

Race to the School: I just came up with this game a few days ago. My students really liked it. I had seen a few version of a game called "Race to the Top" on Pinterest, but I felt like it was a little too challenging for my preschoolers. So I adapted it by only focusing on four letters, and by making it easier to reach the "top" by only having five spaces until the letter reached the end. Since it's still the first month of school, I made a school version with buses and schoolhouses. Students rolled a dice and moved that letter one space closer to the school. The first letter that gets to the school first wins. A great game to work on matching letters and letter recognition. 

Here is a link to download Race to the School Game

Race to the School

All About Me

My Family: Each student brought a picture of their family to school. They took turns telling who is in their family, and then we counted how many people were in each students' family. Then we used unifix cubes to build a tower as tall as the members of your family. We compared all of our towers to see who has the biggest and smallest family in the class.

Then the students used clipart and crayons to create a picture of their family. 

My Favorite Things: Students cut out food from grocery store ads to represent their favorite food. Then they colored the bottom of the page to represent their favorite color.

My Family page/clipart and My Favorites page are both available at my TPT store in the All About Me Unit here.