Black History Week

We introduced the theme daily with a picture and print of a famous/well known African American people.

Monday-Martin Luther King Jr.

Tuesday- Rosa Parks

Wednesday-Barack Obama

Thursday-Jackie Robinson

Friday- Garrett Morgan

Art

The children made clouds by gluing on cotton balls to paper for Martin Luther King Jr. "I have a Dream", Hand print wreath with various colors related to different skin tones, Crayon Box- glue different color crayons on box shape, Baseball- marble painted with red paint on white paper to resemble a Baseball and Friday, we will make a Traffic Light by gluing on red/yellow and green circles to orange paper.

Math

Egg math w/ brown/white/black skin tone colors, cotton balls/tongs and solo cups to practice grip and finger grasp, Color match fruit sorters to practice and recognize various colors/place in same section of egg tray to group same colors, Sports Ball Grid- match various balls on grid by placing same picture ball on top to fill grid board.

Motor Development

Rainbow connect people to snap together to hold hands using fingers/hands to push together, color boards with yellow/green/blue/red chunky pegs to make patterns on board, weaving baskets w/ ribbon to practice lacing/finger grasp and eye-hand coordination, sports craft sticks to make stand up on foam pieces to strengthen strength and grip and, Friday we will stick red/yellow/green squares on contact paper to manipulate fingers and place all materials on contact paper.

Sensory

Colored rice, scoops and pots

Books

Busy Toes, Bright Eyes Brown Skin, Hair Love, Feast For Ten and All The Colors of the Earth

Great Room Activity Friday

Kick the Cups with soccer ball

Shopping Obstacle course

Language: Word wall with cooking pictures and utensils, food line tracing and on Friday we will talk about cooking safety- adults only and hot stove.

Cognitive and knowledge: "Alphabet" soup magnets with cooking sheet, waffle blocks, exploring playdough with cooking tools, playdough in colored muffin wrappers and on Friday we will match the circles on the cupcake cut out and pom poms.

Motor development: Vegetable counters with tongs and containers, polling pill with sensory bags filled with cereal, grocery store bingo matching, flipping cookies onto plate with spatula, and on Friday we will do pasta stringing.

Social emotional: Taking turns rolling the rolling pin and rolling it over various items and adding "chocolate chips and sprinkles" to our cut out cookie.

Art: Spatula painting on construction paper, decorate a cookie with glue and sprinkles, make a chef hat to wear and on Friday we will make a spaghetti plate with string, cut out meatball and red paint.

Health/ safety: Made berry muffins and fun-fetti cookies.

Sensory bin: Pasta, sand, ladles with cooking materials.

We introduced the theme with various planets, Astronauts, rocket ships/space ships and picture cards. We name them daily and have the children point to them on the board to practice recognition and learn new words/print.

Art

the children made a Rocket ship by gluing on foam pieces and foil to Rocket shape, Moon painting with foil stampers, silver paint and black paper to make "moon" impressions, letter "S" gluing with glitter, Earth- sponge painting with blue/green paint on paper plates and Friday we will make a space theme wreath with black paint and stars.

Math

The children explored with Space grid mats and colored circle stickers to follow and make a pattern that turns into a shape, colored peg boards and pegs to match same color pegs to boards by staking or by alternating colors to make patterns, we used baking pans with golf balls to roll around the "moon", and Friday we will name and match planets/solar system picture cards. sun, moon, earth, mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury.

Motor Development

We explored with something" new "colored neon foam balls with glow stars- The children pulled a part and squeezed the foam ball with their hands to explore the texture, and pressed the glow stars onto the foam balls to make impressions, Foam Blocks w/ tooth picks- the children stayed very engaged and focused with this activity as they poked each tooth pick into the blocks making them stand and making various designs, we explored with green/blue play dough with green/blue stars to make "craters" and to make straws stand up.

Sensory Bin

Mini black beans, blue pails, clear shovels and small glow stars

Activities- Social/emotional

Moon Race- The children held spoons with foil moon balls and walked from one side of the great room to the other-trying not to drop the ball.

what If.... song with actions/movement

Friday

What is Energy? Energy to Fly We will do slow/fast activity and feel our hearts

Winter

For art this week the children worked on a special Holiday gift for parents

Math

The children practiced colors and counting by placing pom-pom sorter on top of number snowflake circle, we made snow by measuring, mixing, mitten math by matching same color mittens and snowman color button matching colored buttons on snowman. These activities allow children to practice early math through colors, patterning, matching and visuals.

Motor Development

The children used mitten lacing cards with pipe cleaners for steady grip as they put the cleaners in and out of the holes, snowman - we used white play dough to manipulate with hands/fingers by pressing jumbo buttons on play dough and used hands/fingers to practice rolling play dough in between hands to make balls after teacher modeling, Tracing- the children practiced tracing lines and tool grip by making marks on dry erase board working on lines from one snow flake to another and Letter S tracing with snow flake stickers- the children worked on placing stickers on letter S line all around using eye hand coordination and finger grasp to peel stickers off.

Sensory Bin

Winter theme- fake snow, cotton balls, bells, winter houses and scoops

Tomorrow

Polar Express in Am, Snow ball Toss follow directions, Holiday snack in pm

Language: Word wall with different colored and types of dinosaurs, asking the children the colors, dinosaur tracing lines at the writing table, Dinosaur stomp song and on Friday we will do T-Rex says (Simon says)

Cognitive and general knowledge; Dinosaur grid matching colors, plastic eggs with dinosaurs inside, count the dots on the dinosaurs. dinosaur sensory bottles and on Friday we will do pipe cleaners with beads to practice counting.

Motor Development: Dinosaur cut out with stickers, play dough with dinosaur feet print, dinosaurs with tons and containers for sorting, dinosaur stomp song and on Friday we will do the dinosaur mat with pom poms.

Social emotional: Rolling a dinosaur egg back and forth to peer with a dinosaur in the middle and dancing to the dinosaur stomp song.

Art: Marble painting, dinosaur egg with dinosaurs' inside, cut out letter "D" for dinosaur, dinosaur paper plate with spots and eyes and on Friday we will make handprint dinosaurs on construction paper.

Health and Safety: Review safe hands, safety when crossing street, safe hands and nice words with peers.

Block area: Added large dinosaurs

Sensory bin: Dinosaurs with rocks and oatmeal.

Art

the children made a Dreidel by stamping with Koosh rings on Dreidel pattern, made a Hanukkah candle crown by gluing on paper candles onto crown, Star of David- painted star with blue/silver paint and sprinkled glitter, Menorah- handprints on paper to resemble the Menorah with flame tips and tomorrow the children will make a tube candle by gluing on blue tissue paper on tube and orange flame.

Math

The children explores with various size pom-poms, tongs and mini baskets naming the size of the pom-poms with teachers help, exploring with magnet shoe horse and rings to see what connects?, blue candle containers and candle craft sticks to drop in slit of lid and count the sticks, gold coin pocket counting with plastic coins and paper pockets to practice counting, eye-hand coordination while opening the pocket and dropping it in the pocket and Friday, we will use colored magnet shapes and cookie sheets to name shapes and colors while placing on the sheets with peers.

Motor Development

we explored with blue play dough and blue and silver candles to make them stand in the play dough in various directions using fingers/hands to manipulate, We introduced Dreidel's to the children and showed them how to make them spin using their finger tips and hand motion to make them spin, Blue baking soda and gold/silver straws to practice making lines, shapes and marks for early writing, grip and hand movement, Bristle blocks to practice connecting various sizes together to create/make a structure and Friday, the children will use corks and large bottle to drop corks and problem-solve to get them out.

Sensory

Blue rice, gold coins and gold containers

Books

Hanukkah, Dreidel, Hanukkah Lights, Hanukkah Nights, It's Hanukkah and Oh Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah

Friday

We will make Latkes in the morning, balloons and star wands outside and pin the candles on the Menorah to practice turn taking.

Theme: Families

Word Wall: The word "families", pictures of their families on the wall, singing "we are a family song", prewriting with skin colored crayons and paper, felt board with people and on Friday we will ask the children about their pets.

Cognitive and knowledge: Finger puppets for counting, houses with community helpers, sour patch kids with tons and containers for sorting. On Wednesday we made pumpkin moose for our thanksgiving feast. We mixed, poured, and measured the ingredients. On Friday we will match the different size bears.

Motor development: Connecting the different colored gingerbread people, Q-tips with strainers, bubble wrap on the table top, large button drop into containers with a cut on the lid and Friday we will use fruit counters and containers to sort them.

Social emotional: Asking the children what they like to do with their families on thanksgiving and sharing their pictures with the class.

Creative art: Cut out letter "F" for family, cookie cutter painting houses and people on cut out houses, photo frame making, having children paint and add the word "family" to their picture and on Friday, we will glue cut out people to paper bags.

Sensory bin: Different colored and shape people with tons and containers.

Reviewed being thankful, nice words, nice hands and being nice to our teachers.

Books: Mommies At Work, Bye-Bye Mom and Dad, The 10 Best Things About My Dad, I Love You So Much, and Friday we will read Whose Mouse Are You?

Thanksgiving Feast: The children made thanksgiving hats with a feather, stickers and markers. They wore this during the feast. The children ate turkey, stuffing, applesauce, corn, mash potatoes, bread with butter and for dessert they had pumpkin moose.

Theme Week

No art on Tuesday due to picture day

Art

Monday the children wore their cool sunglasses while making their own sunglasses out of paper and foil, inside/out day- we painted 2 cups with paint, one inside the cup and the other outside of the cup, Pajama Day- the children will make PJ bottoms by gluing on strips to paper bottom pants and Friday for crazy hair day, the children will glue various colored yarn on a paper plate face.

Math

The children worked hard snapping together Dinosaurs snaps to match the same colors together and name the color, sea animal counting with muffin tins and tongs to fill up and count along, the children explored with measuring colored blocks to measure height by looking at what color is the longest and, Friday we will explore with large and small tiles by lining them up on the table to see the differences.

Motor Development

The children used clothes pins to pin paper suns on the yarn line to work their fingers to squeeze pins open, we practiced cutting with toddler scissors and brown paper bags to work open and close motions, hold scissors with fingers in handles and practice eye-hand coordination, we practiced color/shape matching by sliding down the sorters on the peg stands one at a time, practiced lacing with string/yarn and clothing wooden lacing boards and Friday, we will manipulate Mr. Potato Heads to dress and undress them with body part pieces and clothing.

Social/Emotional

During morning group time, we shared everyone's hats by having each child stand up and share their hat by saying what color it is, what kind of hat and any thing else they would like to share about their hat.

Friday, we will ask each child what color their hair is? and write down their responses.

Friday

Leave color dye experiment, introduction to seasonal trees and fruit dice physical activity.

We introduced the theme with a globe, and pointed to places around the world and named the water and land/mountains by having the children come up and point to the globe.

Art

We made our own globe by stamping our hand prints on blue paper with green paint to represent "All Around The World", we made African masks by gluing on feathers and glitter, we made the "London Double Decker Bus" by gluing on lots of wheels and windows, today, we made a Chinese Drum by sponge painting paper plates and adding a Dragon with its symbol and tomorrow we will make the letter D in Arabic and decorate with feathers.

Math

The children worked on matching pictures of symbols and people Around The World dressed in their traditional clothes to work on matching similarities, counting with cheerios as they placed them on the Giraff's spots, matching colors with Uno cards and numbers on a big Bus to practice color recognition, animal and symbol matching with Chinese picture cards, and tomorrow we will match colored/shaped eggs.

Motor Development

The children explored with "Earth" grids and play-dough as they applied blue for water and green for land, we practiced weaving ribbon in and out of baskets to build finger manipulation, sand dough trays with small vehicle counters to make lines in the sand, today, we used chop sticks to try and pick up Pom-Poms and put in small fortune boxes- this is a new activity we implemented and challenging- to our surprise, many children tried and were able to manipulate the chop sticks. Tomorrow, we will do "freeze" game for gross motor.

Friday

We will make Elephant tooth paste, walk and balance baskets on our heads, name the animal sounds we here and learn about winter fruit for our Health and Wellness activity.

Theme: Halloween

Word Wall: Pictures of ghost, a witch and pumpkins with the word Halloween. Singing different

Halloween songs including, The Five Little Pumpkins, Baby Shark Halloween and Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate.

Math: The children used bingo cards that had shapes and cut out shapes to match, pumpkin cut outs with a number written on them and an eyeballs representing the number and Halloween erasers to count, sensory bags with water, glitter and plastic spiders, ghost with numbers and circles, matching the amount of circles with a pom pom and Friday we will be doing a Candy corn Experiment.

Motor Development: Halloween cups with erasers and tongs, plastic eyes and orange balls, throwing into pumpkin baskets, cookie jars with cookies, Halloween stickers on a big cut out ghost, and Friday they will be using their fine motor skills to put the black cat sticks into the Styrofoam blocks.

Art: Making trick or treat bags with paint and cookie cutters, gluing on the eyes and mouth onto a pumpkin, putting cotton balls on a ghost cut out, and Friday we will be using q-tips on black paper to make a Skeleton.

Water/ Dry Table: Different colored water everyday and Halloween rubber ducks, with a shovel and cups for them to fill with either water or ducks.

Halloween Celebration: Wearing our costumes, going into the great room to sing Halloween songs, going to the patio to say Trick or Treat and candy was dropped from the patio, we went around to the different classrooms to Trick or Treat, played Halloween games such as, throwing plastic eyeballs into pumpkin containers and Halloween bowling. Later we had our Halloween snacks.

Review: Safe hands, being nice to friends and sharing.