Preschool and baby lesson about bugs

Devotional: Alma 38:12
See that ye bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love; see that ye refrain from idleness.

"One part of us seems to want to “let go” and express our emotions or appetites; another part wants to exert control over our emotions and appetites. The controlling, restraining influence is exerted by our spirit."

Activity:
Explain that you are going to try an experiment in self-discipline. Ask each young woman to move her right hand in a circle, then to move her left foot back and forth, then to move her head up and down. Now ask each of them to sit very quietly and concentrate on anything except what you are going to describe to them. Then describe in detail a delicious food or dessert.

•Which was harder, telling your hand or foot what to do, or telling your thoughts and emotions what to do?
The above quote,activity and the rest of the lesson can be found  here

Letter:B
Number:10
Nursery Rhyme: Itsy Bitsy Spider

Things that bug me:
How to talk about your emotions.I had him show me his best face for happy,sad,mad,surprised and for extra fun we did a silly face.Actually he could only do the first 2 then the rest were silly! We looked in the mirror so we could see the faces we made.Next we drew different faces on the mirror.The baby had fun looking in the mirror.I would say something like the baby is happy he is smiling! He didn't like it when I made a sad face.That just shows how in tune babies are to our feelings!

Happy

Sad

We read some books about bugs and emotions!Score for the Mommy!
In Winnie the Pooh and the honey tree there are very expressive pictures of Pooh bear.The story is all about trying to get some honey.He thinks he can trick the bees to steal some honey.I would ask my son if he was showing a certain emotion.He would tell me what he thought was happening in the pictures.

Gross motor:We did a bug hunt.He is ready to go!

 Here is a spider web.We saw many of those *shudder*.We saw butterflies,dragonflies,wasps,caterpillar.My preschooler kept saying "don't kill them he's my friend."

 We even heard and saw this little guy.He was eating bugs!Yummy!

 He is not a bug but he sure is cute!

Make head band to be a bug with construction paper,pipe cleaners,and pom poms.I gave him some paper to practice cutting.Too cute don't you think?

Music and movement: Pretend to be different bugs while wearing the head band.

 We tried some fun songs
Bug song A-hunting we will go, A-hunting we will go, We'll catch a (butterfly,spider,etc - let each child have a turn in choosing a bug) and put it in a box, and then we'll let it go!


Bee Hive finger play (Put your hands together like a bee hive and say...) This is my bee hive, but where are the bees, hidden inside where nobody sees, one two three four five (Pop fingers up while counting) And then Buzz the children with your fingers.

We ended with some bug juice and a sandwich.

Dr. Suess activities and A-J letter review

This week is Dr.Suess's birthday.We read several of his books this morning.Like a lot of blogs we are celebrating this week and we want to share what we did with our readers.We played this matching game we got for Christmas.For younger children like toddlers i only did 6 pairs so he had a better chance of remembering.We practiced putting cards in and taking them out.The kids also stacked them up and tried to build with them.We tried to figure out what character went with what book.

We read Green eggs and ham and instead of dying it green we put spinach in it and ham.My toddler tried to pick out the spinach.I said"you do not like them Son I am you do not like green eggs and ham." He ended up eating it!I am a lucky Mommy!


 
Next we did a letter Review for A-J.Every 3 months we will review what we have done so far. We reviewed Ro's name but when you ask him what his name is he always says 2.We played letter tag where I called out a letter and they had to run to it and say the sound it made.

Fine Motor:Then they had to put the foam letters in order.

Gross Motor:Then we put the foam letters in a circle and turned on some music.Then I had them freeze when the music stopped and they called out what letter they were on and what sound it made.

What they learn:
Baby lesson: 2 weeks old Nursery Rhyme:Jack and Jill.W tried it acting out wit puppets but the baby wasn't too interested.He is starting to respond more when you make sounds.He can be on is tummy longer.He can only be stimulated for short periods of time.His vision is still blurry so we continue to let him study our faces.

2 year old:Recognizing letters numbers,colors and shapes.He can draw a circle.Even though we go up to number 10 this year.My toddler only can handle #1-5.They learn the concept of in and out.He learned to brush his teeth and spit out the toothpaste!He can almost put his shirt on by himself. He can put his shoes on
 though.
5 year old-my daughter is really starting to get confident in her reading.She also knows her letter sounds.She was helping and correcting Rowen when he would be on the wrong letter She is a little perfectionist.She asks why to everything.

We also started our countdown to Spring where we took a walk to see if we see any signs of Spring.One can only hope! I a sick of the snow!!!!The only thing that we noticed on our walk was that the snow was melting yay!!!!

Review week letters A-D

Circle time we just went over the letters and the days of the week.The ABC song was also sung.
 
They played with the foam letters
 
Then we looked for circles
 
Triangles
 
Squares
We had an alphabet race where I would call out a letter and have them say the sound and they would race to it.

Then I wrote down words and had them match it up with the letters
For music and movement we played freeze tag.
For colors I had the tot pick out different color crayons and color with them.He still gets a lot of his colors mixed up.
Last was practicing counting.I wrote 1-4 on a piece of paper and he matched the number with the same number of counters.He still needs a lot of assistance with this as well.It is mostly familiarizing him with letters and numbers at this age.But it is a great review for my Kindergartner!

Letter B-Its a teddy bear picnic!

The next few posts are going to be a lot of catching up since I have not been able to blog for a while with pictures and everything.I wanted to start off by saying what I usually do to start things off.I always have rug time.First we talk about the month,the day and the weather.We review our letters either by sound or sing the ABC's.This week we started off with rug time.On Fridays or Mondays I like to go to the library.

 .

The kids got a ton of books! We got many books on Bears.The kids sat on the blanket and picked out their bears.We compared size,color and talked about the different bears.Then we talked about what they eat.We had teddy grahms and grapes which we pretended were berries.Then the kids handed me book after book.We probably read for a half an hour!

We of course talked about B and the sound it makes.We traced the foam letter and wrote it in the air.Then we had some music and movement.They loved the Teddy Bear Picnic song.We played Head Shoulders Knees and Toes,Ring around the Rosie which they held their bears for.

Then Lex practiced her uppercase and lower case b.While my teeny tot practiced lines and tracing.

After recess I introduced blue which starts with the letter B Lex exclaimed!We looked for blue things around the house.We found the blue crayon.Then I introduced the number 2.We talked about pairs and found many on our own bodies,including feet,eyes,ears,hands and so on.We then practiced writing our twos .Ro drew a circle.Yay!We went back to rug time where I introduced our theme for the Month which is Change.There is a lot of leave color changing happening right now.We also talked about how they have changed and grown.They are taller and grown out of clothes.We measure their height.

Kids hibernating in their cave

We did a fun fingerplay about a bear in his cave.Then the kids crawled on all fours and looked for food.I announced it was winter and they crawled in their cave  to hibernate.They really liked this game and played it for a while.

Day 2:

We had a very special breakfast this morning.I got the idea  from learnwithplayathome.com They turned out really cute i think and the kids loved the pancakes with pumpkin in it to bring in the fall tastes

We played memory to practice number 2.

I prepared a box of items some that started with the letter B and some without.Their job was to find the ones that started with the letter B.Then the kid's imagination really took off!Lexi put on the belt as a necklace and the sunglasses

She took the baby and was her Mom.She read the bat book.

Ro played in the boxes and tried a few things on.The box became a car and we had to get more boxes so everyone would have a car. 

Lexi got the play food and went shopping.I have learned to have structure but to allow them to take an activity where they want it to go.This was one of those times.Who knew that these items would entertain them for so long.They played the rest of the time.You can't plan those kinds of memories!

zoo puppet and a theater

 I found these cute puppets for the kids to do at dltk-kids.com. We did a paper bag tiger .


Here are puppets we did with Popsicle sticks.

Next, I had the idea to do a theater.I took a big cardboard box.Then I cut the desired pattern. At first I wanted it to look like curtains but  then I took a real curtain and stapled it on. Really that is it! Soooo easy.

B is for body

Today we did some worksheets. Not as fun but important! I bought a big book for each grade that I use.I got it at Walmart.Sometimes I blog hop and other times I make stuff up.
1rst grade-practice counting to 100 by 1's.It was a fill in the blank.1 is the number for the week.
Pre-k-practiced writing and recognizing the letter B
Toddler-practiced counting and sounding B.

For circle time we sang Hokey pokey and Head shoulders knees and toes.Both songs are excellent to learn parts of the body!

Corb didn't want to lay on his back because the sun was in his face.

Next we went outside and traced each other's body with chalk and then drew eyes, nose, mouth and whatever else they wanted to. Lex drew ribs and a heart.

We struck a pose and traced their shadows.












Often times we will go to the library for story time.This time they did a camping theme and the kids made their own wood fire with a paper plate.They glued on 2 pieces of paper cute out to look like wood and then added red,yellow and orange squares pre-cut to look like fire.

B is for bubbles.Ro decided to blow bubbles in his milk

15 activities to do with Balloons for letter B

 B is for balloons.See how many breaths it takes to blow up balloons. Corb guessed 5 and he was right on! Play balloon volley ball over couch. See how far you can say ABC or 123’s before it touches the ground. We learned Ba ba black sheep for our B letter day. We tried out a few of the activities below we were just having so much fun!

 

Sign for letter B.The kids thought it was funny to give a peace sign.



Abc don't let the balloon touch the floor

The balloon picked up little pieces of paper, and as a bonus dog hair!

Stick the balloons to the wall.

Fill it up with water

Toss it!



Bounce it!



Even our dog T-bone got it and it was still ok.

Crush it!

Float it!

Static! Check out that hair.

15 Activities that you can do with balloons

1. Toss it in the air or balloon volley.See how high you can make it go.
2. Teach colors.
3. Blow them up different sizes and compare sizes or arrange from biggest to smallest or smallest to biggest.
4. Blow them up and have a contest to see who can by stretching the neck out and letting the air out can make it whistle the loudest.
5. Balloon battle where you hit each other with them.
6. Rub the balloon and make your hair stand up and see what other objects you can pick up.Good old static at work here.
7. Make it stick to the wall.
8. Fill just a little bit with water and you have an really stretchy tough bouncy ball, you can also squish it.We threw it to the ground, against the house, rode a bike over it.
9. Play hot potato with the balloon with a little bit of water.
10. Does the balloon with water float or sink?
11. What happens if you poke a balloon filled with water with a needle vs one filled with air? The one with water just leaks out vs the big pop!
12. Play angry bids with same balloons with water.Not water balloons they are too thin! We are trying this on Monday.
13. Use as decoration.This one has a list all its own
14.  Fill it full of paper with noted on it, for a treasure hunt or to review words.They have to say the word when they pop it. I do not like this one!
15. If it is filled with helium you can let it go outside and watch it until it disappears.