Rain Forest

Books:
Magic Tree House Research Guide: Rain Forests By Will & Mary Pope Osborne (we love the Magic Tree House chapter books and research guides.)
Learning About The Earth: Rain Forests 0531147320
Jungle 0756606942
Who Eats Who in the Rain Forest? 9781583409619 (this book was a big hit)
Life in a Rain Forest 0516253158
Revealed Rain Forest 0756605385


Activities:
Cheesy Feet ( which has nothing whatsoever to do with rain forests, but was SO fun!)

Coloring Pages (here and here)


Movies:
Madacasgar 2 (oh so informative and educational...=])

Rain & Water

Books:
Watching the Weather Rain 1403455775
Water Cycle 1600441823
Why Does It Rain? 157505762
Rain 1595661859

Dewey Decimal 551.577 (rain) and 551.48 (water cycle)

Watched...
Squibs by Ignite Learning In the Clouds: Air, Weather, & Water

Activities:
Read site and did coloring at KidZone

Also did activity at KidZone...Freeze cardboard. One hour later boil water. As water evaporates point out evaporation, hold frozen cardboard over pot. Water will condense, point out condensation. As water collects will then fall back in pot...precipitation.

Rain, Rain, Rain

This week preschool is about rain and the water cycle.

Due to my husband being in the hospital for lung surgery the post will have to wait until next week. Check back then.

Thanks!

Bugs!

Books:
Bugs by Shane F McEvey 0791065952
Bugs Up Close by Diane Swanson 1554531381
The World's Most Dangerous Bugs by Nick Healy 0736854568 (Freaky!)
Fireflies by Nicole Helget 9781583415429
Insectigations by Cindy Blobaum (activity book)

Watched Cicadas on youtube...
Cicada Call
Buzzing Cicada

Activities:
Pulled all the insects and insect eating animals from memory and played.

Caterpillar craft.

Leapfrog BUGS!
1593191618
At our library you can check leap pads & books.

This was such a fun activity. We have been talking, thinking, exploring bugs all day. Enjoy!

Fruits & Vegetables

Sight Words: fruit, vegetable, apple, banana, broccoli, corn
Word Lesson: Bb for banana, broccoli, bean, brussel sprouts


Books:
Any Johnny Appleseed book
Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert
Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert
Vegetables ISBN 9781404242654
From Seed to Plant ISBN 0516216821
Potatoes ISBN 1560654511
Taking Root ISBN 0516215914
Vegetables ISBN 1432901427
Fruits ISBN 1432901435
The Fruit Group ISBN 0736853707


Individual food groups are 641.36 at the library


Activities:
Fruit/Vegie Diary
Identify food groups review
Potato Stamps (cut potato in half, cut out shape of choice. stamp paper.)
Where Food Grows


Song:
# Sing the Happy Food Song and insert the name of one of the Food Models at the appropriate spot. Have the child with the Food Model hold it up for all to see. Have the rest of the group sing and perform the activity. For example:
If there's fruit and you know it, stomp your feet,
If there's fruit and you know it, stomp you feet,
If you're fruit and you know it, hold your food card up and show us,
If there's fruit and you know it, stomp you feet.
# Substitute "jump up and down," "touch your toes," "nod your head," and other activities that use large motor skills for "stomp your feet." Feel free to improvise with other actions and gestures.


Snack: applesauce and carrot sticks

In addition to all the wonderful books we read and great activities we also made applesauce this week and tried a new recipe with eggplant. Both fun and yummy fruit and vegetable learning activities.


We spent both days this week on these various activities, books, and lessons. I had planned to take my son with a small group of friends to a local grocery store for a tour, but was unable to find a place here that does one. If you live in Texas you're fortunate because HEB has a wonderful tour they do that we participated in last year. It was a blast. Call around to your local stores and see if any place does one.

Dairy Treat Day

Sight Words: milk, dairy, cow, cheese, yogurt, ice cream
Word Lesson: Cc (cow starts with C) discussed other words that start with C, practiced writing C

Books:
Milk ISBN 0836840674
Food Groups Milk ISBN 1432901451
Cheese ISBN 0791070050
Miss Moo Goes to the Zoo

Individual food groups are 641.36 at the library

Activities:
Cow/Dairy Finger Puppets
Dairy Basket

Song:
Dairy Treat Day

Snack: cheese, pudding, yogurt, ice cream
We tasted a little of each item and talked about the color, texture, taste, and smell.

Dairy was a lot of fun and we had a blast redoing the puppet show for Dad tonight. My son wanted to do it over and over during our lesson.


The basket was fun because he was able to do some of the cutting and practice using scissors. And the song was a hit! We sang it over and over throughout the day...I may be dreaming it tonight. We also talked about where milk comes from and what other products it makes. The books were good discussion points for these ideas and were very informative. Maybe a little too informative about cow's digestive habits...

Our letter lesson went well and I think we will stick with letters for each day because it works best for us and gives my son a chance to practice writing. He can recognize all the letters and knows all their sounds, so this was good to talk about words that start with Cc and work on writing letters.

The cheese book was very interesting even at an adult level. This afternoon we went to the grocery store and looked at all the different types of cheese available. We felt whether they were soft or hard and looked at different colors. Good reinforcement activity.

Grain: Seeds, Wheat, Flour, Bread

Sight Words: grain, wheat, seed, flour, energy
Word Lesson: (totally unrelated) 'at' words...fat, sat, bat, cat, mat, etc

Books:
Food Groups Grains ISBN 1432901419
Pasta ISBN 0936840690

Individual food groups are 641.36 at the library

Activities:
Grain coloring page
Making pasta necklaces
Oatmeal play dough (1 part flour, 1 part water, 2 parts oatmeal)
Sequences (seed, wheat, flour, bread)

Snack: Corn Muffins

We used ideas from this site and really liked the this page. We just discussed grains and where they come from. Grandparents have a huge wheat farm which we just visited, so we were able to recall the wheat fields and discarded wheat stalks left in fields.

We read our book about grain and making pasta. We lined up our 'wheat' items to talk about sequences and what comes next. Did our coloring sheet and mixed up/put our muffins in the oven.


Made pasta necklaces, made/played with oatmeal play dough. Ate our yummy muffins. Fun preschool. Took two hours.