E preschool ideas

We sat down with some books and looked for things that started with the letter E.  Then we made a list of them.  Here is a rundown of some of the words we found:

• elephant
• eagle
• egg
• earring
• envelope
• eel
• electricity
• easter
• elmo

We read: Where's Elmo? A peek-a-boo book, Easy Street, The dumb Bunnies' Easter, and The best mistake ever!  We took a walk after reading Easy Street, to the construction area, and looked at how they make a road.  We talked about sequencing by discussing how the men first smooth dirt, second they smooth gravel, third they smooth the asphalt, and fourth they paint the lines. 
With The best mistake Ever!, we discussed what foods are healthy and which ones are junk food. 

 We did two crafts with construction paper.  We made an Elmo with red, white, and orange construction paper, and a hand print elephant with ink and a black marker.  First we pushed my daughter's hand into an ink pad until all her fingers were covered and then we pushed her hand, palm down onto the construction paper.  The trunk is made from her thumb, while the legs come from her fingers. 


Then we practiced writing big letter E.  First I wrote the letter with a highlighter and my daughter traced over it.

Dinasour Preschool Activities

Since we are focusing on the letter "D" this week, we had to discuss dinosaurs.  Almost every preschool child I know loves dinosaurs.

1. We put together a giant floor puzzle.

 

  2.  We read a couple books, My first Dinosaur touch and Feel and Dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles. The book on the right belonged to my husband when he was a little boy and we enjoy looking at all the pictures he drew inside.

 

3. We even wrote our own story fashioned after the stories written by Laura Numeroff.  She has written several books, one we recently checked out at the library was, If you give a Pig a Party.  This is a great activity for teaching sequencing.   

Our Story:

If you give a dinosaur a Danish

If you give a dinasour a danish...

he will want a glass of milk to go with it.  When you bring him into the kitchen and get him the milk,

he will dip the danish in the milk and gobble it up.

 

But, he will accidentally spill the milk because his arms are so tiny. 

Then he will ask you for a napkin.  When he see's the napkin he will remember that he also needs to clean up in dinosaur-ville.  He will go back to dinosaur-ville and help all the dinosaurs clean up.

 

Try making your own stories up.  It can be a lot of fun.

4.  We also made patterns using the Melissa and Doug dinosaur stamps. For example, blue triceratops, red spike tail, blue triceratops, red spike tail.  What comes next?

The BABIES are here!

We are so excited to announce the arrival of our baby swallows. In my previous post I called them sparrows. The adults are a blue/green color on their backs and a white color on their breast. The mom and dad have been swooping around in the evenings eating the bugs. I hope they get all the mosquitoes. I have already felt them swarming my head and arms in the garden when I am trying to weed. I know I really wanted blue birds to nest here but I am enjoying the swallows and am glad that they don't mind me taking pictures of the brood.

Everyday Beauty #18

A clutch of eggs. Count them. 1,2,3,4,5. I can't wait to take a picture of what is inside.

Nesting

My daughter made a bluebird house in her 4-H class. We hung it near an open field away from trees. We hoped a lovely bluebird couple would move in and enjoy it, but the sparrows seem to have signed the mortgage papers first. It has a lid with hinges so that at the end of the season we can remove the nest and hopefully a bluebird will come in. I looked inside last week and saw nothing. Two days later my daughter looked in and saw an egg!

All the little birdies

Here are the hummingbirds in the evening. They are all getting a drink before they head off to bed.

Kee Kee

For my everyday beauty shot this week I followed the cat around like the paparazzi follows a movie star. She was full of spunk and zest and tried to pounce on every moving blade of grass. Here she is in crouch mode...

Deviled Eggs

Fresh eggs from the farm + boiling water = deviled eggs! Delicious, divine, delectable.

Dog in the Fog

When I walk to the post office I am often joined by the neighborhood dogs. It reminds me of an episode of Fetch with Ruff Ruffman when he send Harsha to New Mexico to learn about Pow Wows. She gets to the reservation and sees lots of dogs running around. Watch at minute 7:43. Sunday I took a walk and ended up with five dogs joining me but my record is eight. I look like the pied piper of dogs whenever I go anywhere.