Preschool Lesson Plans: Bugs!!!! Day 2

Today we continued our theme of bugs. Today the subject was ladybugs.

First, we made paper plate ladybug. She painted a paper plate with red paint. we let it dry a bit, then cut it in half and attached it to a black circle. We also glued on a head, eyes, and legs.

And then we made a book (we only did the first half, she lost interest. We will continue it tomorrow.) it is a lady bug count and graph book. I found it here.

We then worked on letter recognition with the foam letters.

Preschool Lesson Plans: Bugs!!!!

Kids either love bugs or hate them. My girl was afraid of them until we started gardening. We let her know how bugs can help her grow her plants and protect them from bad bugs.

So this week we are talking about different kinds of bugs. Today we started with ants. As you can see, I have some plastic bugs I got in a kit from Target for under $10. It includes the bugs, a bug jar, magnifier and tweezers.

First we did journal time. She liked the lady bug so she decided to draw one in her journal.
I may be biased, but I think she's pretty good for three years old.

we then talked about the parts of an ant- head thorax, and abdomen. I printed out a sheet to help get that concept across- I found it here. For art we made an ant hill. I cut it out, gave her a stamp pad, and a pencil eraser. We made a head, thorax, and abdomen with the pencil eraser. I helped by drawing legs and antenna. I read that idea from Perpetual Preschool.

We then did our hooked on phonics we went over G and H. She's been gone so long we have lost a lot of ground.
We finished by playing a bible matching game. Basically we went over important people from the bible. I am going to start introducing some religious concepts into our school time. It is my job to bring up our kids in the path of God.

Preschool Lesson Plans: Earth Day Theme Continued

Today we did a few things. We talked about the water cycle more and did an activity to illustrate it.
First we took a cotton ball, representing the dry cloud. We talked about how it was fluffy and dry.
But when the cotton ball was subjected to water (or a cloud filled with water through evaporation), it became heavy and wet(condensation).


When it gets full ,the water in the cotton ball (cloud) begins to fall in the form of rain.
Isn't it a great visual teaching technique??? Awesome!

The the artist also known as Emily had to do an art project. So I cut up some grass strips and some rain drops, and gave her some cotton balls. She glued the grass on, then the clouds and then the rain drops. she could explain how the clouds would fill, rain down on the grass, it would grow, but the water would go back to the clouds and repeat the cycle. i did this just to reinforce the water cycle.
We finished up by simply playing with play dough. She wanted me to make stuff for her, so I made letters and she would tell me what it was and the sound it made.
But the play dough was kind of hard, so tomorrow- we make play dough!

Preschool Lesson Plans: Flowers!

Today we talked about flowers, but first, we did a cooking activity.

We put butter on tortillas and sprinkled with cinnamon. I put it in the oven and out came a yummy snack, but we had it for breakfast:). Monk enjoyed eating her creation!
On to flowers! We made flowers out of coffee filters. First we colored them with markers. We then to a spray bottle with water in it and sprayed them. This blends the colors for a watercolor effect.

Here came the hard part- WAITING!!! We had to let the coffee filters dry. So while we waited, we talked about the parts of a plant. We looked at a picture out of our Berry Best Gardening Book. It showed the parts of a plant-the flower, the bud, the stem, the leaves, and the roots. We talked about the different parts and their jobs.

And finally, The filters were dry. Yipppieee! We first folded the filter in half then into quarters and so on until it is a small triangle. We attached the pipe cleaner stems to the the small point and wrapped it around. When it was secure we fluffed the flower out. And you have a flower!

Preschool Lesson Plans: Spring!!

Today begins our adventure into spring. As I said before we began with plants/gardening. Above is a picture of Monkey Girl singing the "Days of the Week" song.
We covered the letter F(for flower). She colored a page for that. She did "write" in her journal.
We also read the book, "Growing Vegetable Soup"We then went outside to see what we need to do to prep the garden. As you can see, We have a bunch to do!

We also picked dandelions and shamrocks and made plant art. We put the picked plants on white paper and used the hammer to smash them to make imprints. It's the process not product.




As you can see, Monkey was very proud of her work!What did we learn from today's fun?

• We developed a further relationship with the world around us. It is such a big concept but so important.
• We worked on pre-reading and pre-writing. Learning to read and write begins here. You must learn to recognise the letters and the sounds they make before anything.
• We learned patience. She sat and listened to the story while anxiously waiting to go outside!!
• We learned about photosynthesis. How leaves use the sun to make food for the plants, and when we smashed the shamrocks we saw the green evidence of that.
• We developed our sense of accomplishment. Just see the last picture. She is so proud. Developing that sense of self is what preschool is for any way.
  

Art in Preschool Lesson Plans

I remember in kindergarten gluing a thousand cotton balls on a paper cutout of a bunny for Easter. That activity, although I enjoyed it, wasn't very creative.

I think art lessons in preschool lesson plans shouldn't be something that the teacher does and then the kid colors it. I know why teachers do this. They want a nice finished product for parents. They know that their child didn't do that complex cut and paste job. So why don't we, as teachers focus on the process, and not the product. And teach parents the same concept- that it's the actual act of making art, not the final product, that matters.

We can work it in our themes. An example would be having paper cut into butterfly shapes and have them paint with watercolors. Stamp painting with kitchen implements, car painting, or sculpting with clay would be other suggestions. They are still the creators.

I think if we can teach our children to be creative thinkers, to think outside the box, then they will be better at so many things when they grow into adulthood.