Body Rhyme

This rhyme helps children act out rhyming in a fun way.  Stand up in your group area. Do the body rhyme. The children will want to do this over and over.

Say go now touch your toe
Say neat now touch your feet
Say real now touch your heel
Say laugh now touch your calf
Say bee now touch your knee
Say high now touch your thigh
Say paste now touch your waist
Say yummy now touch your tummy
Say best now touch your chest
Say colder now touch your shoulder
Say twist now touch your wrist
Say sand now touch your hand
Say crumb now touch your thumb
Say check now touch your neck
Say pin now touch your chin
Say chair now touch your hair

When doing this rhyme with the children make sure you give them a chance to say the body part that rhymes before you finish the sentence.

Fall Fun Ideas

For safety of the children ask parents before

beginning this unit about Nut allergies.

Nut Roll Painting

Nut Painting Get a supply of wide but shallow cardboard boxes.  Have the children lay a sheet of construction paper inside of the box and place paint covered nuts on the paper.  Have the children move the box back and forth allowing the nuts to roll around on the paper.  Children can dip the nuts in paint again until they get the design they wish on the paper. Hang to dry.

Fall leaf Print Quilt Board

Fall Leaf Prints

Leaf Prints  Have the children paint leaves with different fall colors.  Once the leaf is covered in paint have them flip that leaf over onto white construction paper.  Next have them lay a second sheet on top and then have them rub the top of the paper with their hands.  Once they are done rubbing have them lift the top sheet of paper off and then the leaf.  Let dry.  Hand on a board close together and it will look like a fall quilt on your wall.

Fall 3-D Art Tress

Make Your Own Tree Let the children create their own tree out of toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, craft sticks, construction paper, brown paper bags, masking tape, real sticks, pipe cleaners, and any other items you can think of to use for a tree.  Give children a supply of glue, cardboard squares and tape.  Allow the children to crate a tree as they see a tree.  Remember that art is the process not the product.

Paper Plate Fall Color Collage

Nature Collage Place the contents of the brown lunch bags from the children’s walk in the center of a table.  Have a supply of construction paper, paper plates, shoe boxes, shoe box lids and cardboard so the children can chose what they want to use.  Give each child glue and scissors and have them create their own nature collage.

Leave a link that shows all your Fall Fun ideas and lets plan together.

Letter Knowledge

Letter Hunt

• Children choose any 10 letters from the letter manipulatives.
• Teacher shuffles a stack of letter cards. Teacher calls out letter to the children.
• Children look to see if they have that letter, and if they do, the letter is put back in the letter tub.
• Keep playing until everyone has cleared all of their letters.


Variation: To teach letter sounds: Call out a word and have children identify the first letter of the word and see if they have that letter. Placing that letter into the tub until all letters are gone.

Letter Matching Puzzles

Letter Clips

To make these, cut a square or circle from poster board and write or use letter stickers for each letter of the alphabet around the square. Write each letter on a clothespin. Children match and clip the letter clips to the letter of the mat. These can be used to match uppercase to uppercase letters, lowercase to lowercase letters, or uppercase to lowercase letters.


*To teach letter sounds: Place stickers or clipart around the square and have the children match letter clips to the picture that have the matching beginning sounds.


Alphabet Fishing

Children take turns fishing for letters. Children identify the letter that they caught, and then find the object that begins with that letter.

Alphabet Bingo

Letter and Word Learning Center

Three Billy Goats Gruff

After the children have heard the story Three Billy Goats Gruff do a story theater with the children.  Have three children as the goats and one child as the troll.  Teacher is the narrator.  Reread the story and as teacher is reading the story children are participating in acting it out.

(Wooden rocker turned upside down for the bridge)

For a small group project we sat out craft sticks and had the children recall the story by using the craft stick and markers.

To enhance the learning experience about the three billy goats we added items to other areas in the classroom so that the children would have opportunities to retell the story while at play in the learning centers.

We included prop items in the block area along with the book.

Puppets and book and in the puppet theater.

Word cards in the writing center so that they would have the opportunity to write their own billy goat story.

Children created their own goats using paper tubs, yard, pipe cleaners and scrap paper.

Check out Billy Goat Block Play in preschool  by: Deborah

 

Packed with Apple Ideas

Apple Carton Easel Paintings

Go to your local grocery story and ask them to save the apple dividers that they get in all those apple boxes. They make great canvasses for your paint easel.

Weighing Apples

Get out balancing scales and baskets of apples. Allow the children to weigh the apples trying to balance them. Have children find an object. Then have them see how many apples it will take to make the scales balance again. Paint a batch of walnuts red, yellow and green. Have the children place one apple on one side of the scale and the painted walnuts on the other, how many walnuts does it take to balance the scale.

Farmers Market Prop Box

Turn your dramatic play area into a farmers market.

Farmer Market  (ideas for the market)

Baskets
Plastic Fruits
Bags
Scale
Register
Play Money
Labels
Overalls
Pail
Straw

Paper Tube Apple Trees

We placed these child made trees in the block play area.

Apple ABC Letter Match

Letter Recognition Apple Match Cut out a supply of apple shapes from construction paper. Write a capital letter on the top of the apple shape and a lower case letter on the bottom of the apple. After laminating the apples cut them in half different ways. Have the children match the capital letter to the lower case letter, putting the apple back together.

Story Telling Apron

I finally found my story telling apron for the Little Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly (it has been missing in action since I did a workshop at CAEYC). This year I have a lot of English Language learners and when it comes to story telling for them it is really important to have props to go with the story so that they have a better understanding of the story. So since I found this story telling apron I used it today to retell the story and they loved it. It was the first time this year that I was able to keep the interest of all the children and for them all to have an understanding of the story as well as all the vocabulary.

How to make the apron

I took an old apron that I had and sewed a pink patch right where the stomach would be. Next I cut a clear plastic table cloth about two inches bigger than the pink patch and sewed it on top of the pink area making a large pocket pouch on the apron.

Once I had my apron I found small stuffed animals for all the animal parts, a old lady hat and a pair of reading glasses.

How do you use the apron to tell the story

First thing I do is put on my hat and glasses in front of the children. I then place all the animals on the floor and ask them if they know what story I’m going to be telling. When they guess I start to tell the story. As I go I see if the children can recall the story by tell me which animal is next and have that child find the animal and I then pretend to eat it by placing each animal in the pouch of the apron. They can observe the stomach getting bigger and bigger. With the spider I place a string on it so that I can wiggle it inside. The children will chant the story as we go.

Watch out they will have you tell this story over and over. They love it!

Rainbow Fish

We made our rainbow fish out of paper lunch bags. The children stuffed their bags with news paper and rubber banded the end. Next they chose what color they wanted to paint the body of the fish. Once the paint dried the children placed the scales, eyes, and fins made out of cofee filters and other emblishments that they wanted to add.