Price Scavenger Hunt

This unit for Preschool was Money and a review of numbers. I get to plan the outing and we are going to go to Target and the kids are going to help find the prices of the 9 objects above. I made little binoculars out of toliet paper rolls that the kids can use to spy the objects. The moms will show them where the price tag is and the kids get to read it off so the moms can write it down. When they complete their task we are going to meet back at the Target food court and they will earn $1.10 if they complete their task. Then they get to pick something out of the dollar bins to buy with their money they just earned. (Our sales tax is 10%.)

Lets Learn About Fire Safety!

So I was in charge of preschool yesterday and I think it went well. My topic was fire safety. First I had a candle burning and I showed them (from a safe distance) what fire looks like. Then I blew it out and showed them what smoke looked and smelled like. Then I talked about how they should neve touch it because it is hot and can hurt/burn skin, clothing, hair, rugs, etc.

Then I showed them pictures of matches and lighters and I taught them this song:

"I found Matches!" (Sung to "Skip to my Lou")

I found [matches] what do I do?

I found [matches] what do I do?

I found [matches] what do I do?

Tell me what to do!

* replace matches with lighter for 2nd verse

At the end of the song I would say: Dont touch it and tell a grown-up

Then I had four pictures (a matchbox, matchbook, and two kinds of lighters). I placed them around the room and then the kids got up one at a time to see if they could find matches or a lighter and then they were supposed to show me what to do. When they found the picture we would sing the song replacing "I" with their name. They enjoyed it and it was really hard for them to not pick up the picture to bring it to me.

My sister found a cute idea for teaching stop drop and roll. I made felt flames and one at a time I stuck them on their clothing and we sang:

Stop, Drop, and Roll (Sung to "Farmer in the Dell")

Stop, Drop, and Roll

Stop, Drop, and Roll

If your clothes should catch on fire

Stop, Drop, and Roll

The kids practiced stopping, dropping and rolling and thought it was pretty fun.

Then I talked to them about smoke detectors and pushed the test button to make it make noise so they could hear what it sounds like. (At least I tried to.)

My sister is a fire fighter and she said that one of the most important things for kids to know is what a fire fighter looks like in all his gear and that he is a friend and they should never hide from them. Apparently kids tend to get frightened and hide, which makes it difficult for fire fighters to get them out in time. She found a video online that I showed my class (start video at 7min 29sec). They thought it was pretty cool.

Other than that we colored pictures for stop drop and roll, and a thank you for firemen, then did the nursery rhyme "Jack Be Nimble".

Homework was for the kids to take a hand out home and then talk with their family about the five steps to fire safety.

Water & Weather

So I started a preschool co-op with a few friends so that we can challenge our older kids and have some time to run errands or play with our younger kids. Our first week was this past Monday and I was in charge of doing it. The unit for this month is water and I was supposed to cover water in the weather. I also was supposed to spotlight the letter M and the number 3.

It looks like there is a learning curve for me when it comes to teaching 4 kids all 2-3 years of age. I spent way too much time having them sit and listen to me at "circle time". I thought I had enough variety and fun things to keep their attention, but sadly I did not.

The following are things that they enjoyed:

Picking a song to sing out of the jar (I asked the ones who were sitting quietly).

Listening to the story of 3 little pigs while I put the houses and characters up on a felt board. (I found a cute sight where you print off the characters onto cardstock and then glue felt on the back. You can check it out here.)

Coming up one by one to trace the letter M with their finger.

Talking about weather and dressing Walter the Weather Bear. (I tried to make a bear and clothing out of felt. I used glue when making the clothing, but I think I will redo it and use markers and or sew the clothing to make it look a little nicer.)

Sprinkling water on their heads from a watering can and telling them that the cloud was getting heavy with water and so it was raining.

Throwing paper scrunched into balls around because I said it was raining meatballs (they couldn't really focus when I tried to start reading 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' so that ended up being really random.)

Making Mud out of flour and water and squishing it all over the kitchen table.

Eating mud cups.(chocolate pudding, oreo cumbs, and gummy worms)

I have been suprised at some of the things Tanner picked up. I think it helped that I also checked out books from the library that talked about weather and the water cycle. So that might have helped him learn more too. Also I had printed out the date in large letters and used masking tape to stick them on the wall. Today he was pointing to each piece of paper and asking what it said. Now if I ask him what the month is he points to the paper that says January and he will say "January". You could also talk about Noah and the Ark and I found a site with fun weather experiments (see the side column) but they seem like they are for older kids.

Unrelated to weather; if you see him ask him who the president is. It is pretty cute the way he pronounces Barack Obama.