Talking with our friends

This week we learned about ways that we talk to our friends.

One of the ways we talk to our friends is by talking on the phone. Here’s Miss M decorating her little phone book pages. We also got a cardboard piece and a paper keypad to make a little pretend phone with.

*Dialing a number*

Hello?!

It’s someone for you, mom!

We also learned about sound waves. I got out a scarf and held one end and Miss M held the other. We shook the scarf and made waves. It was kinda hard to take pics of this so I snapped a pic of the actual activity in our Little Goose teacher guide.

We learned about mailing a letter.

We were given a storytelling set to go along with the storybook we received on day 5 called “A Big Problem.” I would show Miss M a story piece and then hide it in one of three envelopes and then ask her “where did it go?”

When she’d find it, we would look in the book and find a similar picture and we would talk about what happened on that page and try to put it where it went on the background picture.

We learned that we can talk with our friends using computers.

I helped Miss M put together our little computer and attached the mouse cutout with a piece of yarn. She loved this but kept trying to take it apart. We sat down and I’d try to demonstrate how to tap three times then put my hands in my lap.

She tried copying me a few times but then got frustrated and wanted to play with it her way.

We also learned about good listening this week.

First we played listen and copy. Miss M had a blast with this activity. She didn’t copy me perfectly but she still did a pretty good job :)

We also took turns making sounds. I got out a few pots and let her play with them on her own. Then we took turns making pounding patterns on the pots. I’d hit it once and then she’d copy. And then I’d hit it twice and raise my arms and then Miss M would do the same. This was a lot of fun.

Here are some of the books we got to read this week.

Miss M really liked the book about the crayons.  

Getting Organized/Room Set Up

I wanted to do a post about how we get organized with our Mother Goose Time curriculum and our room set up.

We don’t have a ton of room since we live in an apartment, but I’ve tried to organize everything as best as I can for now.

Here’s my bookcase where I store most of our curriculum stuffs for now. I’m still in the process of getting better organized but this works for now :)

At the very top, I usually have our Mother Goose Time curriculum box (didn’t have it sitting up there when I took this pic) as well as a small plastic tub that I keep our manipulatives and other things we’ve accumulated that we like to use over and over again.

On the first shelf, I keep our CD player there when we’re not using it as well as some other misc school stuffs like a bag of blocks, monthly circle time CD’s, etc.

On the second shelf I keep any storybooks we’ve received, the Dance ‘N Beats workbooks, and some binders I’ve put together with our school stuff. I slip the monthly newsletter in the front pocket of the binder on the side with the theme web side showing so I can see which month the binder is for.

 

Here’s the inside of this month’s binder. I put any of our little workbooks or name tags or anything else that we will probably use again in the pockets. Then I used page protectors to put each of the daily posters inside and behind them, I like to put something that we made from the day that isn’t too bulky.

We do most of our preschool time in our living room. It’s not huge, but it is big enough and works for us.

Next to our fireplace/tv is where we keep most of our toys, books, and other things out of the way.

Here’s our circle time display board. I ordered this tri-fold foam board from Amazon and it works wonderfully for us.

These are some pics I took when I was setting it up for the month but I have since ordered a laminator and have laminated some pieces that needed a bit more reinforcement from Miss M’s wrath. She still wants to rip everything up.

That’s pretty much it. It’s not the greatest, but it works for us for now. I’ll have to do a new post when I get everything a little bit more organized!

Keys to Friendship

Wow has it ever been a crazy past couple of weeks! One thing after another kept happening but we tried to stay on track with school. My computer crashed and it took forever to get fixed (and a lot of $) so here’s what we’ve been doing! :)

This week we learned all about the keys to friendship and what we can do to be better friends.

At the beginning of the week, we learned about including everyone and sharing. Sharing was a pretty difficult to understand for Miss M especially since she’s only 2 and a half. I’ve been working with her on this concept but it’s taking her some time. She’s getting better with it.

We learned about the letter P. She loves the hands-on letters and phonic photos and letter flags.

We learned about caring for someone who is feeling sad, scared, or hurt.

Miss M got to make this really cute get well card and she had lots of fun making it. She loves the little googly eyes and kept trying to take them off. One of our really close family friends just found out he has lung cancer so we gave it to him. We’re going to have to make some more of these because some of our family members have gone to the hospital within the past week due to serious illnesses too unfortunately :(

We learned about saying sorry and apologizing to others.

With this lesson, we learned that accidents happen. I sat down and helped Miss M make a tower of blocks and then when they’d knock over we would say “Uh oh! Sorry!” I also looked for other opportunities throughout the day to respond to mistakes with the same phrase and Miss M would say it back.

“Uh oh! Sorry!”

She even put some of her blocks away in their bag all by herself without being asked! :)

We also learned about working together. Miss M’s favorite activity for this one was using these neat little stamps that came with the curriculum.

We played a game where I stamped one heart on the back of each of her hands and then I counted “One heart, two hearts”. She would count “one two.” Then I grabbed a piece of paper and had her explore stamping. She had a blast with these. She got very upset when I tried to take them away to do our next activity (as you can see with the little tear under her eye), so I just let her play with them until she was done. She kept wanting to stamp her hands like me over and over.

Miss M also had lots of fun making patterns with our tangrams we received this month and the pattern cards.

 

Here are some of the books we got to read this week. Miss M loved the Duck and Goose one. It was very cute and talked about feelings.