Shapes/ Homes

This week we reviewed our basic shapes, zeroed in on the letter Hh, and talked about our homes. We have begun counting with the teen numbers, as our calendar progresses through the month. We often get a quick count to 20 in when we are counting down a clean up count for the rug group (which always seems to have the biggest mess to deal with at centers). That transition from the very familiar 1-10 to 11, 12, 13 is tricky for many of the kids, so repetition, repetition, repetition! As our leader points to the calendar numbers, we are working on saying the number we point at, not just racing along. The structure of the calendar also mirrors the structure of books- we count along through the week left to right, then go back to the left at the beginning of the next row. We do the same with our "Who's Here?" name card chart. Kids with early emerging reading skills usually want to just hop down to the nearest number (or name) right below the last one in each row. Learning to track correctly from left to right is one of the many tiny skills to master on the road to reading, and we are on our way!

a few of our circle time books

identifying basic shapes

A paintbrush is hiding under one of the cans of paint- who can guess where it is?

Read, Build, Write the letter Hh center

Stamping circles with different sized objects: 

morning table job: cutting out silly face shapes

After finishing the morning cutting job, we could switch to table toys. View masters were an "old school" hit! If there are any fellow garage salers out there, I am always looking to add new hard to find reels to our collection.

 Shape Houses! We had a huge selection of shapes to choose from when designing our homes. 

Welcome to our neighborhood! 

You can check out all our unique houses and read what we had to 

say about them on our hall bulletin board.

Shape match warm up: 

sometimes you have to turn the blocks around or stand them on edge to find a match!

After making some easy block matches, it was time to get tricky. Finding the shapes hidden in common objects can be a challenge!

 

Name practice! This week we started using some laminated cards with name practice on one side, and our photos on the other. After practicing our name 3 times, we had silly fun using the dry erase markers to make funny faces.

 

House hunt! We looked through magazines to find and cut out things that go inside and outside of our house. We showed good thinking/ conversation skills talking about things that can be both, such as people, pets, toys, etc.

 We took those circle prints, and added some beautiful paint! We snuck in some fine motor control practice as we tried very hard to avoid crossing the black line on our circles.

 

Looking ahead: next week is all about APPLES as we head into Fall. If you can, please send in a couple red, green or yellow apples on Monday or Tuesday to help us with all our apple fun during the week!