Since we started our co-op preschool a bit late in the year, we decided to double-up on some of the letters to be able to get through the whole alphabet. So in my first time teaching Reeve's class, I was able to teach letters E and F.
The day began with each child finding their name on the door as they entered on an E-word (an elephant) and an F-word (no... not
that F-word... a fox! This is a preschool audience and a G-rated blog!)
We started off with a welcome activity of decorating a fish by gluing on
scraps of colorful paper as scales. They really did a great job with
this. (I probably should've used smaller paper scraps so you could see
the image of the fish better when it was done, instead of its getting
covered by the paper, but I was worried both about this activity taking
forever and little fingers being able to handle and glue smaller pieces.
But I think they got the idea and they had fun!)
During circle time we sang the welcome song, went over the calendar
(noting that "February"... yes, February, I'm majorly behind on blogging... starts with the letter F!), noted the weather,
and sang the alphabet song. Next I introduced the letters E and F,
showing them both the upper- and lowercase letters and helping them make
the sounds of the letters. We then shared the items they each brought. For E we had an envelope, an egg, and two elephants. For F
we had a frying pan, a fork, a fish, and a fairy.
I then brought in a bunch of items, and we sorted them by whether they
started with E or F. The E items were an elephant, envelope, easter
egg, elf, earrings, eraser, and Elmo. The F items were a flag, frog,
farm, fire fighter, fan, flower, and fish.
Finally, the girls used their bodies to make the letter E, and then changed it into a letter F.
Next we moved to concentrating on the letter E. I brought out a picture of the Earth, and then we looked at a large wall map.
We then became Earth Explorers, pretending to each get in an airplane
and fly around the house to various countries that start
with E, pointing out its place on the map each time. We "visited" Ecuador, Egypt, England, and Ethiopia by looking at each
country's flag and talking about one or two things we might find in the
country. (I apologize for any ignorance on my behalf about the featured countries. I am not by any means an expert or even very knowledgeable about these countries, and my intent was to introduce some fun, basic ideas to preschoolers, not to offend anyone!)
In Ecuador we talked about their love of soccer.
In England I showed them pictures from my trip to London, including Big Ben and an iconic red telephone booth.
In Ethiopia we looked at a picture of injira, a traditional Ethiopian meal. (Unfortunately, the night before preschool my color printer went kaput, and I don't think this meal looked to appetizing in black and white!)
In Egypt we looked at pictures from my travels in the area with a college study abroad program, focusing on the very recognizable Sphinx and Pyramids.
After our exploring of the earth, we talked about how we need to take
care of the earth, and discussed trash vs recycling. I brought out a
few items to sort, and they decided to recycle the plastic spoons, metal
can, paper towel, and plastic bag but throw away the banana peel.
For our final E activity, we watched a
short clip of an Elephant
using his trunk to paint on an easel. After that, they all took turns
painting on an easel like the elephant. They really enjoyed this!
Next we moved onto the letter F. I talked about how the word flute
begins with the letter F, and I played them a little song on my flute.
Then we talked about how the word fish starts with F, and we played a
game of "fish freeze." I put on the song "Under the Sea" from The
Little Mermaid, and they all pretended to swim around the living room,
but would stop when I shouted out "freeze!" They were very cute at
this!
Next I read them a book "Fox Makes Friends" about a little fox whose mom
says he needs to "make" some friends, but he misunderstands and tries
to make them out of sticks and other objects... but makes real friends
as various other animals join in the fun of trying to build the friends.
They were starting to get hungry, so I sent them off for a bit of free
play time while I prepared the snack. We had fish (goldfish crackers)
swimming in a pond of water (cream cheese with a bit of blue food
coloring) and fruit (apple and banana slices.) I thought about "e"
snacks, but my older daughter is allergic to eggs and I didn't think
they were too likely to eat eggplant, so I stuck with the "f" foods!
While they were eating I read them the book Farm Flu, which is
about a boy who takes care of all the farm animals who keep getting sick
by doing the things his mom does when he gets sick, such as tucking
them into his bed, making them soup and hot chocolate, etc. I then read
a quick book called Ed likes Eggs, which is really just a short phonics
book about a kid who likes to eat eggs and all the places he likes to
eat them.
When they were done eating, they each colored a picture of their family
(or a family member) on a piece of paper, and then decorated a frame to
put it in. (This is Reeve's masterpiece, which she lovingly entitled, "Mom at the Beach.")
The girls were so attentive and sweet, and got along really well together. Another great day of preschool!
