Literacy Connection Activity

Okay... Okay.. you know how much I like my Funshine Express Monthly Curriculum kit. (If you don't know... I like it a lot!)

This is my last month of preschool.
I opened my box... fully expecting to see the monthly regulars.
(My numbers and letters for the month, my calendar pieces, an adorable book about the theme.)

I opened my Curriculum guide book... expecting to see familiar activities too. (Not exact same activities familiar ideas with a twist that will fit this months theme... I mean, who would blame them? It's hard to be creative 12 months out of the year, providing unique/creative ideas 5 days a week... )

I browsed through the plans this month... and fell in love with Funshine Express all over again!
I loved one of the ideas they had planned later this month- that we did it today. (We might do it every day this month- the kids loved it so much!)

Funshine Express calls it, "Evolving Picture Story".
My kids called it- "we draw the pictures- story"

Funshine Express provides a simple story.
I wrote each sentence on a sheet of paper. (I had to shorten the story because I had so many kids absent today.)

Then I gave one page to each student- to illustrate.

They l-o-v-e-d this! This fella made the grass super tall in his picture.

Then during our story time- I put all the pages together and read it to them.
I kinda wish we had done this every month.
We would have quite a collection of stories by now.

They all agreed that they wanted to keep the pictures together at preschool, so next preschool day we can read it to the preschool friends who were sick. They are sooooo proud of this story they illustrated!

Goose who laid golden eggs- craft

This month we have been learning about OVALS.

Funshine Express provided these cardboard tubes for this activity.

I squished the tube- to make them the shape of ovals- instead of circles.

Kids dipped the cardboard tubes in glue...

Then we sprinkled gold glitter on the fresh glue. (The Glitter was extra/ left over glitter from a previous Funshine Express curriculum kit.)

I told the story of the Goose who laid Golden Eggs, while the kids created their pictures.

I highly recommend having some kind of tub- when using glitter. It contains the mess nicely- AND it is easy to funnel back into the glitter baggy- to be used again in a future project!

Glitter is magical.
Glitter makes the ordinary into extraordinary.
THEY LOVED these gold ovals!

There are lots of cute books involving eggs.
Are you my mother?
It's time to fly
Just to name a few.

April Showers...

Today was officially "crazy weather". It was blustery and SNOWING! I don't mind- I will gladly take a few freak snow storms, if I can have a few days of spring sprinkled here and there.

Today we did a fun craft- supplied in my Funshine Express curriculum monthly kit. Funshine Express suggested dipping coffee filters in water/food coloring. I gave the kids a choice. (I didn't think food color in water would be as fun as just painting with watercolors.) The kids were unanimous- they wanted to experiment with the food coloring/water!

They love the unconventional art projects that Funshine Express provides.
The coffee filters are going to be the tops of "umbrellas".

Half the kids worked on the coffee filters while the other half- decorated their paper with finger print "raindrops".

We let everything dry while we did our rotations and stations. Then after snack, everything was dry- so we were able to put them together.

We read a cute book at story time, called Rain drop Plop!

Bunny Headband

With Easter right around the corner- I am excited to share the cute crafts and activities that Funshine Express has included in their monthly curriculum kit.

I love the varied crafts- they are adorable. I also love as I read the monthly curriculum guide they suggest simple prompts to get these little ones talking and connecting to the theme and topic for the day. When we were making these headbands, I remember Funshine Express suggesting to have them touch the fluffy tail we were adding to our headband. (it was really soft and furry). Having a real bunny would have been the best activity- but second best was touching this fluffy tail and talk about bunnies and their fur.

 

These headbands were a big hit!

 

Last week was Spring Break in our area- and as luck would have it- I sprained my back!

The full week I was out of commission!

I texted my parents last Friday- warning that we might not have preschool THIS week while I recovered. If I had to do a lot of prep and leg work- we would not have had preschool today.

But I woke up.

Felt like I could handle the few hours.

 

Just another day- I was so grateful to have Funshine Express monthly curriculum.

Trains!

Trains is a really cute theme for this month. Funshine Express is so clever! I paired up some cute activities they provided with the train theme along with two Christmas books.
Polar Express is a well known book, but one of our family favorites is
The Christmas Gift Of Aloha . It is a really cute story about an elf from the north pole- getting lost and finding himself in Hawaii. He finds that life in Hawaii is very different in some ways- (Their "snow" is warm, their trees are shaped different, etc.) Yet the Christmas spirit is the same- he meets some Hawaiian Menehune and help them with the Hawaiian toys and treats.
(There is a Candy Cane train in this story.)

This was a fun activity Funshine Express provided. During stations I worked one on one with little ones as we identified the letter, said the sound and then they practiced writing each letter.

These are the cute conductor hats we made. Funshine provided the paper and large paper bags. Again- I can't say how handy it is having Funshine Express monthly curriculum kids. The diversity of the crafts and the simple construction always makes crafts a favorite part of preschool- and I didn't have to make any extra trips to the store. It is so so so nice. Especially this month when life is so hectic- and I am running to and fro ( I am sure you can relate.) If you teach preschool- this is a WONDERFUL gift to give yourself. The gift of TIME. The gift of Peace of Mind. The Gift of already prepped crafts. I've said it before and I'll say it again it's like having the BEST teachers aid! I just love their program.

Music Theme: Jingle Bells, Letter J this week.

Funshine Express provided the jingle bells- for our craft today.

So simple- but so fun!

 I read Santa's Book of Names.

 
 
 This is a really cute book. There are parts in the story that refer to the sound of Santa's jiggle bells.

The kids had so much fun - supplying the sound effects to our story time today!

 

 

Now, I thought I would show you one of my display boards I set up each preschool day.

 

Here I display the numbers, letters, colors and shapes that Funshine Express provides each month in their monthly curriculum kit. It is a simple project tri-fold board with Velcro dots.
I LOVE using these project boards! Many home-base preschool moms feel the strain of losing "family space" in their house for their "preschool room".  By using these project boards- I can use our family room with the family- during NON preschool times. Yet when it is time for preschool- I pull these boards out and wha-la! A preschool room with educational displays.

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

 
 

So many cute Thanksgiving activities were included in my Funshine Express curriculum kit.
Today one of my boys said, where do you get all your stuff? (As he was cutting out his turkey feathers.) They love the crafts. Today they wanted to do another one! I said, "Isn't one enough?" NO WE WANT TO DO MORE! ( I love that Funshine supplies all the materials needed for cute and clever crafts. All I have to keep on hand are things like; paint, glue, scissors, crayons, tape, and a stapler. All the embellishments are supplied!)

But we couldn't.
It was time to move onto our stations.


We had a few kids out sick today.
It is the beginning of that season... (ugh).

We read this book today in our story time.

Community Helpers

          Here are some Community Helper Activities I wasn't able to post in October.

 I broke out the books I had about Community Helpers and tried to find more at the Library. But I guess every other preschool had the same theme- because I couldn't find ANY at our little Library! Thankfully Funshine Express includes a cute book in their monthly curriculum kids.

 I found this cute puzzle at my local school supply store. I love Doug and Melissa educational toys. The pieces of this puzzle are the heads, body and legs of different "Community Helpers". So cute!
They can mix and match them... or put it together in the right order.

 

 

And as usual- we had some cute crafts from Funshine Express.  

 

 

 

 

 

Look at the detail this student put in his police wallet/badge! (I think it is a self portrait.)
Simple craft- that really inspired their creativity.

Our Neighborhood

Here are the two books I used to talk about our neighborhood today. I thought this craft from Funshineexpress was so cute and clever! It really inspired our conversation about our neighborhood and start our discussion of our upcoming topics of safety.

 Sheila Rae is about a little mouse who is so brave- she decides to walk home a different way from school one day and gets lost! It's a really cute book- and that isn't the main story line... but it was a good intro to how to safely cross streets. We talked about safely walking home from school.

The Duck in a Hole book- is just a cute story about a girl who trying to help a duck get out of a hole. She has to brainstorm a bunch of possible ideas. It is a really cute book... it doesn't really have anything to do about neighborhoods... but this little girl found the hole in her "neighborhood".

Nocturnal Animal Craft

This was another cute craft from Funshineexpress - I didn't get to show you... but I wanted to fit it in somewhere... this fit with our discussion of Nocturnal Animals.


I love how simple the the crafts are-- but they always turn out amazing. The kids always love the final product.

Story and Game

Every month Funshine Express includes a story book with their monthly curriculum kit. Septembers book was Life in a Forest. They also provided a cute game about forest animals.

All month I was able to find cute books about camp outs and stories with forest animal characters to read during our story time- but it was really nice to have a non-fiction book about life in a forest.

We were able to refer to it often.

Our little group really enjoyed this game. The die- only had the numbers 1 and 2. As a teacher- I love how this game re-enforced the numbers we were working on this month. And what is the best of all? I didn't have to think, plan or prepare this activity- what a time saver! I just pulled this activity out of the box and we were set to go!

Like I've said before... Funshine Express is the best teachers aid for the stay home Preschool Teacher!

Pete's a Pizza Story Time

My oldest son is hosting another story time for his youngest brother.
(He is a Boy Scout working on his READING Merit Badge.)

These are the books I've pulled from our library and our local library for this story time.

I was trying to find- easy to read aloud stories for my 14 year old.

( I don't want HIM to get bogged down with alot of written words, while reading aloud. He has a low attention span too.)

I figured if I pull a selection of books- he can look them over and pick the ones he wants to read. These all have the under lying theme of feelings (specifically anger or disappointment) and how different people (animals) deal with those feelings.

This is a silly and fun book. (easy to read aloud) about a boy, Pete, who is grumpy that it is raining...and he can't play outside with friends. His dad decides to make him into a pizza.

(For our activity: each boy got to make his own mini pizza.)

Poor poor llama is grocery shopping with his mama- but he is done. When he throws a tantrum in the shopping card, patient mama helps him cool down. (I am sure none of our little guys can relate to this! LOL)

Our boys love dinosaurs- and this one is about a mine-o-saur. Who never shares his toys. But when he realizes... all he really wants are friends, he's willing to share.

There are so many benefits to having my oldest son be the reader at Story Time. (Besides building his own reading and reading aloud skills.) He's building a bond with his younger brother.

He's a positive role model for these little guys and helping them enjoy books.

And building self esteem in his younger brother.

Can't you just see- he feels like a million bucks that his cool BIG brother wants to do "book club" with him~!