A Very Colourful Five for Friday!

What a wonderful week it's been!  We've had so much fun in Prep with lots of colourful activities.  Time for Five for Friday to share the fun.

Inspired by a pin from Kindergarten Smiles we made monster paintings as part of our phonics work this week.  They are so simple to make - just fold a large piece of paper in half and have the kids blob paint on one side.  When they re-fold it, they can rub their hands gently over the paper to blur the paint together.  Make sure you watch their little faces as they unfold their painting! They'll be absolutely amazed to see their results. :) When they dried, we gave each child some paper circles and asked them to glue them on as monster eyes.  I just LOVE the way they turned out!

How gorgeous is this guy?!? To me he looks just like a monster peeking over the top of the card, complete with pink hair, purple horns and a blue face. :)

We brainstormed some adjectives that could describe our monsters and each kidlet chose one that they wanted to match their painting. These guys are going to look amazing on display in our classroom!

Speaking of monsters, our Alphabet Monster was hungry this week! I cooked up some Alphabet Soup for him, full of veggies and letters.

Wouldn't you know it, he wasn't interested in the veggies at all and only wanted to eat the letters!

Kidlets took turns using the tongs to grab a magnetic letter, identify it and then feed it to the monster. Some of my little learners (ok, lots!) are still working on letter recognition so we are doing lots of alphabet activities.

As well as letter recognition we're also working on confidently spelling our names using a capital letter only at the beginning. During small group time kidlets used bingo dabbers to dot over their names, and we talked about the letter sequence and the correct direction to form each one.

I bubble cut around them and they brighten up our Library corner nicely!

 We worked on the /j/ sound as part of our phonics program so of course needed a craft to match!  This jellyfish craft was super quick and easy.  We cut some paper plates in half and the kidlets painted them with bright watercolours.  When they were dry we glued on some crepe paper tentacles.

Sorry about the awful photo, my camera doesn't like the fluorescent lights!

We added another poem to our Poetry Journal on Thursday.  This week was 'Five Little Ducks'.  We read the poem together on the carpet, and this time I chose a special helper to point to each word as we said it.  Back at their desks we sang/read the song again and pointed to the words on the journal copy.  I think our next poem will go in the pocket chart so we can work on sequencing and editing by adding capitals and punctuation.

I was so proud of my drawing, but the kidlets set out to draw one better than mine!

I love this one, kind of looks like relaxed ducks on a tropical island. :)

That's all from me, friends. I'm off to see 'Wicked' this afternoon and I'm super excited! I'll be back tomorrow with a wrap up of the fun we've been having in small groups. Happy Valentine's Day!

Five for Friday!

What a great week! As I looked through the photos I took this week I was excited about all the wonderful things that have happened with my kidlets.  I'm linking up with Doodle Bugs to share five random moments with Five for Friday!

I decided that this year I would use the songs, nursery rhymes and finger plays we sing during the day as modelled and shared reading texts.  Each kidlet has an exercise book that I've called their 'Poetry Journal' and we're going to add a song each week.  This week was 'Here is the Beehive' which I chose because of the numbers at the end.  We were surprised to be able to read a whole line of the text - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5! - as worked together on the carpet.  I was so happy to see the whole class excited and confident about reading.  Most of them sang the song at least twice while pointing to the words while drawing their picture back at their desk.

As we learn new concepts about reading I can incorporate those into our poetry work.  We will find sight words, punctuation and letters as well as notice rhyming words and our phonics focus. Next week will be 'Five Little Ducks'!

A while ago I shared about some business cards I ordered from Vista Print to use as take home tokens. My Super Kids have loved taking one of these home when they have made it to the top of the clip chart!

I've been sending home lots of the bucket filler cards, too.  I will definitely be ordering more of these!

In that same Vista Print order was my stamp!  It works beautifully!

I can quickly whizz around and stamp each kidlet's page as we complete one in our workbooks.  Perfect for times we've worked together so no 'marking' is needed.

The bonus is that my little learners think it's a reward to get a stamp... so everyone is happy! :)

So far this year in Prep we've done lots of colourful crafts. :)  On Thursday we used a paper plate and some cellophane squares to make a gorgeous fish.

We pinned them to a board and added some twisted crepe paper to look like water.  One of my kidlets asked "Why didn't you put the fish on the blue board so it looks like the ocean?" Very good question! :)

I am SO PROUD of how my brand new Preppies have worked in their small groups this week!  After only a few days of school they are absolute champs at working together, using a quiet voice, not interrupting my group and staying on task.

Here's a sneak peek at one of our activities - I'll be back tomorrow with a post all about what we've been up to. :)

That's all from me today, friends. I need to get myself up off the couch and turn this lazy day into a productive one!