Van Y Preschool Preview: Family, Letter H, Elsa the Elf, Movie Theater, & Choice Time!

Our theme this week was Family.

We read both fiction and non-fiction books about family members, how not all families are the same, and love.

We drew pictures of our families. We enjoyed looking at all the different ways we drew our people.

We drew pictures of ourselves (in the shape of Gingerbread) and used them to make a graph of how many people were in our families.

Most of the kiddos in our class had 4 people in their families (we limited to who lives in their house). The most people in a family was 9 and the least was 2. We talked about how every family is different and has different people in it.

We did a matching game with various parts of a family.

At Small Group:

We worked on rhyming sounds with puzzles and pictures.

Our "Letter of the Week" was 'H'.

Some of our activities include:

Identifying the letter.
Searching the room for things that start with the letter of the week and feeding them to the letter monster.
Practicing writing the letter.
Making our alphabet book page.
Practicing saying the letter sound.
Seeing who has the letter in their name.

Elf on the Shelf:

Our elf arrived in our classroom this week. She came all the way from the North Pole! She brought along a book for us to read about her and what her job is. She reports back to Santa every night and then returns to our class and hides somewhere new the next day. Our kiddos really enjoy finding her each day. We decided to name her Elsa Princess. The most important rule with Elsa the Elf is that no one is allowed to touch her otherwise she loses her magic. We had one mishap with touching this week, but Santa sent a letter with some recovery dust to help Elsa feel better. :)

Day 1 - Elsa reminds us to eat our fruits and veggies!

Day 2 - Touching Mishap. The sparkles are Santa's Recovery Dust.

Day 3 - Hanging with Leaf Man

Day 4 - Elsa climbed our countdown chain.

At Choice Time:

Many of our kiddos have been going to see movies lately so we decided to put away the grocery store and make a movie theater. They have a cash register, ticket stand, and a refreshment stand with (pretend) popcorn, candy, and beverages. We will be “screening” many movies over the next few weeks at choice time.

"Paying" for tickets.

Picking out refreshments.

Turning in their tickets to the ticket taker.

"Eating" their treats while waiting for the movie to start.

They were pretty adorable pretend eating the food. :)

Our sensory tub got changed out this week as well. In place of the fall items, we now have tinsel, pinecones, bows, ornaments, etc. We are working on making an “I Spy” game to go along with it.

Art Area:

He made a Christmas Tree. The kiddos were upset that their drawings didn't look like ours (the teachers). Many asked us to draw things for them. We talked a lot this week about how we have to practice drawing so we can get better.

Block Area:

Towers were the thing to build this week!

They were so proud of their tower!

He made tracks with tunnels.

Water Table:

Our kiddos chose to put the community helpers in the water table this week. We used soapy water because bubbles are always a big hit (plus the toys are super clean now ;)). They played "family" with them and used different voices for different people.

Toys and Games Area:

These are a new addition to our toys & games area. We replaced some of the other manipulatives because our boys kept using them to make "weapons". We talked a lot this week about how we don't have even pretend weapons as school.

Princess Activity:

We introduced some new items to our dress up rack this week (crowns, tutus, and beads). This spawned a whole group sociodramatic play session. The whole class worked together in a common theme. They worked on this for almost an entire choice time. It was fascinating to watch.