Teddy Bears & Q is for Quiet

Each child brought a stuffed animal today to share for sharing time. We started the class by putting our apples on the trees and sharing our stuffed animal. Each child had a turn being up in front of the class. When we were finished, I introduced our letter of the week, Q.

I showed them a picture of capital Q and then one of lower case q. On the back of my easel I have a white board, so I turned it around and drew the two for them as well so that they could see how they were written. Lucy raised her hand and asked "Can I try too?" When I said yes, all of the other children decided they wanted to give it a shot - even those who have had very little practice with writing gave it a try.

Our theme for the day was being Quiet. I read a book about a little boy who knew how to be very loud, but he also knew that sometimes it was important to be very quiet.

We made a craft of heart flowers since we learned about hearts yesterday. I am not sure it hurts to include the "social" drama in our blog, so I'll include it here... We were making our craft when I heard Lucy tell Matthew, "I want to marry you. Do you want to marry me?" Matthew shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Sure, I guess." Then Lucy kept talking about how she and Matthew were going to get married when they grew up. Ethan didn't say anything, but he also wasn't listening to my instructions very well, even when I was speaking slowly and directly to him. Then Ethan said, "I don't want you to marry Matthew, I want to be Matthew's friend." So, I interrupted, "Ethan, it would be perfectly fine if they got married. That way, you would get to stay friends with Matthew and Lucy." A couple of minutes later I heard Lucy talking again about how Matthew and she were going to get married, then Ethan said "I'm going to marry Lydia!" then he asked Lydia "Lydia, do you wanna get married?" and she said "Sure."

Preschool drama - So classic.

After craft time I sent the children out on the patio to play while I fixed the snack. I think I waited too long because the children seemed pretty grumpy. We went out on the lawn and sat on a Q for Quilt, then had snack time. While we ate I read a few stories about teddy bears. After the story we played a couple of little games. In one game, the children pretended to tuck their stuffed animal in the quilt for "bedtime." When it was time to wake up, we each grabbed a part of the blanket and tossed the animals up and down until they all fell off. Then we all sat back down on the blanket and did a "getting to know you" game with the stuffed animals. They each took a turn introducing themselves to each others stuffed animals. It was cute. Lucy was a little upset she couldn't keep Ethan's horse, but after she found the other little stuffed animal, a pony, that she brought, she was happy again.

 Snack time on the quilt.

Lydia Perez was visiting our class today. It was great to have her.

Overall, it was a really mellow day. Partially because I lost my voice and was half-whispering the entire lesson.

Flannelboard story about a girl who wanted to sleep with too many stuffed animals.