got your goat?

Anyone out there have any good goat activities?  Our animal friend for letter "Gg" is "Gomer Goat".  I had plenty to do this week so I wasn't able to dig very deeply into more activities, but I'd like to find more in the future.  I think I might need to invest in a copy of "The Three Billy Goat's Gruff" for next year.  

Letter "G" activities...

"G" Goats (I think these are pretty hilarious) I found the idea here.

• Cut outs of the letter "G", horns, ears, and beard
• Large wiggle eye (you might want to do two - I can never get the preschoolers to understand the concept of putting one eye on an animal art project - ha!)
• Glue

I give the students the pieces, show them an example, and let them glue as they choose. 

For an alphabet review game we played  "Throw it in the Garbage" (great mix of fine and gross motor skills!).

• Garbage Can
• Paper scraps with alphabet letters written on them

To play:

• Pass out the letters written on the paper to the students.  
• Take turns naming the letter
• Crumple and toss into the garbage can.  

When we all had a turn, I dumped the can and students chose a piece of paper again.  

• Uncrumple the paper to find out what letter is hiding inside!
• Crumple it back up again.
• Toss into the garbage.  

(This was in my lesson plans from last year, but I know I just saw it on a blog recently too - can't remember where!)

Other activities this week:

Craft sticks (letter recognition, math, fine motor skills):  I put craft sticks and flash cards out at a center area for students to use to make shapes and letters.  I saw a lot of really neat designs/letters from my older students and my youngest students thought it was great fun to grab them all in their hands and drop them (they do make a cool sound... as well as a mess).

Table Setting (one-to-one correspondence, social studies):  During the month of November I add place mats to our housekeeping area.  To make the place mats, I traced the toy dishes (as they would go on a set table) on a large piece of card stock.  Then I decorated and laminated the mat.  Looks like a healthy meal!.  

the elephant in the room

Did you know that elephants walk on their toes?  That's one of the things we learned while focusing on the letter "E" this last week.  We also learned that our noses are not nearly as talented as an elephant's.  How would you like to pick up a peanut with your nose? : )

For our letter "E" project I wanted to make an elephant out of the letter shape, but my plans were altered when I found a TON of copies of an elephant printable that were sitting in my files and needing to be used.  Cutting out lots of tiny pieces for a project is not my favorite thing to do, but for the sake of stewardship I went for it...

We cut out the elephant pieces and gave them to the students to glue on to their "E".  I gave them a sample to look at, but let them choose how they wanted to glue it themselves.  

After we glued, we painted the letters with sponge painters and gray paint.  

(Note: If I do the project this way again I'll trace an "E" onto a larger piece of paper and cut out the letter shape AFTER the paint is dry - then the paper won't curl so much.)  Our "E's" turned out great and the students seemed to have a good time gluing and painting.

In our sensory table I added plastic eggs to the corn.  This combo made some great rhythm instruments!  The plastic eggs are also great for those hands - it takes a little work to get them open and closed.

We used craft sticks to make "E", practicing using white glue to put the sticks on our paper. We also added pictures of things that begin with an "E" (eggs, elephants, envelopes, etc...) to our collage. Getting the craft sticks to make a letter "E" was a little difficult for my younger students.  I'll have to get out craft sticks more often to play with to make shapes and letters.

Other activities this week included:

Pumpkin Walk:

• Place pumpkin flash cards (made with our current alphabet letters on the back) in a circle on the floor
• Turn on some music and walk around the circle
• When the music stops, pick up the pumpkin you are closest to and see what letter is hiding on the other side
• Take turns around the circle to share what letter you have

Pumpkin Seed Counting:

• Write numbers on  paperplates
• Add a container of pumpkin seeds
• Count the seeds onto the plate to match the number (if you look closely you can see that we still need more practice!)

Fall Roll and Count:

• Die (only includes #s 1-3)
• Acorns
• Leaf Math Mat
• Roll the die and count the corresponding number of acorns onto the mat