emm en emm oh peeee

Learning content with music works like magic - if it's learned the right way.  The "ABC" song is one of the first ways many kiddos become familiar with the alphabet.  We sing it almost daily at preschool and it's one of the most requested songs I receive from the students.  

My one complaint about our traditional ABC song (same tune as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star") is that the middle of the alphabet (L,M,N,O,P) is sung rhythmically faster than all the other letters, usually making for some comical jumbled versions of the song (as sung by a 3 year old, hence the title of this post).  When I sing it with the students I usually slow down at letter L and sing very slowly for those poor letters that get jumbled together.   I also try to find other ways to sing the alphabet throughout the year,  and doing it backwards with your pre-kindergarten age students is quiet a brain workout!

All that to introduce our exploration of L, M, N, O & P (which was done slowly and deliberately - please forgive me for this epic post!).

Letter L 

Activities can be found in my post "lion around".

Letter M

"5 Little Monkeys" Printable found here

I printed and laminated the monkeys and numbers then added magnets to the back.  I put them on our magnetic easel and let the students play.  The kiddos are all familiar with the finger play so using the pictures to say the rhyme was a smooth transition.  We also pulled the monkeys into transition activities and class discussions about the letter "M".

Marble Painted "M"

 Painting with marbles is lots of fun!  

#1 Place the construction paper (ours had the letter "M" traced on it) into a plastic container.  

#2 Choose several colors of paint to squeeze onto the paper

#3 Add some marbles

#4 Put the lid on the container 

#5 Shake, rattle, and roll!

#7 Remove paper from container & let dry.

#8 Cut out your "M" : )

M & M Painting (as seen at Teach Preschool)

Sort, add water, soak then paint!  Note: The picture of the toothpaste, toothbrush, and soap was a different activity for the day that was accidentally pulled into our M&M painting by my assistant.  I'm still cracking up that we painted our "health" page with candy!

Letter N

N is for Name:  I already had the circles with letters from our names written on them from a previous activity.  We took those letters and glued them on a large "N", practicing spelling our names. 

Nuts and Bolts:  

These are a great counter/sorter/fine motor toy that I found from a catalog a few years back.  The nuts and bolts are different sizes, shapes and colors.  At a center area I placed colored paper on trays for the kiddos to sort our nuts and bolts toys onto.

For a group game we sorted all the nuts then counted and compared which color had the most and least.

Letter O

O Art:  I had lots of random left-overs in my "O" file so I decided to put all the pieces out on our art table with scissors and glue.  The kiddos had a great time gluing and cutting while talking about "O". 

We also used some left-over Cheerios to decorate our "O's" one day.

 

Letter P

Penguin Pajama Party!  

This group of kiddos is totally into dramatic play.  My assistant and I created a space in our classroom to celebrate penguin style.  

At the party:

• Penguins
• Pajamas (the kiddos worked really hard to pull them on over their clothes - we strongly encouraged them putting on the pj's by themselves)
• Party plates, napkins, cups, etc.
• Pompoms
• Pears, Pineapple, and all sorts of other "food" from our kitchen : )

Purple Puffy Paint P's

We painted large "P" with purple puffy paint (a mixture of shaving cream, glue, and paint).  Fun!

Hope you enjoyed our alphabet fun - and hope L, M, N, O, & P got sorted out of their usual jumble ; )

Miss Eileen

lion around

We learned about lions when we were focusing on the letter "L". Every time I held up the picture of our animal friend, Larry Lion, one of my little ones would say, "Miss Eileen! Miss Eileen! That's like the Lion King!" Yup, great connection (thank you Disney!). 

Here are some of the activities we did while we were learning about "L":

Lion Painting:  

I loved the painting process I found here at Teach Preschool, and I would have used Deborah's entire project idea, but I had a bazillion copies of lion color sheets in my file drawer.  I decided that we should use those (I'm a little neurotic about using supplies that we have on hand...especially leftover color sheets that are taking up space in my file cabinet!).  So, we painted the lions using cotton balls pinched by clothes pins and a yellow/orange paint mixture.  The cotton balls got really soggy and sloppy by the end, but it was fun to paint with something other than a brush.  We also glued on "Ll Lion" - another leftover. : )

Lego, Leaf, & Lace Prints:  

Usually when we paint my kiddos want to use copious amounts of paint and smear everything around so all they have is one big painty, falling apart piece of paper.  I knew if I wanted to do a print project (which would require major paint-control), I'd have to offer two ways to paint.   I covered our tables in paper and gave each student an "L" cut out of construction paper.   I took some time to show my students how to make prints using the objects.   Then I instructed them to make the prints on the "L" shape.  When they were done with the "L" they could then paint on the paper covering the table and experiment with the paint and objects in whatever way they chose.  The prints turned out pretty good, the legos worked the best, the leaves were ok, the lace just got soggy and didn't print very well at all.  I think next time we'll just use legos.

Lion Small World:

I put beans, raffia, cardboard tubes, trees (made from paper and tubes), and a "cave" that I made from a piece of an oatmeal box into a sensory bin.   I've found that the "small world" pretend play spaces are much more popular with the 4 and older crowd... my 3's just like to take everything out of the bin, throw the beans around, and hijack the lions : ).

Do you have any other lion activities that you do with your kiddos?

Miss Eileen