We had a Teddy Bear Tt Party Day this week. We're almost done with our letters. I work on all the letters all the time (like we all do) but then focus on two a week to reinforce letter ID, sound, and correct formation. So- we were on letter Tt and we needed a Tt Party!
The children had so much fun. I never want to get so busy with curriculums and programs that I can't have these fun days. These are the days the kids will remember.
We did lots of math with our bears! The children sorted them by color and size. They also came up with other ways to sort- some with clothes on, some holding something, black noses and brown noses... We had fun.
Then, they had to line up their bears from biggest to smallest- without making a sound! OOOH that was hard!
During math centers, we added and subtracted with teddy grahams.
We used paper bowls for bear caves for our subtraction. (I just cut out an "entrance to the cave." The children had 5 teddy grahams. I would put all five in the cave. Then, I would take some out and they had to tell me how many more were in the cave. They thought they were magic. I told them math is even BETTER than magic!
Here's a picture with teddy bear counters. I worked with a couple of my children during free choice time to review using counters.
Reading was oh-so-much better with bears!
The children wrote about their bears. They each wrote 3 details about their bear- usually his/her name, whether it was big or small, and what they liked to do with their bear. Then they drew a picture of their bear. I told them to pretend it was a photograph so it looked JUST like their real bear. They had fun.
I had some bear paperdolls for the children to cut out and play with at free choice if they wanted.
We had flavored iced tea to drink, Teddy Grahams, and fruit snacks for our party. So simple but special. I used very special napkins because it was a "fancy party." You could also serve Swedish fish, berries, and honey, because bears love that, too!
We fit in all three Bear Hunt songs by the end of the day.
I hope they made some happy memories.
What do you do when you get a new pillow and it's got too much stuffing in it? Take a bunch of it out, sew the pillow back up, and use the stuffing for Santa beards! And snow for upcoming projects...
I posted some of my favorite candy cane ideas at PreK and K Sharing this week!
And...
There is a link to a little recording sheet if you want your students to write the sight words, too.
Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer is a good lesson about being yourself and how your differences make you special. You are made exactly the way you are supposed to be to do wonderful things.
Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree has always been one of my favorite stories to share with my class.
It's great for so many things. The children love to retell it and remember each character who was able to have a new Christmas tree. It's also good for teaching that you don't have to be BIG to make a big difference in the world! I LOVE this poster from Peppermint Plum.
We lost power last week in the middle of the night. It was supposed to come back on at 7:30 AM, but didn't get fixed until after 9AM. Meanwhile, I got dressed and put on my make up with a flashlight. So pretty... as you can imagine. And I just quickly "fixed" my hair from the day before.
The whole time I was struggling with everything in the dark, not used to it- trying the light switch, forgetting every time that it wouldn't work, I kept thinking of verses about God being our Light and how we need to focus on Him. I love analogies, and knew this was meant for me. If I keep God as my focus and look to Him, my Light, every single thing I need to do during the day goes so much better and so much more smoothly. When I try to make my way alone, I struggle in the dark with things that could be so much easier if the Light were turned on. Oh how I appreciated that light after trying to do everything in the dark. I also noticed how much I take the Light for granted and need to remember to be thankful for it all the time.
1 John 1:5
Have a wonderful weekend! Thanks for stopping by!
I want to take a moment and say how I love the motto of your blog. We really need to stick together to share the teacher's wisdom and seek for a solutions to the teachers' challenges together. Teddy bear party is a brilliant idea for the kindergarten and it's great that you have decided to do a follow-up activity with counting. I have also noticed that you deed some drawing and crafting, that was just lovely, I guess. Perhaps the kids should have written more. Of course they are too young for buying an essay online but they need to learn that the studying will get harder and harder with every year.
ReplyDeleteHi Paulina, thank you for writing. :) We do writing every single day, and in fact we wrote books all about our teddy bears for three days around our party. We also talked about fiction/nonfiction books about bears did sorts of them and discussed nonfiction characteristics since our next unit is writing nonfiction books. This was a perfect transition. I just couldn't fit everything into this blog, so I thought I'd share some of the fun things we did. You are right- studying seems to get harder and harder, even each day for kids!
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