J is for January

And we're back!  Parker and I were both excited to jump back in to preschool.  We had a lot of fun over Christmas, but we were ready for some structure =)  We seamlessly picked up where we left off.

Day 1

We started by singing his favorite, "Sticky Bubble Gum."  Followed by, "Clap, Clap, Clap," and I introduced, "Joyful, Joyful."  Next, we counted to 30 and identified numbers one through ten.  We reviewed letters A-I and their verses, and took a look at letter J.  I taught him this week's verse,

"Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever." - Hebrews 13:8

I struggled to think of an Intro to J activity, and suddenly I thought of jewelry!  We traced the Jj's with my earrings ;)  It was...interesting, haha.

Then I explained to him that we were in a new month called, January.  I had him repeat that, and then I sang the months of the year song and had him listen for January and his birthday month, September.  Next, we read this poem about January.

"January, 

now is hear.

A fine new start

to a whole new year.

The snow comes down 

in the dark of night.

When we awake, 

the world is white.

In January

when there's snow,

we get our sleds

and away we go."

-Author Unknown

We talked about what our January has been like so far.  

It was currently -35 outside and we had a few feet of snow.  Wow!

Then we identified the Rhyming words and played with Rhyme cards like these.  

I would say what the pictures were, and Parker had to tell me if they rhymed or not.  It goes along with a board game that I used in centers when I taught Kindergarten.  We'll probably play the actual game next time.

Finally, Ryan read this book to Parker.

They also read

Then we did the shades of blue match-up.

Day 2

We did preschool in our jammies today =)  We started with "Joyful, Joyful" and the "Months of the Year" songs, reviewed J and it's verse and counted to 30.  Then we did what I like to call pipe cleaner patterns.  I started three pipe cleaners with three different kinds of patterns and Parker finished them with the beads in the bowl.  

Then we did a snow experiment since we had so much of it outside!

Parker scooped the snow into the four tins and then poured the different elements on to the snow.  We watched them and talked about which snow we thought would melt first.  

We read

I pointed out that the author was Jan Brett.  All of her books are phenomenal.  Especially the illustrations.  Of course Parker loved this one because it was an arctic version of "Goldilocks and The Three Bears."

We went back and looked at the snow to see which one was "winning."  

We read

Next, we attempted to make our own snow.  We mixed one 16 oz of cornstarch with shaving cream until we got it stiff enough to stick together. 

It was a pretty cool feeling!  Then we built our snowman.  

We played with this together for quite a while.  

Late that day and throughout the week, we read several other books by Jan Brett, including

Day 3

Today we did preschool at 6:30pm.  We had played with a friend in the morning and the afternoon kind of got away from us.  Parker had quite a bit of energy still, so he was more than happy to do some jumping =)  

First, I got out a few jars and had him match the lids.

Then we made towers with blocks. 

and ordered them.

Then he put them all together and jumped over them a variety of ways.

Then we read

and acted out each of the 'jives' according to the description.  SO FUN!  Adley was quite entertained.

Then I demonstrated what jumping jack is, and then Parker tried to do a few on his trampoline.  Hilarious.

Finally, we read

Throughout the week, we also read these books about snow.  No they don't start with J, but I kept reminding myself that is snows in January ;)

The day before, we also did a "Tots Rock" DVD.   It has a lot of jumping and exercise!  Very fun to do with your kids when it's record low temperatures outside =)