Pumpkin, Pumpkin and Letter Study for Ff & Tt

We have been reading about Pumpkins. 

Pumpkin, Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington is a beautifully illustrated nonfiction book that teaches about the life cycle of a pumpkin, while at the same time tells the story of a little boy enjoying the outdoors throughout each season of the year.  

We had some fun cutting open a pumpkin and describing it using our five senses. We discovered that our pumpkin weighed 11 pounds and was 31 inches around.  It had a special smell and that it felt & looked different on the outside than the inside. Then we enjoyed snacking on some pumpkin seeds and designed a special face for our class jaco-lantern.  This class pumpkin will be making a special appearance at our upcoming Halloween party!

Another fun seasonal book we have enjoyed is The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything.  This story was read to the class by our amazing speech therapist, Mrs. Peek who comes in weekly to do a whole group language lesson with our class.  The skill we were working with here was retelling. The kids sequenced the story by cutting and pasting pictures of key events.  I hope your K kid was able to tell you a little bit about the story when they brought this paper home.  Consider checking this adorable book out of the library and reading it together some time.

And the month of October would not be complete without the poem "Five Little Pumpkins".  Here is a cute video that we have enjoyed watching in our classroom.  Reciting the poem is a terrific way to reinforce the use of ordinal numbers and counting up to 5.  These are both skills the kids have been working on during math lessons.

Last, we are fully operational with our Daily 5 Literacy Centers! We are so fortunate to have Mrs. Barnes as a teachers assistant each afternoon.  I have been doing an emerging reading lesson while she has been doing a writing or word work lesson with small groups.  Other Daily 5 centers have been using Starfall.com on the interactive board to reinforce our letter study, listening to a book on tape and drawing pictures of our favorite parts and working on "books" at the coloring counter.  Here is a picture of Mrs. Barnes having the kids make letters out of pumpkin play dough!  I am including the recipe for you.  It is easy to make and the kiddos LOVE it!

Pumpkin Play dough recipe

We completed our study of letters Ff & Tt and sight words for & to. Here are a couple more fun videos that reinforce the letters, sounds and sight words.  The kids love dancing along to them. Music and movement are a delightful, age appropriate way to reinforce these vital skills.  Why not have a letter family dance party?  Have fun!

Letter Study Mm & Ss

Here are a couple of cute videos that the kids enjoyed that reinforce our study of the letters Mm & Ss

Fire Prevention Week

The kids delighted in a visit from the Carmen Fire Department on Tuesday.  This created a lovely jumping off point to integrate some reading and writing opportunities. Here is a video showing the kids "reading" a poem called "Firefighter".  They are using firefighter puppets that they made to point to each word.  Tracking print from left to right and having the concept of a word is critical to early reading development.  Take a look-

I hope you will ask your K kid to have their firefighter puppet "read" the poem to you!

This week's "Let's Find Out" magazine also focused on fire safety and included a diagram of a fire truck. The kids learned how a diagram is a picture that includes labels to teach us new things.  Then the kids made their own fire trucks that included some of the objects that were included on the firetruck diagram.  Here is another short video showing them working hard!

September highlights

Wow! Time flies when your having fun.  September was a whirlwind.  

After we spent some time getting to know one another and learning rules and routines, we began an alphabet study.  We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and Alligator's All Around.

These are two of my very favorite ABC books.  They also reinforce the concept of rhyme, which is an important skill for early readers.  Here are some fun utube videos that sing the books for you!  The children really enjoyed them.

We also looked carefully at the letters of our name.  These are often the first letters that children have quick and easy recall with. We counted and graphed the amount of letters in our name.  We discovered that most of our names have 6 letters, the shortest name has 3 and the longest names have 8!  Can you guess which names these are?

In addition to looking at the ABC's and rhymes, we are reading lots about apples and integrating this with science and math.  We began our apple investigation with Gail GIbbon's book The Season's of Arnold's Apple Tree.  This is another of my favorites!

The kids did some apple tasting, comparing the flavors of red delicious, golden delicious and granny smith.  We then graphed our favorites.  The tart green apples were a surprising favorite.

How can you not read Ten Apples Up on Top after that?  Here is another cute video that "sings the book" for you-

I also introduced the kids to our Science Station after we looked at our first "Science Spin" magazine. This issue focused on "science tools".  We cut up some apples and I put out a few magnifying glasses, tape measures and pan balances along with a few dry erase boards and markers for them to "record" their observations.  It is becoming a favorite activity during free choice time.

And we ended our apple exploration by making some good old fashioned apple sauce in the crock put.  The kids helped me operate my "apple peeler, corer, slicer". We threw in a little water, sugar and cinnamon. Then we enjoyed it together Friday before we packed up at the end of the day.  

Please use these resources to talk to your child about what they are learning!  I am sure they will be surprised that you know all of the wonderful things we have been doing in the "Peaceful Purple room".