Preschool outline: Dinosaurs, B, more

Samuel, April 2011

I'm doing a co-op preschool group with five friends this year. This is my week to teach, two hours each on Tuesday and Thursday.

I'm posting this outline 1)To actually create it! and 2)To encourage your ideas. Hello, Katrina!

All the topics were assigned.

Monthly theme: Dinosaurs

Weekly topic: Fossils (good thing my dad's a geologist, eh?)

Letter B; Number 2; Color: blue; Shape: triangle

Tuesday

After greeting/rug time (which includes calendar, weather, pledge of allegiance), review circle shape from last week. Display capital B and help children identify how circles help form it. Show color blue. Introduce B sound with Berenstains' B Book by Stan and Jan Berenstain. 

Move to work table for pre-writing worksheets (tracing lines, mazes, etc.) Use pans with a thin layer of salt for finger tracing as well (can lightly shake and draw again like a cheap Etch-a-Sketch). Teach about the triangle shape; have children practice in salt pans.

Move back to rug to read Color Farm by Lois Ehlert, which uses die-cut basic shapes to form animal faces. Shape by Shape by Suse MacDonald uses the same concept for more advanced shapes as the story unveils a dinosaur.  Talk about how shapes are everywhere! 

Make and decorate "binoculars" out of cardboard tubes. (I will do the taping.) Go on a shape hunt in the front yard. 

Back inside, show pictures of 3-4 dinosaurs, especially those whose names begin with B. Ask children to find the Bs on the page. Teach that dinosaurs hatched from eggs. 

Go on an egg hunt in the backyard. The plastic eggs will be filled with pictures of objects that begin with B (ball, baby, etc.). Have each child share what she found.

Talk about how some dinosaurs were fast, some slow, and have children romp through the yard accordingly. Open play, then snack. (peaches)

Move back to rug for story and singing time. Books may include:

The Blue Balloon by Mick Inkpen

The Baby Beebee Bird by Diane Redfield Massie (great repetition of B sound)

Dinosaur Roar by Paul and Henrietta Strickland (opposites for children to act out) 

How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague
ABC T-Rex by Bernard Most

Songs:

ABC
Wheels on the Bus 

and this twinkling little ditty I just made up:

Small and giant dinosaurs (crouch then jump up)

Roamed the earth so long ago. (swing arms, march in place)

Some of them had plants to eat, (hold arm and hand up like a tree)

Others liked to chew their meat. (put arm in front of mouth)

Small and giant dinosaurs

Roamed the earth so long ago.


Coloring activity: dinosaur poster

Thursday


Gathering activity: Provide popsicle sticks (some cut to different lengths). Encourage children to take three and form into a triangle.

Greeting/rug time followed by review of B and introduction of lower case b. Can the children see how it is different? Explain that it makes the same sound, even though it looks smaller and different. Read/paraphrase Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey. Did Sal do the same things as her mom even though she is smaller? How about Sal and the bear cub?

Move to table for counting activity. Repeating the "kuplink" from the story, ask children to listen for how many pebbles I drop into a metal bowl. Teach how to draw the number 2. Do worksheets.

Maybe have snack of blueberries and bananas, maybe not.

Go outside to play freeze the dinosaur -- like freeze tag, only since this age group doesn't really grasp the concept of holding themselves still, I will be the dinosaur. Assign children to freeze me, others to release me, all the while chasing each other. After a couple of rounds, pretend to fall asleep and have the children do the same. Explain briefly that layers and layers of mud covered the dinosaurs. Explain that dinosaurs don't live on the earth anymore. 

Back indoors, elaborate on fossils through first pages of book Fossils Tell of Long Ago by Aliki. 

Use sea shells and leaves to form impressions in salt dough, thus making fossil models. (Great idea with the shells, Dad!)

Set fossils aside and do name-spelling activity. Provide each child with an envelope that has her name printed on it. Inside are the individual letters. Encourage her to put them in order. Can she do it without referring to the envelope? (Thanks for this one, Katrina!)

Coloring activity: dinosaur poster

Story and singing time, with some of these books:

Zoo Farm by Lois Ehlert

Chicka Chicka 123 by Bill Martin Jr.

Curious George's Dinosaur Discovery by Catherine Hapka
Chalk by Bill Thomson -- I love this book! It's a wordless tale of children's chalk drawings coming to life.

Songs may include:
ABC

Five Little Speckled Frogs

Five Little Ducks

The dinosaur ditty 

The last book will be Chalk, so we can then go outside and recreate the story.  Send home printout with Curious George finger puppets for children to cut out at home, if I ended up reading that book.  

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So there it is. I'm planning to adapt as we go. I planned lots of activities but won't rush the children just to do them all. Peeking in on the group last week I noticed that the girls could sit for an hour with their workbooks -- but Samuel, the only boy, could not. This level of variety is definitely with him in mind.

Send me your ideas -- and wish me luck!

P.S. My next topic is trains. Any fun activities for that one?