First Circle Time

For our first circle time of the summer, I would say it was a success.
Here is what we accomplished:

Opening Prayer

We practiced the sign of the cross and then using "I say, you say," 

we said the following prayer I adapted from searches online of morning prayers:

Dear God,

   Thank you for the night 

        and early morning light.

   For rest and food and loving care 

       and all that makes the world so fair. 

   Help us do the things we should, 

        to obey and be respectful, honest, kind and good.

   Be on our minds, lips, hearts and on our hands.

    With the Cross before us, we can do all things grand.

   God bless.... (list a few loved ones) and everyone.

            In Jesus' name we pray, AMEN!

I like this prayer because it brings awareness to thankfulness, ask for God's help with the characteristics we focus on, ask God to be the cross before us, in us and on us and offers prayers for others.

Pledge of Allegiance

We have a small flag hanging and we stood and said the pledge with our right hand over our hearts.
This is something all students do daily during the school year, so I want this to stay fresh with Skye (5 years old) from her preschool year. Jackson (2 years old) surprised me and stood at attention with his right hand placed over his heart and observed.

Weather

The weather chart is something Skye inherited from preschool. Each student took home a part of calendar and this is what she chose and received. I would of included this in our calendar anyways, but I like this simple chart to track the weather patterns. After a month or so, we will graph the data and discuss bar graphs. All you need is a poster board, label as seen in the picture (sunny, rainy, partly cloudy and cloudy) and post-its. Skye and Jackson really enjoy looking out the window and determining the weather of the day.

We were practicing our feeling faces.. Skye loves to make the grumpy face!

Focus of the Week: Feelings

The Water Cycle is our overall unit for the summer. We are adapting Water Cycle curriculum and expanding each allotted week to two weeks to allow for extra exploring and field trip and pool days. For the first week, we are focusing on feelings. An especially great topic for a two year old learning to express his emotions. We will do a daily check in and give each kid a chance to share how he or she is feeling that day. This creates a deeper community among the kids and myself and helps me to gauge our day. Also, we practice asking not assuming. This means I expect each kid to tell me what he or she needs with words (no whining). In one of my seminars, a big complant of early education teachers was that students don't ask for what he or she needs, instead they state "I'm thirsty" instead of asking for a glass of water. This increases problem solving skills and supports an independent environment needed for learning. Another reason for starting on a unit about feelings was the direct segway to bible days and character words.

Today, we talked about different types of feelings (happy, sad, mad, excited, frustrated, grumpy, exhausted/tired) using sign language, song, smiley faces and body expressions. We sang "If your happy and you know it" and "Feelings" by Rachel Coleman as seen on Nick Jr. I plan on expanding the if your happy and you know it to include other feelings, but we had just enough time for a little taste of the song. We really focused on stomping. This was a great segway to our number and opposition words of the week. We, also, read the Three Little Pigs, which demonstrated each feeling we had discussed earlier. 

Found this on the sidewalk. :-)

Grumpy Tree

For our craft today, we made feeling faces on balloons. We only lost two to popping! Skye was a little heavy handed, but Jack loved when the balloons "pop!" lol. I used Scotch tape to keep the balloons from wailing around.

Number of the Week: 3

We stomped our feet counting 1.. 2.. 3.. and incorporated our oppositional words (Fast and Slow). I gave lunch in 3's (3 chips at a time, a sandwich cut in 1/3's, etc) and started talking about parts and fractions with Skye (5 years old). 

Shape of the Week: Triangle

We built triangles with our food and found some outside on our walk.

Opposition Words: Fast & Slow

We practiced slow and fast with stopping our feet, running and while counting to the three. We were lucky enough to find a puddle to jump in! We stomped the water like giant, slow stomps and then fast, little, light stomps. Super fun! The kids really loved the anticipation of going slow and then really, really fast! I also practiced Stop/Go, which is the first command I teach kids as soon as they start moving. This helps with safety and I do not find myself running down isles at the store chasing the little ones. 

Animals: Pig 

On our walks we walk like various animals, so I included the pig, snorts and all. When I read the Three Little Pigs, I had the kids snort and oink every time they heard the word pig.. too funny!

We read the three little pigs to tie in the animal and number together.! The version I read ends with the Three Little Pigs helping the big, bad wolf turn his talents into something positive (blowing balloons up for children at the fair). We talked about talents and thanked God for all the gifts he has given each of us. After we read the story, I had Skye (5 years old) retell the story and asked a few critical thinking questions. Skye start Kindergarden in the fall, so much of our summer objects are to get her ready for Kindergarden, especially, focusing on reading comprehension.

Sight Words: Scat, Cat, At, Bat, Hat, Sat, Rat, Mat 

We read "Scat, Cat." For Jackson (2 years old), I had him point out the different animals in the story and make their sounds. For Skye (5 years old), I had her read all sight words as I pointed and read the other words. 

Friday the Dog wanted to learn too!

Closing Prayer: Our Father

I looked for opportunities to discuss our themes and stars (items of the week) of the week through out the day. At dinner, we do our review of the day. We talk about what we learned and what we did all day. I forgot to today, but we usually give our roses and thorns of the days or our favorite and not so favorite parts.
Well, that is the summary of our first circle time. Feel free to leave any comments or questions. As the weeks go on, I hope to become more organized and categorize our post. 

God Moment 

of the Day

Skye set up a tea party for her stuffed animals and myself, but before we clanked our tea cups... she had us pray.

Praise and Thanks be to God