The Very Lonely Firefly

For our study on "Investigating Light," one of the books we read was The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle. 

After reading the book, we made fingerprint fireflies. Using yellow paint, we made fingerprints on black construction paper. Then, after it dried, we drew in the details. Here is an example of the one I made.

We also took a piece of cardboard and poked holes in it. Then, we turned off the lights and shined a flashlight through the holes to make it look like fireflies lighting up.

The kids really enjoyed this unit, especially when we turned off the lights to make shadows and paint with glow in the dark paint!

Sight Word Sensory Hunt

We have recently begun a study on food and grocery store, so here is one of our activities. In the sensory table, I placed spiral pasta, foam letters, and various scoops, shovels, etc. Then, I added some sight words onto a bulletin board right above. The children are to hunt out the letters to try to spell their sight words. Not only does this give them practice with sight words, but alphabet recognition as well.

Also, I chose these sight words intentionally to reinforce what they have been learning on the bus.

Bulletin Board Ideas

Here are a couple of the bulletin boards we have up outside the classroom. The first one focuses on our transportation unit. There is some of the children's work posted. It was a project where they had to tell how they come to school, by bus, car, truck, etc. and then cut out that vehicle and glue it on the paper. I also added some strips of paper that have objectives listed that relate to what the children learned and on the outside, I posted some photos from our wrap-up celebration of our study when parents were invited to come and race remote control vehicles with their children. 

These are our patterns we made using different color light bulb cutouts for our "Investigating Light" study. As you can see at the bottom center the one that is all blue, one friend got creative and decided to cut out and glue on his own light bulb. Although he didn't create a color pattern with it, I felt that it was worth displaying as he took it upon himself to extend the activity.

I like how both of these turned out with the bright colors. I felt that they really stand out!

Post Office Trip

We took a field trip to the local post office a couple weeks ago. Here are some of the pictures. Luckily, we were able to see the distribution center instead of just the post office itself. It was really cool to see how they sort the mail and get it ready for the mail carriers. I think the kids learned a lot.

She was showing us all of the gear they have to wear in the winter to keep warm.

All the bins where the packages (presents) get sorted.

Our "tour guide" mail carrier was very friendly and so good with the kids. She made it exciting and let the kids ask questions. She was very patient as well. She really made it a great field trip for all!

As a follow-up activity, we turned our writing area into a mail center where the kids can write a letter to a friend and put it in the mailbox. There is even a place to write the friend's name and address on the cards.

This was a very informative lesson and I would recommend a field trip to your local post office to any preschool age classroom!