Our PreSchool Blog

We had a blast this week celebrating Dr. Seuss’ birthday! Each day we chose one of his books to focus our lessons and snacks around. These books included: Horton Hears a Who, The Lorax, Wacky Wednesday, Hop on Pop, and The Cat in the Hat.

Monday: Horton Hears a Who

We made our own snack to represent the clover Horton carries!

Tuesday: The Lorax 

We planted green bean seeds in our Lorax cups!

Fine motor truffula trees

Truffula seeds (aka Trix cereal) for snack!

Wednesday: Wacky Wednesday

The kids and teachers dressed “wacky” for the day, even the classroom was “wacky”!

Coloring under the tables… How wacky!

“Wacking” specific letters with a fly swatter!

Wacky Wednesday snack:  jell-o that appears to be red koolaid! We tricked them all!

Thursday: Hop on Pop

We practiced our rhyming skills by hopping on words that rhymed and trying to pop the bubble wrap!

Popcorn snack!

Friday: Cat in the Hat

Dr. Seuss sensory tubs!

We had so much fun celebrating Dr. Seuss’ birthday today!  We read Dr. Seuss books, completed a rhyming activity, did a Cat in the Hat name building craft, and played Dr. Seuss bingo! The children were able to enjoy a delicious Cat in the Hat snack as well!

Rhyming Game at Our Literacy Center

Block-Rock

Truck-Duck

We introduced the topic of rhyming last week in Preschool.  Rhyming is a tougher concept to learn than many people think.  Some children pick up on it very quickly while other need a lot of practice.  We played a rhyming matching game in small groups and the children now have the opportunity to play the game independently at the Literacy Center during free choice time.

Why do we teach rhyming words? Of course they’re fun to say, but the concept provides educational benefits as well. Learning word families that sound and end the same help with decoding words in text as your child begins to read. If a child knows the word “cat” and she understands word families (or rhyming words), she will likely be able to figure out words such as hat, sat, bat and mat as she reads.  Preschool is a wonderful time to introduce the concept of a rhyme so that later when word families are introduced, the concept will be easily understood.

Picture books with rhyming patterns are easy to find on the shelves of the library and offer a fun way to introduce the concept of rhyming. As you read the book to your child, emphasize the rhyming words. After you have read the book, mention that it contains pairs of words that sound the same. After rereading the first line with rhyming words, ask your kids to identify the pair that sounds the same. Continue reading, asking them to listen for rhyming pairs. A stop sign cut from red construction paper is a fun way for them to let you know they hear a pair. When they hear two words that sound the same in the text, the stop sign goes up so you can identify the pair. Here are some Books that are full of rhyming words to get you started:

• Dr. Seuss books
• Books by Sandra Boynton
• Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
• Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet Ahlberg
• Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw
• Down by the Bay by Raffi

Your  librarian can suggest more rhyming books that are at the correct age level for your children.