Ah, the letter Z.  The final letter in our alphabet journey.

Of course, we had to start with our book flood.  This week our library featured stories about zebras, zoos, zucchini (yes there is more than one children’s book about zucchini), and zig zags.

We worked on letter formation with dot stickers, pattern blocks, playdough, and of course, q-tips with paint.

Our favorite zoo book was Never Play Music Right Next to the Zoo.  We used our imaginations and creativity to make our own zoo pictures, wrap yarn around zoo animals, and help the animals in our mazes find the zoo.

 

Zink the Zebra taught us that even though we are different, we are all special.  We painted zebras (some had stripes and some had spots, like Zink did), made zebra pattern bracelets, and counted zebras.

Our book, Zig Zag, had lots of zany poems that made us giggle.  We explored with lots of different zig zag activities: cutting zig zag lines, ordering zig zags, playing with cars on zig zag roads, and using zig zag scissors to make a collage.

Zucchini was the star of our cooking show this week.  We made delicious zucchini bread!  No one could believe that vegetables could taste so yummy!

It’s been a pleasure to learn and play our way through the alphabet with your students.

Our classroom had a great time exploring the letter Y!  We began with our book flood, reading about yellow, yaks, yo-yos and yarn!

To practice our letter formation we used: q-tips and paint, pattern blocks, magnets, markers, play-doh, stickers, and toothpicks.

      

We identified words that start with our /y/ sound and made our Itsy Bitsy Letter Y Books.

After reading Yellow Ball and Yellow Time, we made a yellow collage.

 

A little girl named Anabelle taught us about kindness and generosity in the story, Extra Yarn.  We used our own yarn to make a web with each other and a letter y out of yarn.

Possibly the most fun was playing with our emoji yo-yos!

I apologize for not having pictures of many of our activities, including cooking yellow cake!  I assure you it was just as yummy without a picture.  🙂

Onward to our last letter: Z!

The letter X took us on many adventures this week!  We read books about Xylophones, X-rays and treasure maps (because X marks the spot!)

To work on letter formation, we used dry erase markers, pattern blocks, stickers, and q-tips and paint.

Our most delicious Xs were made of cookie dough!

After we read about Xavier Ox’s Xylophone Experiment, we took turns exploring the sounds of a xylophone.

 

Then we used xylophones to work on our colors, fine motor skills, ordering and crafts!

 

After reading several books about treasure maps, we discovered a map of the school that led us to an X marked package.  Our treasure was glitter chalk!

We took what we learned and made our own treasure maps back in the classroom.

We read several books about x-rays and got to see some real x-rays as well.  Then we made a pretend X-ray of our hand!

It was an eXcellent week!

Wow!  What a wonderful week!  The letter W brought us all sorts of wacky fun!  We read books about weather, waffles, woodpeckers, watermelon and more.

The Watermelon Seed told us a silly story about growing a watermelon in your belly.  The students laughed a lot and made their own watermelon slices using torn paper and paper plates.

We also strengthened our math skills by counting the seeds in each wedge of watermelon and matching it with the right number.

Diary of a Worm is a great book that is written from a worm’s perspective.  Using paint and tissue paper, we made a picture of a worm living underground.

Matching worms with rulers helped us get some early measurement practice in.

Little White Fish and Little White Rabbit each told us a story about a white animal.  We found white objects in our craft supplies in the classroom and used them to make a collage on a white letter W.

Weather was a great nonfiction book that explained a lot about clouds, rain, wind and sun.  We made our own weather books to bring home and share with our parents.  Words can’t express how proud I am of these students.  Their coloring, cutting, and gluing has come SO far this year.  This is definitely a fourth quarter activity, since we didn’t have these skills at the beginning of the year!

 

In addition to practicing letter formation,

 

we also glued wagon wheels on a w,

made words out of clothespins,

and counted spiders on webs.

And don’t forget our delicious waffles!

Yum!

The letter V fed our voracious appetites for letter fun!

We read books about vegetables, volcanoes, veterinarians and violets.

A Violin for Elva taught us about patience and perseverance.  (I apologize if all the students went home and asked their parents for violins.  But only a little bit.)

Eruption!, a nonfiction book about volcanoes taught us lots of fun facts.  We followed that up with a few video clips of volcanoes erupting to see what it might be like.  We used magnets to complete volcano pictures and our fine motor skills to make a picture of our own.

Growing Vegetable Soup took us from the garden to the table and inspired us to make our own vegetable soup.  It was delicious!

   

We also matched vegetables, made patterns and graphed with them!

If I were a Veternarian helped us use our imaginations about what life might be like as a vet.  We made vet pictures and also played vet clinic this week!

Bug in a Vacuum told us a story in pictures and words about what it might be like to be trapped in a vacuum.  Then we used our gross motor skills to practice cleaning up!

We learned about violets and painted some flowers of our own, then put them in a vase to make a beautiful picture!

 

Last but not least (and completely unrelated to our letter), we celebrated our musical success with all our picnic items!

Another letter is in the books!

I am really enjoying celebrating this beautiful time of year with the students.  We have learned so much about Easter and Spring over the past few days!

First we read the story of the Resurrection (and learned that very important word.  Our third grade buddies helped us do a painting that revealed a secret message when you were finished!

We also made Resurrection Rolls!  We used the story of Jesus’ death and Resurrection as part of our recipe.  First we dipped our marshmallows (Jesus’ body) in butter (oil), then we added cinnamon and sugar (spices).  Next we laid our marshmallows in the tomb (crescent roll dough) and sealed it up.  Then we baked it (or waited three days) and the tomb was empty!  Bonus, they were also delicious!

We also learned about Easter lilies and why we used them to decorate the Church.  Then we made our own lily using construction paper and creativity!

We read many stories about Easter Eggs, but one in particular inspired our crafts.  We read The Great Big, Especially Beautiful Easter Egg and then made some of our own!

We also worked together to match Easter eggs with our names on them,

put upper and lowercase letters together,

used clothespins to match pom pom colors to eggs,

matched numbers to dots,

and decorated eggs with glitter glue and stamps.

After all our egg activities, we moved onto bunnies!  We made bunny faces with paint and glitter, painted bunnies using “bunny tails”, and matched bunny tails to their bunny!

   

To celebrate spring in particular, we made nests out of paper and added blue eggs, made mixed media chick pictures, and created a spring image using colors and stickers.

It has been a lovely week of springy Easter fun!

 

 

This week we learned about all the special days of Holy Week.  We started out with reading the story of Palm Sunday and making our own palms.

We waved our palms and shouted “Hosanna!” as we took turns going along our palm alphabet path.

In station work, we continued to be inspired by Palm Sunday.  We cut slits on our palms, used playdough to complete a picture of people in the crowd, created a palm and cloak pattern path and used magnets to finish the picture of the donkey.

Next we learned about Holy Thursday.  We baked unleavened bread and had a feast with PK4.

We also made a pattern out of feet and water to represent Jesus’s washing of the feet and set up a table scene using blocks and peg disciples.

Finally, we learned about Good Friday.  We painted three cross negative tape paintings, drew three crosses on the hill, matched pictures of the stations of the cross, and made magnet and toothpick crosses.

 

We also attended stations of the cross with the school on Thursday.  It was a beautiful week of learning about our faith and the special significance of Holy Week.  I look forward to celebrating the Easter Season next week with the students.

We had an unusual week with the letter U!  There were so many fun ideas to explore.  We started with our customary book flood to get an idea of some words that begin with the letter u: unicorns, upside down, unicycles, underwear, umbrellas.

  

After doing some hands on practice with our wooden letter pieces, we worked on our letter formation in a variety of other ways: qtips and paint,

pattern blocks,

dot markers,

magnets,

and dry erase markers.

Our first concept for the letter u involved a lot spatial reasoning.  We read Inside, Outside, Upside Down and learned about placement words.  Our third grade buddies helped us by tracing our bodies and then hanging them upside down in our hallway (if you haven’t walked in our hall since they’ve gone up you definitely should.  They’re adorable.)

We also made an upside down cake!  It gave us the opportunity to discuss how the ingredients we put in on the bottom were actually on the top when we turned it upside down.

Next we read about The Big Umbrella.  This friendly umbrella gets big enough to shelter everyone from the rain.  We drew our own umbrellas with people under them for our journals, painted umbrellas with dot markers, made umbrella patterns and counted our raindrops for our umbrellas in stations.

 

We read about Polar Bear’s Underwear and learned how different animals had different underwear based on what they liked.  We decorated a picture of underwear with colors and stickers of things we like!

Of course, no u week would be complete without the magical unicorn.  We read a story about two friends (Unicorn and Goat) who had some jealous feelings, but then learned how to be nice and work together to be the best.  That inspired us to make our own beautiful unicorns and give a unicorn some rainbow hair.

It has been a uplifting week with the letter U!  Next week we will take a break from letters and focus on Holy Week.

For five whole days we’ve seen and read,

listened, looked and rhymed.

These stories from an author’s head,

have helped us all in kind.

They’ve made us laugh,

they’ve made us giggle.

And don’t forget by more than half,

they’ve also made us wiggle.

And so we’ve learned

and we have listened.

Kudos earned,

and new words christened.

 

We started off as many do,

with The Cat in the Hat.

We laughed at Things 1 and 2,

while spellbound we sat.

We set our minds to the task,

of working our fingers out.

They helped us make funny masks,

 

and characters we did count.

We noticed the pattern on his hat

and counted stripes with glue.

Then with dot markers we sat,

and painted some hair blue.

 

We next read Ten Apples Up on Top,

and laughed as we counted with care.

Mrs. Harrison’s absence didn’t make us stop,

although there are no photos to share.

 

One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

gave us a laugh or two.

We graphed crackers as we wished,

and tore paper, red and blue.

Tiny toothpicks helped us poke,

a fish outline with head.

We made a picture of the title spoke,

Two fish, one blue, one red.

 

Sam I am convinced us to try,

a dish so colorful and new.

To our eggs we added dye,

which made a nice green hue.

 

We scrambled them up

and they started to cook.

Then on green eggs we did sup,

despite their funny look.

Afterwards we used a chart,

to track our yeses and nos.

It isn’t quite a work of art,

but we make enough of those!

 

We learned so many words that rhyme,

a concept on which we did latch.

We drew a card then in good time,

we hopped onto its match.

 

Reading Fox in Socks inspired,

more donations to our drive.

Your generosity is much admired,

and our Lenten project does thrive.

We made a friendly foxy face,

and painted his socks blue.

And then we matched socks in a race,

We tossed them in boxes too.

 

Unrelated to the good doctor,

we had a special guest.

A robot and a program author,

We think engineers are the best!

 

That concludes our week in review,

a good time was had in PreK3.

To Dr. Seuss’s legacy we stayed true,

complete with rhymes made by me.  😉

The letter S was good to us this week!  We explored lots of books about spiders, snakes, snails, starfish, and more.

We practiced our letter S formation using paints and q-tips and magnets.  Although not pictured, we also used markers, dot daubers, star stickers and q-tips.

 

We learned about snakes and made some beautiful ones with sequin scales.

We also used some egg cartons (thanks for those donations!) to make our own little snakes.

The Eensy Weensy Spider taught us about the importance of trying hard things.  We celebrated that lesson by making spider finger puppets of our own!

One of our most fun activities this week was building with styrofoam and popsicle sticks.  We have some VERY creative kids in our class!

 

We took a break from baking this week and decided to make salsa!  It was delicious!

 

As always, it was a great week!