Apples Lesson Plan for Infant and toddlers

I am going to start posting hopefully at least a couple of time a week. But for now I will be posting my Infant/ Toddler lesson plans!

Infant LESSON PLAN THEME:  Apples Week of: September 21, 2014   Letter: A  Color: Green
Date	Language/ Listening	Creative Activities, Sensory	Learning from the World	Physical Development
Mon.	Song: I  like to eat apples and bananas	Green paint bag	Apples grow on trees.	Pom Poms and coffee can
Tues.	Rhyme: Say say oh playmate	Apple painting	I can eat apples. ( ASL: Eat)	1,2,3 apple steps
Wed.	Book: In My Family.	Letter a handprint art	Where did the apple go?	Velcro apple bucket
Thurs.	Book: School days.	Bucket full of green items (sensory play)	Apples taste sweet, sour, etc…	Roll like a bucket full of apples.
Fri.	Finger play: 10 little apples hanging from a tree.	Apple finger gloves.	On the tree I see…	Reach up, Reach down

Books Lesson Plan

Brookeside in home Daycare

Lesson Plan

Week:  February 24, 2014                               Theme: Books

Color:  yellow              Letter: O                    

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Morning Meet	How do we handle books?	What stories are your favorite to read?	What are characters, what do they do?	How is your story different from your friends	Week Review
Outdoor Play	Chalk and tracing	__	Create a story with items found outside	__	Racing
Free Play	Tweezers and letter matching	__	__	Dress up like your favorite character	__
Literacy/  Language	Book: Lion King	Book: Josie and the Lucky Number 7	Book:  Space Shuttle	Book: Mirror Me	Book: Animals in the Zoo
Daily Activity	Mosaic letter O	Cover page	Story and pictures	Finish up your story	Make your book

Paper Mache Moon

I was so super excited to post this activity! We are doing Nursery Rhymes this week. Today we were going to make a large moon for the classroom. I decided on a small balloon for each kiddo to make their own paper mache moon.
We first had a shredding party tearing the tissue paper apart. Once the glue is out this is impossible!

Next we dumped elmers glue on a plate added water and mixed it so it was a little thinner. Each kid grabbed their own large sponge and began applying the glue to their balloon. We did a few layers of tissue paper then glue and ended with glue.

Finally we hung them in the sun to dry.

This was a long activity that held everyones interest.
WARNING: very messy activity use a surface covering in work space.

They turned out great!

Nursery Rhymes Lesson Plan

Brookeside in home Daycare

Lesson Plan

Week:  February 18, 2014                               Theme: Nursery Rhymes

Color:  Blue                 Letter: R                     

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Morning Meet	Presidents’ Day	Letter R- Sounds and words	Nursery Rhyme Sing off	Tell us your favorite nursery rhyme	Week Review
Outdoor Play	__	Spider crawl	How far can you jump?	Sheep number match	Chalk: Nursery rhyme art
Free Play	__	Spider web and spider sensory play	__	Letter R and oats	__
Literacy/  Language	__	Book: Little Miss Muffet	Rhyme: Hey diddle, diddle	Bah, Bah, Black sheep	Humpty Dumpty
Daily Activity	__	Spider Art Work	Decorate our classroom moon	Cotton ball sheep	Humpty Dumpty activity

A Color of His Own Activity

We are behind a day because the kids decided to make friendship bracelets yesterday. That is how we do things. We try to get to all of the activities on our lesson plan but some change with request of the kids.
Today we read A Color of His Own, by Leo Lionni. I love this story and found a great activity online to make a wipe off board with a chameleon on it. They used finger paints to color it. When the kid is finished it they could wipe it off.
I decided to use what I had because this is a great art activity and science fun. I decided to use tape on the table and draw in permanent marker a chameleon for each kiddo. If you have contact paper that may be easier.
Next we used shaving cream to add to the fun and I put drops of finger paint in the shaving cream.
The kids mixed and painted for a long time.

J realized that adding more of one color changed the color making it lighter and darker. 

This was a great activity that all ages can enjoy!

Pretzels and letter practice

Catching up on this weeks fun. We are focusing on the letter F for our week theme on Friends.
Snack time is always fun at this school. We always find a way to incorporate math, letter, story time, and creativity. While eating our cheese it snack mix older A and J begin making pictures out of the different snack pieces. We then turned it into a game where each one of us would take turns calling out a letter and we would make it with our snack pieces.

They had fun making then eating it. We ate almost a whole box of cheese its!

Who says we can't play with food?

Friends Lesson plan for Valentine's

Brookeside in home Daycare

Lesson Plan

Week:  February 10, 2014                               Theme: Friendship

Color:  Red                  Letter: F                     

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Morning Meet	Letter F- Words and sound	What is your favorite activity to do with friends	All friends are different and we are all special	Friends work together	Week Review
Outdoor Play	Obstacle course for friends	Friendship train	Jump rope and counting	__	Shadow dancing
Free Play	Cut out pictures of people in magazines	Letter F tracing in red rice	__	Linking chains	__
Literacy/  Language	Song: Make new friends	Book: Zack’s Alligator Goes to School	Book:  A Color of His Own	Book: A Rainbow of Friends	Book: Big Dog Little Dog
Daily Activity	Decorate the letter F with picture cut outs	Friendship Flag	Chameleon shaving cream fun	Friendship flag ( group art work)	Make Valentine’s Day card

He is LEARNING! A very proud momma moment

I am writing this from personal experience as a mother and child care professional. Yes I said it I am a professional even though many do not view this profession as a professional job. So yes I work very hard to educate and work with each kids special way that they learn. I encourage active learning through  participation and creativity with each child in group activities and individual activities, allowing them to make choices. So  both As are girls and a lot more a like with the learning activities that they enjoy and learn from. I find myself watching them and seeing their progress daily. They are enthusiastic about my activity for the day. I feel so happy to see they are excited to learn  and actual WANT to learn. I find myself letting J who is a 4 year old boy continue his building of the city with blocks, boats out of legos, cars and trucks crashing and flying into buckets, and all the things he  loves to do. While I am at the table with the girls and working on writing practice, letter worksheets, decorating the letter of the week, math: number and shape matching and recognition ( you know the list goes on and on), J is always off on his own "playing"! ( I am a huge advocate of learning through play!) As he is doing this he answers all of my questions I am asking the girls and participates in the discussion while playing. But my focus is always on the girls because they are actively engaging in the discussions with me. I find my self saying that's right J with out even truly recognizing he DOES understand.
My true excitement came to me on Monday night. J was getting ready for bed and said " Instead of you reading, I will read my Bubble, Bubbles book to you mom." I say sounds great! He starts reading the title Bubbles, Bubbles. First page Bubbles, Bubbles on my ___. He says T-O-E-S and begins saying the sound of each letter and says toes. He continues the short story with only a few slip ups. ( I am excited even typing this!) Job well done by my 4 1/2 year old little BOY. I restate this because since he is mine it is a lot easier when in the preschool profession to focus more on the other kids and push them instead of your own. Plus I did mention they are calm attentive little girls.
So this first reading led to my J hosting story time on Tuesday morning in our classroom.
A very proud momma moment!

Puppy Chow Matching Game

This week has been all about pets and the letter of the week is S. We have so far read a bout baby animals that are domesticated, talk about our favorite pets, pretended to be a pet ( we had goldfish snacks with out using hands only our tongue), played vet and took care of the larger "animals" we have, drew pictures of our pets or the pet we really want ( every picture had a cat in it?), fed and watered the dogs and rabbit at my house ( thank you kiddos one less chore for me!), and have spent a lot of time this week on all fours being a pet ( yes even me), little A said "you can be a kitten too!" ( where went the 1990's knee pads?).

Our pictures.

Our letter matching game for the week ( These are the Letters we have practiced so far this year).
I had seen this idea as a folder game and decided to change it to our magnet fun on the side of the refrigerator. I used the punch out letter from the dollar tree and taped a magnet on the back. I then found our toy dog in the block center and super glued a small magnet to his mouth.
How we play this game is, I say the puppy want to eat the letter S sss. Then the kiddo finds the letter and picks it up with the puppy and matches the letter. It is very easy and a great way to spend your one on one time for the day.

Pets Lesson Plan "Pets make us happy!"~ J

Brookeside in home Daycare

Lesson Plan

Week:  February 3, 2014                                 Theme: Pets

Color:  Pink                 Letter: S                     

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Morning Meet	Letter S- Words and sound	Pets I have, and how they make me feel	Tell us your favorite story about you and your pet	What makes each pet different?	Week Review
Outdoor Play	Bunny hop	Four squares with large ball	Hop Scotch	__	Chalk
Free Play	Make the letter S with play dough	Math matching with playing cards	Pet sound puzzle ( Letter practice)	__	Puppy chow game ( letter matching)
Literacy/  Language	Book: Baby Animals	Song: Baby bumble bee	Book:  The Little Kitten	Song: BINGO	Book: Zack's Alligator
Daily Activity	Letter S activity sheet	Draw a picture of you and your pets	Letter S tracing	Animal foot print painting	Foil pets

The week of Emotions and E's

It is Friday. We had week that was full of Emotions. There are a lot off changes going on for each kiddo, so I figured this would be a great week for this lesson plan. I really think it is important to teach each kid how to understand each emotion and be able to tell others with words and not actions. So we have spent the week talking about how we feel, reading stories, doing art work, matching games, and dancing. Yes dancing was added into it because let me say ballroom dancing was the number 1 activity of the week.  He started with 10 and did a great job using his math skills subtracting the amount of fish the gator ate in the story. This led to J bringing out the harmonica and turning the story into a bayou song with both A's dancing.

A folder game I called Emotion matching was in our math center. I cut 8 paper plates in half, used one for the eyes that was glued onto the folder. drew different mouths on the remaining 7 plates that represent emotions such as happy, sad, scared, worried... ( you get the idea. Next printed out the words of each emotion and taped them to playing cards that I had.
To play: put a card down with the word (emotion) and they find the matching mouth to complete the face

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This week we also did our letter practice. I wrote the letter 6 times at the top of the paper in yellow they trace it in a different color chanting E says e, E E E, e e e.

We also did a little egg chomping which was named by J. This help with our mural of  Egg Eating Town which J shouted out after me requesting the town name have the word Egg and the letter E.

How are you feeling? ~ Your Majesty

This week our theme is Emotions. So we are doing the letter E and we read the book I Am Mad at You!
We talked about different things that make each of us mad and how we could handle it. J and little A helped me make a face on our magnet board. They enjoyed moving the mouth around describing the emotion with the face.

We then made sensory balloons filled with corn starch. Each kid used a permanent marker to make a face. This was fun and took a while. FYI: Very MESSY and used a cut water bottle as a funnel.

This afternoon we had the Pandora Disney radio playing. So we had two super heroes and a very distressed princess who was called " Your Majesty!" ( little A request). Older A and J were rescuing her. And then J became Iron Man and was ballroom dancing with little A. They very so great and coordinated. He was spinning and even dipped her! ( Proud momma moment).

Unsaved lesson plan

So this weeks lesson plan I must not have saved. It is posted in the classroom and the Letter of the week is I ( I need to get my head checked!). So to day we bulled out he sensory bin to practice recognition and tracing the letter I i. I used tape on the bottom and wrote a big I and little eye with a permanent marker. We added red sand ( from the dollar tree!!!) I cubes from the game don't break the Ice, and a letter I block that little A found in my cabinet ( she figure out the name of the game). Older A softly dusted off the sand and was saying what did I find Little A the letter I.

I also decided to make a I spy bottle out of the 1 liter sprite bottle we had that was about to go to recycling today. The girls helped me put each item on the white paper after i wrote the name. We searched the room for objects that had the letter I any were in the name. So the hunt was on. I think we did go through about 30 + items so this itself turned into a great lesson. I took a picture of the items to be found in the bottle and we filled it up. In the moment I didn't think about size of the object and the size of the opening in the bottle. So I cut a opening in the back and they filled the bottle up adding a few item that were not in the picture. Finally tape the opening and I spy bottle was finished for discovery center.