"I love school" Thank You Calendar Time

(31 Months)

My cheeks hurt from grinning like the Cheshire Cat.  We had our first Calendar Time this morning and the kidabunks loved it.  They even sat on their mats, listened to directions and followed instructions.  I'm telling you this school board is magical - WILD ONE sat still (well, for a little while).

We began by inviting them over to sit on their mats with a special friend.  Little Miss chose one of her tiny teddy bears and Wild One choose his blue nosed puppy.  So far, so good.  Next, I introduced them to the school board and let them just look it over.  We began at the top, I told them today's date.  Then we clapped to ten.

We sang the Days of the Week song.  I tried to explain the concepts of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.   They took turns placing each of the place holders in their respective days.  We looked out the window and saw that it was sunny and beautiful, then we looked at each of the symbols and put on the correct sunny card on Monday.  We talked about Summer and how the weather is really warm, and all of the fun things that we do in summer.

Next we looked at what we'll be working on this week.  We sang the Leap Frog song, "the E says eh, the E says eh.  Every letter makes a sound, the E says eh."  I pointed to the word pink and then asked the kiddos that on the count of three to try and find two things that are pink.  Little Miss quickly ran and grabbed a big and small Abby Cadaby and Wild One found a big and small pig.  

Then we discussed the rectangle and we went around the room grabbing objects that are rectangular (books, lids, sheets of paper, a shoe box, picture frames, the cookie trays...).  We practiced saying "at" and I said we'll come back to that one later.  

We sang the Months of the Year song, while pointing out each month on the board.  Wild One decided that he wanted to point out the names of the months while we were singing.

We read the poster All About Number 2, and then we went off finding pairs of objects.  We made a huge mess, my fault- I should have said just find one pair of objects.  I was brought animals, trains, pillows, coffee/tea cups, books...  I'll try and remember tomorrow to just let them show and tell two sets each.

We played point to the shape on the Shape poster.  We didn't spend much time on it, I noticed that I started losing their attention.

Then we moved onto the _at blocks.  I was so surprised at how quickly Wild One picked it up.  He loved playing school and kept wanting to say the word over and over again.  I'm so proud of my little man.  Little Miss decided it was time for her baby to eat breakfast, so she began cooking for her in their kitchen.  I noticed that she was watching her brother while cooking.

These were so easy to put together.  I didn't write on the blocks themselves.  I placed tape on the blocks and then wrote on the tape (that way we can use the blocks for other word families).

After we finished with the blocks, Little Miss came over and wanted to play.  I asked Wild One to show his sister what he was working on.  He lit up and said "I do school!"  He told his sister that a-t is at.  Look at my little teacher!  I'm so proud.

We played again with our Pinkalicious play-doh.  We made sandwiches, pancakes, faces, poked holes with pretend carrots, made textured patterns with pretend corn, and then it was time for lunch.  What a fun morning!