M week: Friday

Today we made masks. I looked online to find a cute (hopefully Martha Stewart kids) pattern for making cute masks. Nothing super cute, but I found a great website with craft ideas for all holidays and themes. It's called Enchanted Learning. The crafts are a little cheesey and pretty basic, but that's good for the 3 year old age group.

These are the groundhog masks we made today. I figured that Groundhog day is only 2 weeks away, so we could make our masks for M week, then anticipate Groundhog day, learning what it's all about.

We also painted with marbles. We put paper in a small container with paint and marbles and shook it all around, making some interesting paintings. Maybe we'll write notes on them and mail them to friends or family.

M week: Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday

TUESDAY

We learned the names of the coins with a cute little song (you can hear part of it here). We sorted a pile of coins and talked about who is pictured on them. Sad, but I had to go to Wikipedia to find out who was on the dime. I don't think I'd ever figured it out. We also read a little "book" online about where money is made (find "Birth of a Coin" here). We said, "money is made in a mint" 10 times fast! Lots of M's.

WEDNESDAY

I told Connor briefly the story of Moses. We had a couple of pictures in our Gospel Art Picture kit, but I didn't have a book about it. I should have found one. Not a very exciting preschool day, but at least when he hears the story of Moses at Church it'll sound familiar.

THURSDAY

We did some movement and music activities today. When Connor saw that I'd pulled out some of our song visual aids for preschool today he shot his arm into the air and said, "Yay!" We sang The Ants go Marching... and Old Macdonald. Connor had fun marching around the room.

We also looked on the map and found Spain, Maine, and Africa, which are mentioned in our poem, "The Magic Carpet."

M week: Monday

We didn't officially do preschool today because I wasn't quite finished planning. I was going to get out the magnifying glasses and magnets and let Connor explore with them and write down some of his observations. Kind of teach him about Scientific observation a little bit. We'll do that another day.

But Connor did learn a valuable lesson about magnets today. He got a big magnet off the fridge and was testing it out to see what it would stick to. I walked into the living room to see him sticking it on the front of the TV. Oops! We had a talk about how that makes the colors inside the television not work correctly (that's about as much as I understand) and that we should never put magnets on the TV. He had no idea, but he definitely saw the results of his experiment and he won't be doing that again.

M week: plans

Here are the plans for M week:

word cards: magnet, mirror, mountain, monkey, mother
poem:

Magic Carpet
by Shel Silverstein

You have a magic carpet
That will whiz you through the air,
To Spain or Maine or Africa
If you just tell it where.
So will you let it take you
Where you've never been before,
Or will you buy some drapes to match
And use it
On your
Floor?

Monday (science): magnification & magnetics. We'll play and discover with magnifying glasses and magnets.

Tuesday (math): money. We'll learn the names of the coins and who's pictured on them.

Wednesday (scriptures/Gospel): Moses. I'll teach him the story of Moses. If I can get it, we'll watch Prince of Egypt this week sometime.

Thursday (movement/music): marching/music. Movement activities to review left and right. We'll also include the Spanish songs we've learned at Spanish class to review the names of body parts.

Friday (art project): masks. We'll make masks and decorate them.

Other M words that might come up or spark ideas for activities: moon, mouse, microphone, mittens, matching, Mickey Mouse, month, mammals.

A few books:
Are you my Mother? by P.D. Eastman
If you give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff
The Mitten by Jan Brett
Marsupial Sue by John Lithgow