* I Can Read

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

* Number Sense & Counting

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Counting
It all starts with COUNTING. Let children count all kinds of stuff they see during their play. Use simple counting games, such as:

Have a deck of regular playing cards minus the picture cards. Each person draws a card. The one with a higher number wins all the cards played in that round. This can teach both number recognition and counting, because the child can count those little pictures (hearts, spades, clubs, or diamonds) on the card.

A variation of the one above: deal two cards to each person. The person with a higher TOTAL wins all the cards played in that round. Children will learn basic addition!

Use any board game. Have the markers advance as many steps as a die or dice show. The child will need to count the dots on the die or dice, and then count steps to move his marker.

Lay a bunch of dominoes face down on the table. A child picks one, you pick one. The person with a higher "dot-count" gets both dominoes.

Lay a bunch of dominoes face UP on the table. A child picks one and places it on the table to start the "train". The next person picks one so that its end matches one end of a domino already laid.
Play with marbles or blocks or similar objects. You take some objects, and ask the child to take for himself as many as you have AND ONE more. Then it's the child's turn to take some, and you need to take the same amount plus one more. Reverse the game later to do ONE LESS.

* You Brush Your Teeth

Make a Smilebox slideshow

* The Wheels on the Bus

Riding the bus is always more than half the fun! We had a great bus driver. He did all the actions to the song "The Wheels on the Bus." He called "Move on back" in his mic, made the wipers swish swish, honked the horn, and bounced up and down. It was a great ride!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

* Our Very Mixed Up Field Trip!

Thank you Union Bldg Bowling Ally for letting us come!
Thank you volunteers for coming and helping!
Thank you Mrs. Probert for paying for our games!
Thank you our Teacher Friend for making arrangements for us!
Thank you boys and girls for learning step by step.

Read the story below the Smile Box Slide Show... to learn about our
Very Mixed Up Day!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

It was a crazy day!

Last August Mrs. Probert scheduled a field trip with the University Art Department. We were going to learn how to make a print stone and make many prints from it! The day of the trip, we were all ready to go. Permission slips signed. Parent volunteers were ready in the classroom. The bus was parked out front... Then, just before we were to leave, Mrs. Probert heard the phone ring. It was the University. They canceled our field trip. The teacher could not come and teach the art project.

What will we do?

We talked to the Principal. He asked us to think of a new place to go.

First we thought it would be fun to go sky diving! Yup! Sky diving.... we would have to get an airplane, parachutes.... new permission slips. But, wait... one of the boys in our class is afraid of heights... so we decided NOT to go sky diving. That made our teacher smile.

We were beginning to think we would just go to the park and play together. Then our teacher's friend (who teaches kindergarten) had a great idea to call the university bowling alley. We crossed our fingers, hoping they would be able to have us bowl there!

Yes! They said we could come. They would only charge us for the games we bowled ($1.50/game) and not charge us for shoes. That made our teacher smile, because she was paying for all of us. (Our other field trip was free).

We were sooooo excited! What size of shoe does everyone wear? Lots of little shoes to get... Lots of shoes to untie and tie! Have you ever bowled? Many of us had not! So, we had a lot to learn. We had to learn to take turns and to watch our score. We really didn't care about our score, we just had fun bowling together!

A big thank you to one of our volunteer dad's who came and helped when our lane was stalled! (This happened alot because we threw our ball too soon sometimes!)

Thanks for a happy ending!

* Duck Pond

We had a few minutes before the bus would arrive to take us back to school so we decided to walk down to the duck pond and see the ducks!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

* Puppeteer Assembly

We enjoyed several short plays with the help of some students from the audience. We also enjoyed the puppet play "The Dinosaur Egg." We learned that it is important to learn to read and write so we can write stories. Without a story, there is no puppet show! We are happy we are learning letters, sounds and words. Someday we might be a puppeteer!

Make a Smilebox slideshow