The Letters M and X

Last week we studied the letter M because one of the picture books from the curriculum is the classic Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans.  We are going on a trip to France in a few weeks so this worked out perfectly. 

Along with the lesson ideas described in The Peaceful Preschool, I added a few more mini lessons:

• We created a clock with a paper plate and made the hour hand movable.  The girls practiced reading the time and finding numerals on the clock.  The poem The Moon by Robert Louis Stevenson mentions a clock face and we are using egg cartons to count to twelve so it all ties in nicely.  

Tri-fold poster we use for circle time is a work in progress.

• I incorporated moon phases using chocolate sandwich cookies and a worksheet from Teachers Pay Teachers.

• On a ridiculously hot day, I took my daughter on a nature walk.  We were looking for birds to observe and draw.  We happened to see an art bench covered in a mosaic of colorful tiles.  We went home and created a mosaic with the beans we used for a sensory bin and for counters and a moon coloring page from Teachers Pay Teachers.  

We had to move often because we kept losing our shade.

This book is amazing!  Find it here.

Mosaic art bench was a great inspiration for a new project.

A paintbrush and liquid glue keeps the mess at a minimal.

• As always, I added a religious component and we discussed the story of Moses, specifically what happened to him as a baby.  This connects the letter M and the story Are You My Mother?  by P.D. Eastman (which goes back to counting a dozen eggs).

This week we are studying the letter X.  I supplemented the lessons from our curriculum with an art activity and lots of review.

• For the art activity, I traced the girls' hands on black construction paper and let them draw their bones.  This came after we talked about an Xray machine.  I cut out their hand print and glued it on paper so they could practice writing the letter X.

I traced their hands and then they traced their own feet on the back.

• To review, they used pretzel sticks to create all the letters we've learned so far.  These also loosely resemble bones, so they were using them to represent the bones in their hands as well.