by Macky & Veronica | Apr 28, 2018 | Preschool
This week we continued working with the “Zoo Animals and their habitat” unit. So, this week we talked about animals that live in the Desert like the rattle snake, lizard, scorpion, fox, and camel. They learned what a desert habitat is and the special adaptations that help living things survive in areas of dry land that get very little rain. Also, they learned how some animals stay cool in the hot temperatures and how nocturnal animals save their energy during the day and become active at night. Children learned that lizards do not need to drink water because the water they need is obtained from the insects they eat, as well they learned that the rattle snakes hide under the sand to protect themselves from the sun. The fox goes out to hunt his predators at night. They also learned that the desert is very hot for the day and it is very cold night. Vocabulary learned this week:
Serpiente cascabel/rattle snake,
Lagartija/lizard,
Zorro/fox,
Escorpion/scorpion,
Camello/camel,
Desierto/desert,
Caliente/hot,
Frio/cold,
Dia/day,
Noche/night,
Arena/sand.
Children worked on activities like making rattlesnakes decorating with glitter and small brown circles. They also made a model where they decorated with characteristic elements of the desert. They put both the vegetation and the animals.
This week was full of fun with an excellent walk around the zoo, where the children were able to enjoy the wonders that this offers us: the animals and its “modus vivendi” Latin phrase that means “way of life “. And at the end of our week we were able to enjoy the children’s day, where children could enjoy games and surprises. “Dia del Nino” Mexican culture was one of the first around the world to dedicate a whole day to children. Other countries picked up on the celebration years later when the Declaration of the rights of the child was proclaimed by the General Assembly Resolution 1386 on November 20, 1959. This day is now known as “Universal Children’s Day.”
Mexican Children’s Day and Universal Children’s Day follow the same line of thought: “A day of worldwide fraternity and understanding between children and a day of activity devoted to promoting the ideals and objectives of the Charter and the welfare of the children of the world.”
Then, we celebrate them with specials events inviting parents to celebrate with them during the school hour. Some activities include music, face painting, games, art, contest and prizes. During this day children are recognizing as in important part of society, so the day focuses on the importance of loving, accepting and appreciating children.
Letras
We continued reviewing the letters that they have learned in the past weeks (A,E,I,O,U, M, N, S, T, P, L, V, B, K, R, C, F, H,Q, W,). We played games to find letters in the books and we played letter games in teams.
Números
This week we continued working with number 11 / once. We had a fun time playing and using different items for sorting and counting. We did activities such as look around the classroom and find number 11. Coloring the number 11 and draw it.
La Figura y Color
Color and shape are ways children observe and categorize what they see. These very recognizable characteristics encourage children to define and organize the diverse world around them. So, this week we continued working with diamond /diamante shape. The kids could play games as matching shapes, trace shapes and recognize it. Then, kids were reinforcing the colors that they learned as rojo/red, azul/blue, verde/green, amarillo/yellow, purpura/purple, anaranjado o naranja/orange, and café/brown.
Have a good weekend!
Macky J
by Macky & Veronica | Apr 21, 2018 | Preschool
This week we continued working with the “Zoo Animals and their habitat” unit. We focused on animals that live in the Antarctic:polar bear, penguin, and walrus. They learned that arctic animals are those that live in the Arctic region of the world which is located in the northernmost part of the Earth. It consists of the Arctic ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Alaska, and a few Nordic countries. The arctic animals are specially adapted to life in this unique region of the world. As well, they learned that polar animals are in danger since people dump garbage in the artic and polar animals eat garbage and get sick. After reading books about these animals we did a different crafts related to arctic animals: polar bear, shapes of penguins, and a walrus craft. We had a lot of fun learning about arctic animals.
Vocabulary learned this week:
Peligro/danger,
Artico/arctic,
Basura/garbage,
Enfermo/sick,
Oso polar/polar bear,
Ping”uino/penguin,
Morsa/walrus.
The children were very interested on the subject and very willing to protect the polar animals by trying to keep our earth clean. (Perfect thoughts around Earth Day!) 
Letras
We reviewed the letters that they have learned in the past weeks (A,E,I,O,U, M, N, S, T, P, L, V, B, K, R,
C, F, H,Q, W,). We played games to find letters in the books and looking into letters soup, as well, before they left the classroom, we reviewed the letters placed in our letters tree.
Números
This week we worked with number 11 (once). We had a fun time playing and using some items for sorting and counting. Sorting helps children see differences and similarities. We did activities such as counting little buttons, bears and blocks. They also worked on writing the number by tracing it.
La Figura y Color
This week we learned about the diamond /diamante shape. The kiddos played with the shape by tracing it with their fingers and lacing it. Also, the kiddos continued reinforcing the colors names that they have learned: rojo/red, azul/blue, verde/green, amarillo/yellow, purpura/purple, anaranjado o naranja/orange, and café/brown.
Have a good weekend!
Macky J
by Macky & Veronica | Apr 15, 2018 | Preschool
“Spring would not be spring without bird songs”-Francis M. Chapman.
This month we started with a new topic “The Zoo”.We will be learning about the different animals that are present in our world today. Many of these animals can usually be observed in zoos. Therefore, we are introducing them the different zoo animals and their habitat, then the children will be ready for their trip to the zoo. This week, we worked with the jungle animals;
Leon/lion,
jirafa/Giraffe,
Elefante/elephant,
Mono/monkey,
Hipopotamo/ hippopotamus,
Rinoceronte/rhinoceront,
cebra/zebra.
Children did different activities such as; paper plate elephants, giraffes, and lions. As well we played the sound game, it is a nice teaching technique to inform the kiddos of the different sounds that animals make. We showed them a picture and asked them to listen to an animal sound, then they had to guess the animal sound. To finish this week, the children enjoyed their snack in the jungle, surrounded by animals, such as monkeys, snakes, and macaws. They were very excited eating some delicious bananas
LETRAS
This week we learned all about the letter Zz/ letra Zz. Be sure to point out the letter that we practice when you are reading. The letter sounds are different in Spanish and English. The Spanish letter Z makes for of an /s/ sound. Some examples:
Zapato/shoe,
Zanahoria/carrot,
Zorro/fox,
Zorrillo/skunk.
We did activities such as tracing the letter, coloring and letter recognition.
Números
This week the kiddos continued learning the number addition 1-10. We did different activities like counting and recognizing the numbers. We worked with little bears where we placed a piece of paper with a number and then the kids needed to recognize each number placing quantities next to the numbers. Then they did addition/sumas counting buttons and different animals. They did a good job with addition.
La Figura y El Color
This week we started working with diamond shape (diamante), and we introduce a new color, cafe (brown). The kids were coloring sheets of zoo animals like the elefent (elefante), tiger (tigre), hippotamus (hipopotamo), and giraffe (jirafa), using the colors they have learned. Also, they were practicing their fine motor skills lacing shapes (circle, square, rectangle, oval, start, heart, triangle and diamond).
Have a good weekend!
by Macky & Veronica | Mar 30, 2018 | Preschool
This week we continued to work with “The Ocean” Unit. Children learned more about the marine life, like the Starfish, seahorse, and seashells. We had fun with our handmade crafts!
The kiddos should know that starfish (or sea stars) are not fish, even though their name includes the word “fish”. Sea Stars come in many different bright colors and usually have 5 arms. They also learned know that, a seahorse isn’t a horse at all, but an extremely unique fish. Seahorses use their tails for grasping underwater plants to anchor themselves in place. They hold onto coral and sea grasses and camouflage themselves by changing color to hide from predators. Seahorses don’t have many predators, but some crabs and fish will pray on them. Also, we learned another surprising fact about seahorses is that the male carries the babies. The female lays the eggs in a pouch, sort of like that of a kangaroo, in the male’s stomach. He then carries the eggs until they hatch, usually two to four weeks later. We used many different materials while working with our crafts and practicing our fine motor skills with different textures. At the end of the week we painted seashells our favorite color. This was such a fun unit for everyone!
The new vocabulary that they learned this week was:
Caballito de mar/ seahorse,
Estrella de mar/starfish,
Concha de mar/sea Shell.
LETRAS
This week we learned all about the letter Hh/ letra Hh. Be sure to point out the letter that we practice when you are reading. This is a silent letter in Spanish. There are many words that begin with this letter but it makes no sound. Some examples:
Hilo/thread,
Helado/ice cream,
Hojas/leaves,
Hueso/bone.
We had fun learn the formation of the letter “H” with coloring, letter recognition and fine motor letter practice tracing the letter “H”.
NÚMEROS
This week we continued working with addition 1-5 and 1-8. Addition helps kids master the relationship between numbers and understand how quantities relate to one another. We worked with kids doing different activities with our collection of manipulatives (this week we used sea animals and circles shapes). They did a great job practicing their addition with hands-on manipulatives.
La Figura y El Color
This week we were reviewing all shapes that kids are learning; circle/circulo, square/cuadrado, triangle/triangulo, rectangle/rectangulo, oval/ovalo, heart/corazon, and star/estrella. Also, the kids worked on their starfish craft as well as, painting sea shells with free coloring, at the same time they reviewed our colors; rojo/red, azul/blue, verde/green, amarillo/yellow, purpura/purple, anaranjado o naranja/orange, and pink/Rosado. Also, they continued practicing their fine motor skills by lacing circle, square, rectangle, oval, start, heart, and triangle shapes.
Have a good weekend!
Macky J
by Macky & Veronica | Mar 24, 2018 | Preschool
EL OCEANO
This week we continued working with our “Ocean” Unit. The Oceans are very important to us as they cover about seventy (70) percent on the Earth’s water supply. They have the tallest mountains and the deepest valleys. Oceans affect weather and temperature, provide food, and a certain amount (approximately between 70 and 80 percent) of oxygen is produced by marine plants. So, it is important that children learn about it, and at the same time children will keep enjoying the ocean and its animals.
This week we had fun with beach-inspired activities and games such as: jellyfish/medusa, marine turtle/tortugas marinas and crab/cangrejo. Children learned the life cycle of a sea turtle. They learned that sea turtles are one of the only existing animals that’s been around since the age of dinosaurs. The life cycle of the sea turtle is a long journey and only a few survive. While the sea turtles can live up to 80 years, they start out as small eggs buried in the sand. As well, they learned about the nesting and hatchlings: the female sea turtle will come to shore and dig a hole in the sand to lay between 50-200 eggs. She then buries the hole and heads back to the ocean. Around two months or 60 days later, the baby turtles break through their shells and dig out of the sand. They then must make their way to the ocean. The babies usually do this at night to avoid animals who might want to eat them, like crabs and birds. Once a baby reaches the water, it swims nearly non-stop to escape shore. If a baby sea turtle survives its trip to the open ocean, it gets caught by the current and floats around for miles feeding on algae and seaweed. The children were very interested in learning about the life cycle of a sea turtles.
LETRAS
This week we learned all about the letter Qq/ letra Qq. Be sure to point out the letter that we practice 
when you are reading. The English letter Q(kiu). While the Spanish pronunciation is; Q (coo, always followed by “u” then followed by “e” or “i”. The combination “qu”, in Spanish is always a “kuh” sound que, quien, quiero). Some examples:
Queso/cheese,
Quetzal/, quetzal,
Quitasol/umbrella,
Quince/fifteen
We did a variety of activities that the kiddos enjoyed since they had a variety of ways to learn the letter “Q” like letters games, coloring, letter recognition, fine motor and letter practice using sugar to write the letter into it and hands-on tracing letter.
NÚMEROS
This week we continued working with addition 1-10. We really dove in with the kids this week on understanding the concept of addition. We have been working with numbers 1 through 10 and number combinations. Now they know what happens when they add two numbers. We gathered up fishes and different ocean animals for the kiddos to add together different numbers of sea animals. They did a great job practicing addition with these hands-on manipulatives.
La Figura y El Color
This week we continued working with the star shape (estrella) and the color orange (naranja). The kids enjoyed coloring ocean animals such as the fish/pez and crab/cangrejo. They also used the colors that we are learning (rojo, azul, verde, rosado, purpura y/o morado, and amarillo). Also, we practiced fine motor skills with lacing our shapes: circle, square, rectangle, oval, start, heart, and triangle shapes.
Have a good weekend!
by Macky & Veronica | Mar 17, 2018 | Preschool
This week we continued working with “El Oceano”. The children had fun learning about marine animals like the octopus, dolphin and seal. This week the children learned that the octopus have 8 tentacles. They also learned that octopuses throw black ink to scare their predators. The kiddos had fun with activities such as octopus counting, dolphins, a dividing dolphins craft, and an ocean memory game. Also, we continued working with the month ocean vocabulary. Last week we started with:
Fish/pez,
Whale/ballena
Shark/Tiburón,
This week we added:
Octopus/pulpo
Dolphin/delfin
Seal/foca,
LETRAS
This week we learned all about the letter Ww/ letra Ww. Be sure to point out the letter that we practice when you are reading. The Spanish pronunciation of the letter W is the same as the English pronunciation. (The W only occurs in foreign words in Spanish.) Some examples:
Washington/Washington,
Wafle/wafle,
wapiti/wapiti,
We had fun with our ocean activities such as drawing the letter in sugar, tracing the letter on an individual whiteboard, and coloring the letter W.
NÚMEROS
This week children continued working with addition 1-5. We started really working with the pre-K kiddos this week on understanding the concept of addition. We have been working with numbers 1 through 5 and number combinations. Now they know what happens when they add two numbers. We gathered up our collection of green, blue, yellow, and red manipulatives to start working with the little ones to have fun with addition. They did a great job practicing addition with hands-on manipulatives. With this activity the kids had the opportunity to learn while also having a lot of fun.
La Figura y Color
We continued working with the star shape (estrella) and the color Anaranjado y/o naranja (orange). The children did activities like looking for orange objects in the classroom while also reviewing, in a color sort, the colors that we have already seen.
Have a good weekend!
Macky
by Macky & Veronica | Mar 10, 2018 | In The Loop, Preschool
los tiburones
I can’t believe that the time is going so fast, Spring is almost here! And it’s the perfect time to introduce children to the world under the waves. Then, kids will be introduced to lots of fun information. We will read and talk about how some animals have adapted to live in the sea. These animals are known as marine mammals and cover both those who live all the time in the sea, and those who spend time on land and at sea. These animals are the result of the evolution of terrestrial species that for various reasons had to return to the sea and adapted to the life in the water.
Marine mammals are divided into two large groups that are cetaceans, who spend all their lives in the sea and the sirenian that are mammals that inhabit both the sea and the land, in the sea feed and on land rest.
Through this theme, we are going to learn all about different marine mammals. We are going to read lots of different books and do some fun science lessons and projects as well. Some of our new vocabulary is:
Fish/pez,
Whale/ballena,
bulletin board
Shark/Tiburón,
Octopus/pulpo
Dolphin/delfin
Seal/foca,
Jellyfish/medusa,
Turtle/tortuga,
Crab/cangrejo,
Lobster/langosta,
Starfish/estrella de mar,
Sea Horse/caballito de mar,
Shell/concha.
Letras
This week we learned all about the letter Rr/ letra Rr. Be sure to point out the letter that we practice when you are reading. The Spanish pronunciation of this letter varies. When this letter is in the middle of a word it makes the same sound you hear in the middle of better or butter. (It’s a tap on the roof of your tongue.) When this letter is at the beginning of a word it rings like the telephone (trilled r) Some examples:
Rana/frog,
Regalo/present,
Relog/clock,
Robot/robot,
Reina/queen,
Ratón/mouse.
We did activities like letters games, coloring and letters recognition.
NÚMEROS
This week we started with addition (1-5), as well as reviewing the numbers that we see every day in our classroom calendar. So, they counted 1-9. And most of them recognize every number. The kids are doing a good job counting the numbers. They did different activities like counting and recognizing the number through fishes, goldfish, and dice. As well, I placed manipulatives on the ground next to the number and then I encouraged the little ones to sort the objects into the corresponding number.
La Figura y Color
This week started working with star shape (estrella), and a new color added in our range colors! Anaranjado y/o naranja (orange). The kids play a game “who can find five orange manipulatives in the classroom”. They were so exited looking for that.
Have a good weekend!
Macky J
by Macky & Veronica | Feb 15, 2018 | Preschool
This week we continued working with the solar system. We were working with the planets/planetas and moon/luna. The kids have been introduced to the phases of the moon. We talked about when we look into the sky, the moon does not always look the same. I explained to them that the moon is always the same shape round/redonda. The moon does not have light of itsown and we can only see the moon by the light of the sun. We talked about how sometimes the light from the sun cannot reach the whole moon and we can only see part of it. So, sometimes the moon looks like a circle, sometimes it look like half a circle and most of the time it looks like a funny section of a circle. We also talked about how every month we are able to see at least one full moon.
Also, they learned that our moon rotates around our earth once each day. They also learned that a rocket takes three days to get to the moon; children did activities like painting the Moon using tempera and glitter to decorate it.
They also did a science project where they showed that the moon has craters. Also, the children made activities for the celebration of the Valentine’s Day, as recognition of the letters of their name forming a worm of hearts.
La Luna | Videos Educativos para Niños
Letras
This week we learned all about the letter Vv/ letra Vv. Be sure to point o
ut the letter that we practice when you are reading. The English letter V, can be pronounced as (vi). While the Spanish pronunciation is; V (ve, sounds like b). Some examples:
Vivora/snake,
Vaca/cow,
Vaquero/cowboy,
Ventana/window,
Violin/violin,
Vela/candle.
Números
This week we went over numbers 1-10/números del uno al diez. Children did different classroom activities, such as recognizing of the numbers and quantity with hearts. They trace the numbers in the board.
by Macky & Veronica | Feb 9, 2018 | Preschool
El Sistema Solar
This week we continued working with the solar system. We worked with the kiddos towards learning the names of each planet.
The four planets that are closest to the Sun are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Mars is known as the Red Planet. Mercury and Venus are the only planets that have no moon.
Also, we talked about the four planets farthest from the Sun which are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. They learned that these planets are formed of gases. They learned that the beautiful rings of Saturn are formed by pieces of ice, as well as Jupiter that has thirty-nine moons.
It was fascinating to work with the children this week as they were very interested in learning about each planet. The children did different activities like, making the planet Earth and puzzles with the planets. Also, the children chose three planets and painted them with their favorite watercolor.
Letras
This week the kids reviewed these consonant letters with the vowels: M, S, P, T, N, F, L, D, and B.
We did activities like letters games, letter recognition, bingo, and singing the vowels song.
Números
This week we spent a lot of time with the number 10/número diez. Children did different classroom activities, like counting and recognizing the number diez/ten, sorting and counting piles of manipulatives. They traced the number diez/ ten and played memory numbers games as well.
La Figura y Color
This week we continued working with the corazon/heart shape. The kids could play through the shape tracing the shape with their fingers. As well, the kids were passing around the shape so they could examine its form up close. They reinforced this shape by making hearts with their hands. They looked all around the classroom for the Corazon/heart shape. We also continued reinforcing the colors they have learned as rojo/red, azul/blue, verde/green, amarillo/yellow, purpura/purple, and rosado/pink.
Have a good weekend!
Macky
