Puff Puff Toot Toot

Today's lesson was inspired by S's passion for trains. This week we are working on the letter T, number 4, color blue (azul), and circle again. I talked about T for train. The 2 stories we read today were Dora the Explorer Choo Choo, and Stop, Train, Stop! A thomas the Tank Engine Story. Both trains are blue. Ones name is Azul which tied in very well with our color for the week. We talked about the colors of the trains in the stories. During the stories S could not stop squealing with excitment, which was a very nice reward I must say:0) After the stories we sang "Down By The Station", which was again a thrill for S, his eyes just lit up! Our craft for today was a marshmellow train. You use 3 large marshmellow, one small marshmellow, 2 small pretzel sticks, and eight cheerios. You stick the big marshmellows together with the pretzel sticks. You can lick the little one and stick it on it's spot, as well as the cheerios. It is fun for the kids to get to play with their food for a change. I have put a picture of it on the blog too. The kids loved it. I have never seen S more determined to do something. He tried very hard to get the marshmellow train together. Once they were done, they got to eat it as part of their snack. After they were done with their snack I had a coloring page out for them. It was a picture of a train with the number 4 on it. It was really nice how things all tied together today. S once again loved this activity. I think he would have continued to color it all day, that is if I would not have mentioned that I had trains out for him to play with. That is how we ended today, with everyone in the living room playing with trains, all very happy and content. I would say that it was a sucess. I am loving all the fun things I am able to do with all of them this year. It really seems to give me a purpose. I love doing the research to plan the lesson and coming up with ways to bring in more academics. Even if it is just me singing the ABC's and Days of the week while they are working on what they are doing. I am convinced that it will sink in some way:0) Every moment can be a teachable one even without planning.