D Is For Dancers & Dentists

 

This week we continued our occupations block in preschool.  We focused on the letter D, the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle and dentists and dancers.  It was kind of a crazy combination but I didn't have enough material for them to have their own week and they happened to start with the same letter.  We always do our calendar and music time. We have been using our musical instruments a lot lately. Next we read a couple of Christmas books on dancers and more of our What People Do book.  We watched a clip from the Nutcracker and the kids practiced their moves.  I had downloaded the Beanbag Boogie and the kids danced to it several times.  They thought that throwing their beanbags around was pretty funny. 

 We read about dentists and also read a little book on tooth care.  We had just talked about how baby teeth would fall out and a cute little neighbor friend showed up at the door to show us her tooth that had just fallen out.  Perfect timing!  We went through all of our play food and labeled everything a "happy tooth food" or a "sad tooth food."  The kids thought this game way hysterical.  Maybe they just thought the teeth were funny.

 We stuck pieces of salt dough between mega blocks and practiced scrubbing it out with a toothbrush and floss.  It was a hilarious activity and I actually think they learned a lot about caring for their teeth.

 We practiced making capital letter Ds with salt dough.  I'm trying to think of more ways to teach them about their letters.

 We made smiley snacks with apple slices and mashmellow teeth.

 We did some counting and number recognition with construction paper mouths and marshmellow teeth.  (The ridiculousness of the sugary teeth is not lost on me.)

 We worked on fine motor skills by stringing buttons (sorting largest to smallest) onto pipe cleaners to make them into tree ornaments. 

 We also made little banners with handprints and fingerprint Christmas trees on them.  We finished the day off by playing in our sensory bin.