Play Dough Small Group

 I don't do small groups like I do in kindergarten. In my room, we go to school 4 days a week.  We have small groups three days. I try not to have them on Monday's.  I am usually introducing centers or adding something that takes time, so I want to get them moving on to centers quickly.

I wish that I could share my small group plans, but my computer crashed and I can't access those plans. :(

I do think that I printed out a hardcopy though lol maybe I can find that ASAP to share :)

The break down, after the first month our schedule is math/science, ELA, and fine motor/art.

The first 26 weeks for fine motor/art is easy as we use Pocket of Preschool's Letter Book.

Now back to the first month of school.  We have a small group to cover all the school supplies.  Some of my students have never held a pencil before.  We get Pip certified as well.

I read the Pip Play dough book as a whole group.  We practice what Pip does in the book.  Then we use these cards from Tara West. Yes, I make them too.  I let them use my smelly play dough during this center.  When we get Pip certified (which we can show that we can make the cards, clean up our messes, and put the lid back on) I put out their individual play dough containers.   I got these smelly dough from Dollar Tree.

Read about how we get Pip certified here.

Grab the cards HERE.

I do have an order but I don't know what that is now lol

I think we pinch first, maybe lol

I show them the card and we do it together.  
While they are working, I have them try to make at least their age. 

Making sure that everyone has at least made one.

Then when everyone has some, we stack them.

We take one off at a time and 

then we press our fingers in them.

Now we make logs.

Then we roll those logs into snakes.

Finally we cut them up.

You can use plastic knives, 

I used some long handled stampers as my knife.

Then we make a big bolder with the dough.

Sometimes, all of it is too much for their little hands.

Then we use rolling pins.

I borrow so I can have enough 

rollers for everyone to try.

We have many rollers but some have patterns and

I want these to be plain because what's next is

Time to use cookie cutters!

I try to grab everyone's initial.

When we're done,

I have them make a boulder and 

turn it into a cylinder to fit back

inside the container.

I remind them not to shove the dough

into the container because then it is difficult to get out.

I do teach them how to get it out with

that long handled stamp though.

Then we practice putting the lid on tight and

getting it open as well.

I put those cards on the ring in the play dough bin.

The following weeks, I add 

these cards from HERE.

Read all about Pip here!!!!

  

Pip the Pup

 I am a veteran teacher- like over 20+ years.

These are life changing.

I read the book about an area or the tool and then we practice.

I have signs up all over the room that says Pip Certified. 

I write their names on the sheet with a dry erase marker. 

They also get a badge. I attach it with making tape and they wear it :)

Read more about Pip the Pup here.

I printed off the Pip catalog and cut them apart.

Here are the books that I use during the first week of school.

Let's Play is about dramatic play.

Let's Read is about the library.

Let's Build is about the blocks area. 

I split my class in half and another teacher teaches blocks and I teach about the library.

Read about that here.

Some I read during our group time, and other books are 

read during our social-emotional lessons too.

The very first small group lesson is on dry-erase markers.

We trace our names with them daily, so I have to use it the very first week.

Lessons:

*Pencil we literally read the book and use the pencil correctly. 

*Let's draw markers drawing and capping markers.

*Connecting Cubes- we explore and then I give them some sort of mat to build with them.**

*Let's Color- all about crayons so we use our brand new crayons.

*Pattern Blocks~ we explore and then use mats to play on.** 

**These are also the very first things we have in our morning bins.

*Mini counters- I use mini erasers and name printables to spell their names.

For the cutting fun- it's about scissor skills. 

We practice cutting 1 inch paper strips.

Then we attach those pieces to a body outline.

For rainbow write, we read the book and then we practice on scrap paper.

Here are my sand writing trays.

The trays are from Target and held lacers.

The sand came from Dollar Tree.

Johnny Appleseed day is Sept 26th 

I use several books during our Social Emotional lessons.

I also use her Tom and Tabby lessons. Find them here$

I will write more about those lessons soon :)

October is fire safety month.

Coming back to school in January is usually pretty difficult.

Several choices here for re-freshing procedures. 

February brings the groundhogs, dental health, and Valentine's Day.

The 100th and 101st days of school usually fall in this month as well.

Spring starts, St Patty's day

I usually do a small weather unit

Earth Day is April 22nd,

I usually do a garden theme in my science area.

I wait all year to introduce glue bottles and glue sticks. 
We use glue sponges for the year.

We do alphabet books $ in small groups- one of the pages we do watercoloring :)

These could also guide your small groups :)

More ideas for small groups.

Shapes- I read one page per day along with our

number board. Read more about that HERE.

Why did I do this?

Because I totally forgot to read several books this year grrrrr! lol

To get your own Pip the pup books here.

September: Week 3

 We will practice our play dough skills to get Pip certified.

Magnet toys from Target

new this year

these are new this year 

these are new this year 

Balance Toys

these are from last year

these are new this year 

these are new this year 

This weeks small groups:

We will play this sort of like bingo.

Teacher will call out a shape and 

the children will cover it with

a mini shape eraser.

My district assesses these 6 shapes.

I couldn't find the perfect sheet,

so I used posters and shrunk them down to 

fit on one page.

We will play just for shape ID. 

There is a Pip spinner book.

We will practice spinning the spinner and take that many 

star mini erasers.

Practicing our color skills here.

I will print some color cards.

They will cover the circles with mini star erasers.

I had extra number strips, so I 

cut one up.

The teacher will call and show the number and

the children will cover them with some mini apple erasers.

The printables from our small groups are

from Tara West's Tool Kits.

Things that are in our morning bins, go into our centers
so they can choose to play with them during free choice centers.

When we are done with the morning bins, those things go into the centers.  

So last week's unifix cards into the math center.

The "gameboards" we used, go into the math center.

They are still playing all the "games" we played last week.

We are not only working on our fine motor skills,

we are working on letters as well.

The fine motor is when they grasp small items.

In this case.... mini erasers! 

Stacking toys from Target

and another way to stack!

We learned how to play the path games.

Grab your free printable here. About 2/3 of the way down.

Magnet games from Target.

We worked on reading numerals to 5. I called out a number and they 

covered it on their game board ;) 

More balance games from Target.

We sorted our goldfish!

We read a Pip book on Spinners and we got to use spinners.

I made a video and posted it to the big kids blog.

Here is another morning bin. We cut apart our book orders and 

put them on our book wishlist.

We worked on parts of a scientist.

The printable came from 

Pocket of Preschool.