M is for Mouse

For our last day of school this week, we did the Mouse unit.  I taped off an M on the floor and put all our phonics cards along the path, while Miss M told me all the things she could think of that start with the letter M.  She came up with her name, Minnie, Mommy, muffin and mice.  They took turns creeping along the letter like a little mouse until they came to a card that started with M and then put it on our circle time board.  They liked the game so we did it again, using the other phonics cards.  When they came to a card on the path, they stopped and named all the letters in the word before saying the whole word and putting it back in our bag.  They are doing great with their letter identification so I am going to need to come up with a few more ideas to challenge them.

We pulled out the "I Can Read" book of the month and practiced reading words in the -at family.  They both enjoyed pointing to the words and telling the story to me (with cues and help) and we read through it a few times before moving to another activity.  I didn't use the sight word pointers because we were concentrating on the word family instead this time.  It was a little easier for them read words that had a pattern.

The mouse math game was fun for them.  I sat them on either side of the table with the equation in the middle, then had them count the number of mice that was closest to them, then we counted them all together.  I think it helped them understand the concept of adding two separate groups together.

We played the Cat and Mouse game.  They are getting really good at identifying the number of dots on the dice just from the pattern they make instead of having to count all of them but still need to work on directionality when playing a board game.

Our last activity was one I made up.  They love to do crafts to I cut out a little mouse head shape, ears and a triangle for the mouth.  I let them put their mice together and taped the triangle on the back of the head so the mouth could be opened, then we cut up some yellow card stock to act as cheese cubes.  They could roll the die and feed their mouse that number of cheese cubes.  It could easily be used for addition and subtraction as well.

Christmas is next week but I am still planning on doing some of our fun activities with visiting family members so check back if you're interested in more of our exploits.

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