J is for Jellyfish

Time for letter "J"! We started out as we always do singing "If You're Happy & You Know It". The kids were a little wound up so I used my magic transition poem/fingerplay- "Open Them/Shut Them". Open them. shut them, Give a little clap Open them, shut them Put them in your lap. I start out in a normal tone and slowly lower my voice so I am practically whispering by the end. It's magic, I am telling you. Most groups are quietly sitting waiting for storytime by the time we finish. With some groups I will use this poem a few times. We talked about the weather and then did 2 jumping nursery rhymes- "Jack Be Nimble" and "Jack in the Box". We read 2 books today- "Jar of Happiness by Ailsa Burrows and "Jump" by Scott Fischer.

Jar of Happiness has an "Oma" in it which is German for Grandma. This is what my own grands call me and I enjoyed reading it- a cute book with a great message. Jump is a classic and whenever we got to the word JUMP I had the children shout it. They really enjoyed that one. For Show & Tell today some of the kids were very creative jumping and jumping jacks were a couple of their offerings. We also had Jello, 2 jumpropes, Jacket, Jack in the box, a jet, and juice. I cut out some jellyfish with my Cricut and laminated them for the magnet board activity- "Five Little Jellyfish". 5 little jellyfish swimming by the shore, the first one got lost and that left 4. 4 little jellyfish swimming in the sea, the second one swam far, far away and that left 3. 3 little jellyfish in the ocean so blue, the third one took a seahorse ride and that left 2. 2 little jellyfish swimming in the sun, the fourth one took a dive and that left 1. 1 little jellyfish swimming all alone, called it a day and that left none! I did not use them, but 2 other books I would recommend for this letter are "Rumble in the Jungle" by Andreae and "Peanut Butter Jellyfishes" by Cleary- both are super fun.

Next we moved to the tables and started out with a game- "Bugs in a Jar" with printables from Measured Mom. I brought in a foam die and the kids took turns rolling it with everyone adding that amount of bugs to their laminated jar.

After bugs we moved on to jewels. I gave each child a strip of adhesive backed jewels to put in their letter J however they wished. The kids were so creative.

We finished with our alphabet book addition- J is for jellyfish. All of the pieces were given to the kids and they had to put them together. I used double sided paper which had a floral print on one side. Some of the kids chose this side for the jellyfish. There were some pretty jellyfish for sure! Next time I will try to get pictures of those little masterpieces instead of just my own sample.

Each week I have also been giving away a book for them to take home. Following the J theme they received "Journey Home" by McKay.

They also received a small packet of "homework" to practice their Js. And that was all for this week. Looking forward to letter K! Have a blessed week. Mrs. Angel