Materials: laminated letter M, book
Pre-literacy: Draw the letter M. Draw up the mountain and go back down. Draw up the next mountain and down to the town. What words have that m-m-m-m sound? The children came up with mom, monster, and moo. We checked our names to see if anyone had a /m/ sound in their names.
Vocabulary and Basic Concepts: head, back, hips, hands, knees, heels, feet, tongue, palms, high/low, on top/under, in/out.
Transition Song: Itsy Bitsy Spider
Transition Song: Must Be Santa by Raffi
This week in Large Group we read You Are A Lion! (and other fun yoga poses) by Teeun Yoo.
The children loved it moving their bodies. We looked at the pictures, tried to perform the pose, and then guess what animal it was going to be. There was a lion, cat, dog, butterfly, frog, and a mountain ("That not animal, Miss Carrie.") We talked about stretching muscles. Usually I play some kind of spa relaxation music, but chose not to this time simply because I wanted to make sure there was more focus on the book. I wanted to see if the children would/could use visual cues to determine what to do. Often I would tell them "Look at Miss Jeana. Look at Miss Julie. See what they are doing?" and then point out specific things such as "Her head is down." Then we looked at more animal pictures and tried to pose like flamingos, bears, monkeys, and penguins. This is a great way to teach children how to follow directions by looking for visual cues, whether it be pictures or watching others.
