Transition Song: H-E-A-R-T by The Kiboomers
Materials: laminated letter D, cardboard boxes, book
Vocabulary and concepts: loud/soft, fast/slow, drum, boxes, big/little, experiment, sound, voices, breathe in/breathe out, inside/outside, mad.
Pre-Literacy: Let's explore the letter D. Who has a name with the /d/ sound? What words have the /d/ sound in them? Round, drum, loud, sound, inside, outside.
We're repeating this Large Group for two weeks since they are short weeks. I wanted to make sure that everyone had a chance to participate in this one. First we read a book about voices.
Voices Are Not For Yelling by Elizabeth Verdick.
(FYI, Elizabeth does a series of Best Behavior board books, including Pacifiers Are Not Forever, Feet Are Not For Kicking, and Teeth Are Not For Biting. There are many more. She also has tips for parents at the end of the books.)
We learned about inside voices and outside voices. In the book, it talked about how to calm our voices when we are mad by breathing in and out. We practiced breathing. We learned that it is hard to understand our words if we yell. In the book we also noticed that there was a problem to solve (children fighting over a firetruck - just like preschool!) and a teacher helped to solve the problem (just like preschool!)
Then, because we can't yell in school, we found another way to practice loud and soft. I brought in A LOT of sturdy cardboard boxes. Big boxes and small boxes. We practiced drumming softly. Then I called out "Hands up!" and everyone put up their hands. Then I said "Show me LOUD!" and we drummed LOUD! Wow, that was a lot of noise! Some of the children put their hands over their ears because it was so loud.
We did an experiment. I said "I wonder if we could hear our teachers voices if we were drumming loud?" So, we drummed LOUD while I sang the ABCs. Hands up! What was Miss Carrie saying? No one knew, because we were too LOUD. Then we drummed LOUD again while Miss Jeana or Miss Julie sang something. Could we hear them? No! We were too LOUD! Can you hear Teacher when we drum softly? Yes, we can.
The children had great fun with this one. Everyone had plenty of room to drum. Some children wanted to share a big box. The ones who wanted one to themselves had a small box.
We walked through the halls with quiet, inside voices. When we went outside to play on the playground, all the teachers demonstrated LOUD outside voices. The kids then demonstrated their LOUD outside voices.
