April Week 3: I Can Do That

Phoneme: /k/

Transition Song: One Finger, One Thumb Keep Moving

Materials: Let's Get Moving Activity Mats (Thanks, Donors Choose project donors!), Laminated Letter C

Vocabulary and Basic Concepts:  jump, march, jog, hop, tiptoe, arm circles, crab walk, frog jump, jumping jack, sit, reach, skip, stretch, balance, squat, touch toes, exercise, help

This week we played I Can Do That.  Miss Carrie brought a bunch of colorful squares that she put all over the classroom floor.  Each square had a picture of an action.  We could go anywhere in the room, look at the picture, then try to do the action.  We could tell our friends and teachers "I can do that!", or we could ask for help.  We labeled all the actions. We hopped, jumped, balanced, stretched.  We skipped, marched, squatted, and circled our arms. If we needed help balancing, we could ask for help and hold hands.

DO THIS AT HOME:  It's easy to play I Can Do That!  It's even more fun when your child gets to lead and show you what he/she can do and you try to do it, too.  You can make cards or just come up with fun actions.  Be sure to label your actions to increase that vocabulary.

April Week 2: Fat Cat and Conflict Resolution

phoneme: /k/

Transition Song: One Finger One Thumb Keep Moving

Materials: What Will Fat Cat Sit On? By Jan Thomas, Laminated letter C, puppets

Vocabulary and Basic Concepts: happy, scared, worried, on/off, problem, solving, chair, cow, dog, chicken, pig, cat, mouse not, animals sounds, yes/no, "I want ________" phrases

Preliteracy: Draw the letter C.  Who has a letter C in their name?  Miss Carrie does!  Sometimes a letter C makes a /k/ sound and sometimes it makes a /s/ sound. 

This week, Miss Carrie read the book What Will Fat Cat Sit On by Jan Thomas.  (Hey, did you hear that Fat and Cat sound the same?  They rhyme!)  Fat Cat has a problem.  He doesn't know where to sit.  His friends have to help him solve the problem.  He wants to sit on all of them.  They do NOT want Fat Cat to sit on them.  Mouse has a solution to the problem that everyone can agree on.  We discovered if Fat Cat agreed to the solution, too. (Miss Carrie loves to use this book to talk about conflict resolution.  By this time, many of the children have had more than a few months to learn about conflict resolution as we solve problems in class.)  We also practiced animal sounds.  We noticed the animals feelings.  We labeled happy and mad.  Miss Carrie introduced a new feeling: worried.  The animals looked worried when Fat Cat wanted to sit on them......well, except the dog.  He was MAD! (which the children thought very funny)

Then Miss Carrie brought out puppets.  She had a lamb puppet.  The lamb liked to sit on knees or shoulders or heads.  The lamb asked us if she could sit on our knee.  We could say yes or no.  Sometimes we gave the lamb a hug.  Miss Carrie had a lot of puppets.  We could pretend to have our puppets ask if they could play or fly or sit on friends heads.  Then we could ask to trade.  Friends could say yes or no.  We also practiced conflict resolution if anyone wanted the same puppets.

Miss Carrie singing One Finger, One Thumb, One Arm, One LEG!

Pig is feeling worried! Can you make a worried face?

Fat Cat is feeling scared!  Can you make a scared face?

Dog is feeling mad!  Can you growl like Dog?

Lambie Pie asking if she can sit on his knee.  He said no.

Lambie Pie asking if she can hug the pink rabbit

Lambie Pie LOVES hugs but she always asks first.

Showing off his bee puppet.

DO THIS AT HOME:  Make puppets or use toys.  In conflict resolution, everyone has to agree to the solution.  This is also a great time for children to practice yes or no. And their puppet voices are hysterical.

April Week 1: Caterpillar To Butterfly

phonemes: /k,s/

Transition Song: One Finger One Thumb Keep Moving. (There are a lot of versions of this on the internet.  I do a modified, much slower version with no outside music.  The first verse goes:

One finger, one thumb keep moving.
One finger, one thumb keep moving.
One finger, one thumb, keep moving
We'll all be happy today.

We add on one arm, one leg, one head, stand up-sit down on additional verses.  I'll try to post a video during one class time so you can get the idea.  Everything on the internet was too fast, different words, so not similar enough to post.)

Materials: Laminated Letter C, Book: Caterpillar to Butterfly, scarves

Vocabulary and Basic Concepts: first/next/last, little/big, molting, metamorphosis,  caterpillar, butterfly, grow, chrysalis, proboscis, head, body, wings, leaves, ground, air, fly, crawl, wriggle, wiggle, eat, egg.

Pre-Literacy: Draw the Letter C
Start at the bottom?  NO! Start at the top.
Draw half a circle and then we stop.

This week Miss Carrie brought out a BIG book called Caterpillar to Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman. (Thanks again to everyone who donated to this Donors Choose project!  The children love the giant books.) It had a lot of big new words in it.  Every time we heard the words Caterpillar or Butterfly, we would say it and clap the syllables.  Ca-ter-pil-lar.  Bu-tter-fly.  We even tried to clap the biggest word ever: Metamorphosis.  We talked about what happened first, next, and last.  We learned about chrysalis.  then we used scarves to crawl like caterpillars, wrap up like a chrysalis, and fly like butterflies.  We talked about if we had ever seen a butterfly in our own yards or at the park.

(Sorry, no pictures this week)

DO THIS AT HOME:  Check out caterpillar/butterfly books at the library to read at home.  Go on walks to look for caterpillars and butterflies.  Thanksgiving Point has a Butterfly Biosphere that would be fun to visit.