April Week 2: Hear the Popcorn - Watch it Pop!

*Week 1 was Spring Break*

Phoneme: /p/

Transition Song: Silly Pizza Song

Vocabulary and Concepts: popcorn, pizza, pasta, peas, pour, sprinkle, on top, crouching, jumping, stopping, pop

Materials: laminated letter P

Pre-literacy:  This month we are drawing the letter P.  "Start at the top and draw down.  Go back to the top and draw a little around."

Discussion:  What words have the /p/ sound? Our Silly Pizza song has pizza, soup, peas, spaghetti, and popcorn.  Some of the children offered Grandpa, Potato, and Present.  We found children who had a /p/ sound in their names.

Next we sang the Popcorn song.  We've modified it from the original to make it easy for everyone to sing.  The kids loved to be the popcorn (because, jumping!) and liked being the people who made the popcorn because it involved anticipation (slow to fast, soft to loud), clapping and calling out 'STOP!'

<softly>
Pour on the oil.
Sprinkle on the popcorn.
Put on the lid
Turn up the heat.

<increase volume gradually until loud at the end, rubbing hands together, clap on last word>
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle sizzle
Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle, sizzle,
Sizzle, sizzle, SIZZLE, SIZZLE
POP!

<clapping steady beat and sing loud>
Hear the popcorn! Watch it pop!
Hear the popcorn! Watch it pop!
Hear the popcorn! Watch it pop!
Hear the popcorn! Watch it pop!

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Now we STOP!

(Remember that we modified the words for this song)

This song is so much fun that all of the children requested to sing it again and again.  Everyone got multiple chances to be in the middle.

March Week 4: Yoga Preschool Style

Phoneme: /h/

Transition Song: Wake Up! Daily Routines by Dream English Kids

Vocabulary and Concepts:  tall/small, high/low, body parts, stretch, animals, What questions, slow/fast, breathe in/breathe out, quiet voices, giving and following directions.

Materials: Laminated Letter H, Pandora Spa Radio

Pre-Literacy: Let's draw the Letter H
Start at the top and draw down
saying Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
Go to the right and do the same
saying Hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey
Now in the middle, left to right
saying Hee-hee-hee-hee just like me.

Discussion:  We're still talking about Healthy bodies.  We're revisiting yoga since the kids enjoyed it so much.  This time, instead of reading the book and following directions, each of the children picked an animal and taught us how they thought the animal would pose.  We stretched our paws like lions, stretched our backs like cats, stood tall and stuck our our tongues like giraffes, lay still with our heads and shoulders up like snakes, and stretched our arms wide like eagle wings.  The children really enjoyed choosing animals and teaching their classmates. We had spa music playing in the background and sat in criss-cross-applesauce position while we practiced breathing through our noses and out our mouths.

We also talked more about our daily routines.  Did we wake up this morning?  Did we brush our teeth?  Wash our faces?  Comb our hair? Did anyone eat breakfast?  Did you come to school? Yes, you did!

March Language Calendar

Thanks to Moog Center for The Deaf for posting such a great calendar every month.  You can download and print the calendar here.

My favorite one is playing balloon tennis with paper plate paddles.  Doesn't that sound like a lot of fun?  Get the whole family involved!

March Week 3: Hygiene

Phoneme /p/

Transition Song: Wake Up! Daily Routines by Dream English Kids

Vocabulary and Concepts: hygiene, healthy, clean/dirty, clothes, body parts, washing machine, bathtub, bath time, spin, scrub, wash, rinse, water, soap

Materials: Laminated Letter H

Preliteracy: Draw the Letter H
Start at the top and draw straight down
saying ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
Go to the right and do the same
saying Hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey
Now in the middle, left to right
saying hee-hee-hee-hee
Just like me

Discussion:  We're talking about a new word.  HYGIENE
What does hygiene mean?  It is all about keeping yourself clean.  We wash our hands before snack (or if we cough or sneeze or if someone gets caught with their finger up their nose).  We do that so we can be healthy and not sick.  We wash our bodies and hair to be clean.  We also wash our clothes.  It is important to be clean so we don't get sick.

We sang a song about taking a bath.  This was a great way to review body parts.

We talked about how funny it would be if we took a bath in a washing machine. The washing machine spins around and around near the end of the cycle.  As we pretended to take a bath in the washing machine, we spun around and around at the end.  Jim Gill's song was fun to dance and sing along. (sorry, the best video I could find was of some dance recital, but at least the music is clear.)

Week 2: Healthy Foods

phoneme: /h/

Transition Song:  Wake Up! Daily Routines by Dream English Kids

Vocabulary and Concepts:  Healthy, food, anytime/sometimes, eating, like/don't like, wake up, wash face, brush teeth, breakfast/lunch/dinner

Materials:  Laminated H, laminated pictures of healthy foods and sometimes foods

Preliteracy: Draw the Letter H
Start at the top and draw straight down
saying ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
Go to the right and do the same
Saying Hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey
Now in the middle draw left to right
Saying Hee-hee-hee-hee just like me.

Discussion:  We are learning about healthy food.  What is healthy?  What should we eat every day?  What should we eat only as a once-in-a-while treat?  Do you like this food.  I like tomatoes.  I don't like peas.  We put pictures under a check to show we eat it every day.  We put pictures under a star to show we eat it sometimes. We licked our lips all the way around if we liked the food.  WE stuck our tongues out and made silly faces if we did not like the food.  Anytime vs sometime is a concept that most preschool children do not understand.  So we focused on good for our body, if we liked or didn't like it, and who had tasted it.

We talked about fries, beans, cake, broccoli, tomatoes, celery, banana, apple, oranges, grapes, potatoes, corn, spaghetti, eggs, ice cream, and cookies.

March Week 1: Healthy Exercise

Phoneme: /h/

Transition song: Wake Up! Daily Routines by Dream English Kids

Vocabulary and Concepts: animals, animal sounds, body parts, following directions, stretch, fold, straight, down, top, draw, left, right, same, middle

Materials: Laminated Letter H, book, Pandora's Spa Radio

Preliteracy: Draw the Letter H:

Start at the top and draw straight down

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha

Go to the right and draw the same

Hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey-hey

Now to the middle, draw left to right

Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee

You can draw the letter H

Just like me.

(Note:  It just hit me that I should be going over colors for every letter as well.  We started that last month since the letter D was on purple paper.)

Discussion:  We're learning how to be healthy this month.  Our first week is about healthy, strong bodies.  We exercise to make our bodies strong.  This week we're reading a book called "You Are A Lion and Other Fun Yoga Poses.  The book as directions to follow in order to pose like the animals. Then we get to make the animal sounds.

Book: You Are A Lion And Other Fun Yoga Poses by Taeeun Yoo  (Check out the illustrations in this and other Taeeun Yoo books.  They are absolutely charming!)

While we practice yoga poses, we also listened to Miss Carrie's computer while she played spa music on Pandora.  We practiced using soft voices and making soft animal sounds.

The children really enjoyed moving their bodies.  We're excited to go outside this week and exercise our bodies by running all over the playground.  The children are very happy that the weather is nice enough to play outside!

February Week 4: Feelings

Phoneme: /d/

Transition Song: H-E-A-R-T

Concepts: feelings, face

Materials: Laminated Letter D

Pre-Literacy Skills:  Draw the letter D. "Start at the top and draw down.  Go back to the top and draw around".  What sound does letter D make?  Who has that sound in their name?  What other words have a D sound? Dinosaur. Dinner. Diaper. Dot.

How do we know how someone feels?  We can tell by looking at their face.  We explored happy, sad, scared, mad, chilly, surprised, and silly.  We sang along with Jim Gill's I'm so Mad and Your Face Will Surely Show It.

Then we finished with every child showing how they were feeling (a lot of them were feeling silly) while the rest of us guessed how they felt.  

Some great books at the library to go with this activity:

Lots of Feelings by Shelley Rotner

Happy Hippo, Angry Duck by Sandra Boynton

Today I Feel Silly by Jamie Lee Curtis (yes, THAT Jamie Lee Curtis)