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.

Week 4: Stick Like Glue

Date:  January Week 4

Title:  Stick Like Glue

Phoneme: /k,s/

Pre-Literacy:  Trace the Letter C.  “Put your finger at the top. Draw half a circle and then we stop.”

Materials required:  Laminated Letter C

Concepts:  high/low, fast/slow, body parts, sticky, What questions

Transition activity:  Song:  Colors by Learning Station

Discussion:  Do you know what sticky is?  What things make you sticky? One child said that when he eats pancakes, his fingers get sticky from the syrup.  Another talked about gum in his hair being sticky (sounds like the occurrence made a BIG impression!).  We also talked about glue being sticky.  Then we sang and danced to Jim Gill's Stick To The Glue *** song.  We clapped our hands and pretended they stuck together.  Then we stomped our feet until they (just pretend!) stuck to the glue we stomped in.  Then we shook hands with our friends until *GASP!* we stuck to our friends!  Our last try was hugging (side hugs in preschool) and we stuck to EVERYBODY in Large Group!  This was a lot of fun and I'm sure that the kids will want the Sticky Glue song again.

We ended with the Silly Dance Contest (always a favorite).

***Sorry, there is no link to this Jim Gill song.

Week 3: Cake, Candles, and Cookies

Large  Group Activity

Date:  January Week 3

Title:  Cake Candles, and Cookies

Phoneme: /k,s/

Pre-Literacy:  Trace the Letter C.  “Put your finger at the top. Draw half a circle and then we stop.”

Materials required:  Laminated Letter C

Song: Happy Birthday Cake and Cookies by Kids Express Train Drills on Wheels 1

Concepts:  articulation and alliteration, vocabulary, follow directions, swaying

Transition activity:  Song:  Colors by Imagination Station

Discussion:  We're talking about Happy Birthdays.  What do we have at birthdays?  Cake, candles and (sometimes) cookies!  We pretended to Cut the Cake. We cheered "HOORAY!" and practiced our /k/ sound in consonant-vowel combination and in words. We swayed side to side and waved our hands high.

During small groups in Miss Jeana's classroom for the next few weeks we will be playing a fun game called Cat in the Hat - I Can Do That.  This is a great game for practicing prepositions (on top, under, front, back, between, through, next to) as well as following 2- and 3-step directions. The children's favorite part?  Crawling under the Trick-a-ma-stick!

January Week 1: Colors and Clothing

Date:  January Week 1

Title:  Colors and Clothing

Phonemes: /k,s/

Pre-Literacy:  Trace the Letter C.  “Put your finger at the top. Draw half a circle.  And now we stop.”  We're talking about the letter C.  It can sound like /k/ (finger at throat while making /k/ sound) or like /s/ (use pointer and middle finger to signify a 'snake' as you articulate /s/).

Materials required:  Laminated Letter C, 

Concepts: Who questions, colors, movement, pronouns

Transition activity:  Song:  Colors by The Learning Station.  This will be our song for the month of January.

Discussion:  We're talking about colors and clothing.  Everyone has colors on their clothing!

Who is wearing red?

Who is wearing yellow?

Who is wearing green?

Who is wearing blue?

Who is wearing black?

Who is wearing brown?

Who is wearing pink?

Who is wearing purple?
Who is wearing orange?

HE IS!  SHE IS!

Where is the red (or other color)?  I am wearing a blue shirt!  I have brown shoes!

This is a great activity for naming pronouns! We're also labeling clothing: shirts, pants, dresses, shoes, boots, socks, and sweaters.  We are learning the names of our classmates as we have a few new ones this week in both classrooms.

Last of all, we're learning the Rainbow Song from Signing Time.  The children are learning to sign their colors.  Multiple learning modalities!  See the Signing Time website to learn the individual colors.  And here is the song:

OT Large Group in preschool today!

Today our awesome OT Shanon and her assistant Hillary put together a Large Group lesson to work on cutting skills.  The children had great fun making and tossing confetti.  I asked them to send me a copy.  This is great information for home activities.  Have fun!

January Week 3: Opposites

phonemes:  /k,s/

Transition Song:  The Rainbow Song (Signing Time)

Concepts:  Opposites, Who questions, 

Materials:  Laminated C, pictures, warm and cold water.

We're talking about hot and cold!  Who likes hot chocolate or cold chocolate milk?  What is cold?  Ice cream, popsicles, snow, wintertime.  What is hot?  Soup, fire, summertime.  We'll have pictures on the iPad to look over during large group.  We'll feel warm water and cold water.  



Stay tuned:  Next week we're covering hot and cold cereal.  Yum!

January Week 2: Opposites

phonemes:  /k,s/

Transition Song:  The Rainbow Song (Signing Time)

Concepts:  Opposites, Who questions, voice volume

Materials:  Laminated C

Book:  Quiet Loud (Leslie Patricelli)

Start with pointing out who is wearing what color, review ASL for colors, then transition song.

Review letter recognition and tracing as per prior instructions.

Let's talk about opposites.  Three year old won't understand the definition, but they will understand a myriad of examples.  We're going to revisit the opposites book Quiet Loud.  Then we're going to compare humming to blowing whistles, talking soft to talking loud, and we are going to review our voice level chart.

We use a modified version of this voice level chart in both preschool classes.  Our teachers have eliminated the Strong Speaker and retained the #3 for Outside voices.  We refer to the #2 Table Talk as our Small Group/Large Group voice since we use that term for sections of our daily routine.

Since children learn best with multi-modal presentation, we'll fit in some fast/slow marching and high/low jumping.

January Week 1: Colors

phonemes:  /k,s/

Transition Song:  Colors of the Rainbow by Signing Time

Concepts:  Colors, Who-questions

Materials: Laminated C





We're talking about the letter C.  The Letter C can make two sounds:  k-k-k cookie, or s-s-s as in cereal.   Sometimes a word can have both k-k-k and s-s-s like the word circle.

(NOTE TO PARENTS:  When making the k-k-k sound touch the space on your neck at the top of your throat where it meets the back of your jaw.  This is our tactile cue in the classroom for the /k/ sound.  When making the /s/ sound, use your fingers to make a snake and have it slither away from you.  This is our visual cue for /s/ in the classroom.  When saying words with these sounds, it is very helpful to use the tactile/visual cues as you make the sound in the word.  That way the children have multiple ways to learn the appropriate sound.  Remember to model the sound.  Don't correct your child and say "No, that's not right.  Do it again."  Just model.)

What other words start with the /k/ or the /s/ sound?  Carrie starts with the /k/ sound!  (For some reason, the kids think that is pretty cool.)  There is also Carrot, Cough, Corn, Car, Cat, Coat.  Celery, City, Circus.  Wow, Circus has both sounds, too!

We're learning to sign colors as well as say them.  We are talking about WHO is wearing what color.  Who is wearing red?  Orange? Yellow, green, purple, blue? (Then we go over the colors not in the Rainbow song):  Pink, black, white, and gray.  Gray is a big one that most parents don't think to teach their children.  It is a good one to bring up and find in your clothes and while going about your day.  "Today the clouds are really gray."

We're also singing the Color Song by the Learning Station.

January Planning

In January, we're going to focus on the letter C and how it can sound like /k/ or /s/.  


Concepts for January:


1.  COLORS:  We'll be using the Color Song by The Learning Station for our transition song.  See below for the video link to the Color Song.  Have your child point out the color blue one day while out and about.  Another day, point out as many red things as you can find.  Keep going with the rest.

2.  WHO QUESTIONS:  Who is wearing Red?  Blue?  Green? Yellow? Purple?  Orange?  Pink?  Brown?  Black?  White?


3.  FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS:  The Color Song give specific instructions on what to do if you are wearing a certain color.  Here is a great way to teach 1-step directions.  "If you are wearing red, shake your head."


4.  OPPOSITES:  hot/cold, big/little, fast/slow.


5.  DESCRIPTIVE WORDS:  along with colors and opposites for descriptive words, what else can we use?  We'll be talking a lot about "Cold" and what other words we can use:  icy, frosty, chilly, frozen, and snowy.


6.  Our last week will be all about cereal and descriptive words:  soft/crunchy, big/little, sweet/savory, hot/cold.  Snack time will involve cereal and talking about colors, shapes, size, and yummy/yucky.