December Week 2: I like my RED shoes!

 Transition Song:  Must Be Santa by Raffi

Vocabulary: same/different, big/small, like/not like, buckle, zipper, velcro, colors

This week Miss Carrie brought one of her favorite books!  Pete The Cat, I Love My White Shoes.  It's written by Eric Litwin and illustrated by James Dean.

Miss Carrie asked if everyone remembered that she dressed up like Pete The Cat for Halloween.

This time, we read the book.  Everyone sang and clapped or snapped their fingers along with Pete the Cat as we sang "I love my WHITE (Red/Blue/Brown/Wet) shoes!  We shook our head when we said "Goodness, NO!"  We guessed what color would come next.

Then Miss Carrie brought out a big box full of shoes.  There were her Pete The Cat red shoes, there were sparkly shoes, dancing shoes, sandals, boots, shiny gold shoes, and gym shoes.  We found shoes that looked the same and shoes that looked different.  We compared them to the shoes we were wearing to see if they were bigger or smaller.

DO THIS AT HOME:  What can you match at home?  Shoes? Socks? So laundry takes a little bit longer to put away...you're working on language skills! Go you!  What about setting the table?  What is the same and what is different?  Do you use big glasses for the adults and small cups for the kids?  Set the table together and talk about it.  Find opportunities in your everyday routine.  Then do it again the next time.

December Week 1: Snow People

Vocabulary and Basic Concepts:  cold, snow, balls, hat, scarf, seeds, berries, nuts, forks, buttons, shapes, head, neck, hands, shoulders, What questions, Where questions.

Transition Song: Must Be Santa by Raffi.  (Note, we only sing the first three verses and we sing it without the music.  The music is too fast.

We also put together a Santa to show the different parts of the song

This week we talked about the snow that fell last week.  Some of us made snow people.  Miss Carrie brought a book about snow people titled Snowballs by Lois Ehlert.

There were so many things to see and talk about!  The snow people had corn and berries and buttons and strings and nuts and raisins and popcorn and scarves.  Squirrels and birds were eating the nuts and seeds.

Miss Carrie had an idea.  She wanted to make snow people, but we couldn't bring snow into the classrooms.  She brought a big bag full of things to make snow people.  We decided that we could turn the teachers into snow people.  We talked about what items we found in the bag and where to put them on the teachers.

DO THIS AT HOME:  Don't wait for snow!  Talk about snow people and what you would put on them.  Go through the house on a hunt of items to put in a big bag.  Then turn your family members into snow people.  Talk about clothing items and body parts.  Talk about hot and cold.  Consider making a hot or cold treat to enjoy afterwards.  When it snows again, who wants to make a snow dad/mom/brother/sister/family?

November Week 1: I Like My Shoes!

Transition song:  Gobble Gobble (The Thanksgiving Song) by Nooshi

Vocabulary and Basic Concepts: big/little, same/different, wet/dry, on/off, heavy/light, What/Where/Who/When, colors, shoe laces, Velcro, buckle, cry, wear

This week Miss Carrie read a book called Pete The Cat I Love My White Shoes by Erik Litwin and James Dean.  (Miss Carrie dressed up as Pete The Cat for Halloween.)

In the book, Pete The Cat LOOOOOOVES his white shoes.  He even sings about it. Pete kept stepping in things that changed the colors of his shoes.  Did Pete cry?  GOODNESS, NO! The kids loved singing the song with Miss Carrie. It was groovy and awesome.  There was a lot of discussion going on.

Next, Miss Carrie brought out two bags of shoes.  There were shoes that were the same and shoes that were different.  There were big shoes and little shoes.  There were lots of different colors!  We matched shoes and compared them to the shoes we were wearing. We compared weight, shoe fasteners.  We talked about if we had shoes like this at home.

DO THIS AT HOME: Read the book!  There are some great repetitive phrases as well as opportunities for kids to predict what will happen next.  Go on a shoe hunt around the house and compare shoes.  Talk about size, color, and fasteners.

October Week 3: WRECK IT! (but ask first......)

This week we read a story called Rex Wrecks It by Ben Clanton. But Miss Carrie changed it to Rex Wrecked It.  (to distinguish between the two words and also work in some past tense -ed.)

Rex's friends keep trying to build awesome things.  But....Rex wrecks it.  Every. Single. Time.  IT makes everyone sad.  They have to solve the problem.  Their first solution didn't work.  But their second solution........

The concept we were learning was that we can't just wreck things.  We can ask "Can I wreck it?" if we can wreck it.  Our friends could say yes or no.  If they said yes, we could wreck it together.

Miss Carrie brought out blocks. (Really leftover boxes, some covered in colorful duct tape.  Instant BIG blocks!)  We built things.  We discovered that if we worked together and pooled the blocks, we could build BIG things!

Even teachers had to ask if they could wreck it.  If someone said no, then no one could wreck it.  We noticed that if we did not ask, or if our friends said No and we wrecked it anyways, that our friends were sad or mad.  We learned to wait.  It was so much fun to wreck things together.

Psst - We learned that 'wreck' means to knock it down.

DO THIS AT HOME:  Build things together and practice asking if you can wreck it.  Remember, if the answer is No, we can't wreck it.