Animal Sounds: The Cow Said Meow

 Transition Song: Bouncy Bouncy Bouncy

Vocabulary and Basic Concepts: What/Where/Who questions, animal sounds, in/out, loud/quiet, warm/cold, wet/dry, thinking, surprised, sad, happy, predicting, says, yes/no/not.

This week Miss Carrie read us a book titled The Cow Said Meow by John Himmelman.

Wait a minute?  The cow said meow?  The cow said MEOW?!  Does a cow say meow?  No!  Cows don't say meow, they say moo! (The children were very emphatic, trying to explain this to Miss Carrie). But this cow said meow to get into the warm, dry house.  The grandma let the cow in.  Then other animals decided to try it.

Miss Carrie talked about different emotions.

Thinking

More thinking

Surprise

Sad

Everyone had a chance to tell Miss Carrie what the animals were supposed to say.  At the end, we sang Old MacDonald Had A Farm and everyone got to pick an animal to sing about and show the class what the animal should say.

DO THIS AT HOME:  Pick any book with animals/animal sounds and talk about what animals say.  Try saying a wrong animal sound and see if your child corrects you. Get the whole family involved and singing Old MacDonald.  Your Old MacDonald may live at the zoo, in the jungle, or on the farm depending on the animals your child chooses.

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.

October Week 1: Wreck It

phoneme: /g/

Transition Song: Five Little Ghosts

The children LOVE this song every single year.  There are actions that they are learning.  Have them teach it to you.

Materials: Laminated Letter G, Book: Rex Wrecks It by Ben Clanton

Vocabulary and Basic Concepts: curve/straight, wreck/wrecked/wrecking, build, blocks, tall/short, together, May I...?, yes/no, mad/sad/happy.

We have a new letter this month.  The letter G makes a /g/ sound (we're not covering a /dj/ sound for letter G).  Who has a /g/ sound in their name?  What other words have a /g/ sound?  Ghost, goodbye, grape.

Look at the letter G.  I see a top and a bottom and a middle.  I see a big curved line and little straight lines.  When I draw a letter G I start at the top:

Draw half a circle, not a frown.
Go across the middle and then down.

This week we read a story by Ben Clanton titled Rex Wrecks It.  I found my copy at Costco.  Gizmo, Sprinkle, and Wild like to build things.  Rex the dinosaur likes to wreck it.  He doesn't ask if it is okay!  He just wrecks it.  I used past tense 'wrecked' in order to get separation between Rex and wrecks.  We predicted what would happen next.  Would Rex wreck everything?  We talked about how it made Gizmo, Sprinkle, and Wild feel (mad/sad).  We discussed what we could do to solve their problem (Ask if you can wreck it.  Build your own so you can wreck it.)  Then we brought out blocks and built towers.  We asked friends if we could wreck their towers.  If they said no, it was okay.  We could build our own.  Some friends said yes and some said no.

DO THIS AT HOME:  build things together and talk about when it is okay to wreck it and when it is not.  Practice asking with kind words (please, thank you).  Talk about how you feel when someone wrecks something you are working on.

Other things that happened at preschool this week:

"Miss Carrie, you are the baby and I am the mommy.  I can read to you."

April Week 1: Hiding Phil (Back by popular demand)

phoneme: /p/

Transition Song: The Rainbow Song by Signing Time aka TreeSchool

I took some time to teach the children the ASL signs for the different colors before we started the song.  I recommend using Signing Time's Sign Dictionary if you would like to learn signs at home.  Also, check out their videos online or at the library.

Vocabulary and Concepts: Who, Where, Under, Happy/Sad, Hiding, Elephant, Dog

Materials: Laminated Letter P, Hiding Phil book

Refer to January Week 1: Hiding Phil to see this activity.  We're doing it again because the preschool SLPs for the district asked me to film it for our next professional development meeting.

Pre-Literacy:  Let's draw the letter P.  Start at the top and draw down.  Go back to the top and draw a little around.  What words have that /p/ sound?  Purple has TWO /p/ sounds!  Help, pop, picture, popcorn, popsicle, party, happy.

February Week 2: Actions and Emotions

phoneme: /d/

Transition song: H-E-A-R-T by the Kiboomers

Materials: Laminated letter D, two homemade dice (one with action and one with emotions)

Vocabulary and Concepts: happy, sad, worried, mad, silly, surprised, gallop, strut, roll, stomp, hop, my turn, your turn, he is, she is, we are, following directions, descriptive words.

Preliteracy skills:  Let's explore the letter D.  I see that there is a long side and a curved side.  What words have the /d/ sound? Doctor, dad, dinner, down, mad, sad, dump.  Let's practice drawing the letter D.  Start at the top and draw down.  Go back to the top and draw around.

This week we are playing a game.  I made two dice, one with emotions and one with actions.  We took turns throwing the dice.  The pictures that are on top when the dice stop are the directions that we follow.

We might waddle like a duck with a silly face.

Or roll like a happy pig.

Hop like a worried bunny.

Gallop like a surprised horse.

Strut like a mad rooster.

This took A LOT of modeling.  But once the children understood the directions, they commented that it was a lot of fun.  I didn't get a picture of Stomp like a cow or the sad face.  There was a lot of communication between peers and adult/peers: He is funny!  She is sad.  We are waiting.

We practice emotions on our faces and looked at each other's faces....and laughed pretty hard, even if we were doing mad or sad faces.


Note that the dice are not anything more than taped empty boxes.  Square tissue boxes work well.  Many of the children asked if we could play this game again.

January Week 1: Hiding Phil (UNDER a lot of things!)

Phoneme: /c/

Transition Song: Colors by The Learning Station

Materials: Laminated letter C, Book: Hiding Phil by Eric Barclay, items to hide under (blanket, table, chair, coats)

Vocabulary and concepts: elephant, hat, house, blanket, swimming pool, bath, tree, happy, sad, nose, slide, teeter-totter, under, What questions, Who questions, Where questions.

Pre-literacy: Talk about the letter C.  Trace with "Put your finger at the top. Draw half a circle.  Now we stop."  The letter C can make 2 different sounds.  A /k/ sound or a /s/ sound.  What words do you know that have a letter C.  Miss Carrie's name starts with a letter C using a /k/ sound.  Who else has a C in their name? Other C words we discovered include cookie, cupcake, candles, candy, circus, cow, cup. The letter C almost looks like a circle. We looked at the letter backwards, forwards, and upside down.

This week we are reading a fun book by Eric Barclay titled Hiding Phil.  I used the book for my READ picture in the front hall by the office.  (The READ board features each teacher in the school with a book they recommend.  We're supposed to dress or bring props themed with the book.  Hence, the reason why I am hiding under the blanket. The kids who take the bus pass the picture to and from the classroom.  They like to point at it and remind me "Hey, that is you!)

Hiding Phil is great fun because of the funny places the children try to hide the elephant.  We also noticed the dog in the book was silly, too.  We looked at the emotions on Phil's face and the children's face. We wondered what would happen on the next page. We asked Where/What/Who questions.

The illustrations are charming.  The few words per page combined with the pictures for clues make it possible for kids to learn how to tell the story back to you.  After they know it, I like to ask the child to 'read' it to me.  Some of their retellings are quite funny!  It is a great way to promote language.

After we read the book, the children went around the room to explore what they could hide under.  They hid under the table, under chairs, under the cloths that cover the toy shelves, and under the coats on the coat rack. Their very favorite part?  I took pictures of them hiding and then we viewed them as a class at the end of Large Group.  The children had SO MUCH FUN identifying their friends or themselves on the pictures and telling us WHERE they were hiding.