January Week 5: D is for DRUMMING!

phoneme: /d/

Transition Song: Colors by Imagination Station

Materials:  Laminated Letter D, sturdy cardboard boxes

Vocabulary and Basic Concepts:  quiet/loud, fast/slow, directions compare, follow, experiment, -er endings.

Pre-literacy Skills:  Draw the letter D.  Now the children are helping Miss Carrie figure out how to draw the letter D.  What words have the /d/ sound in them? Dessert, drink, pudding, seed, lemonade, toad.

This week Miss Carrie brought in a lot of boxes.  We drummed on the boxes.  We explored drumming fast and slow as well as loud and quiet.  Can we drum fast and quiet?  What about loud and slow?  Everyone agreed they liked drumming fast and loud best.  Miss Carrie would call out HANDS UP! Everyone knew to put their hands up so the room would be quiet enough to hear Miss Carrie.  We discovered that when we were drumming we couldn't hear her talking!  One of our classroom rules is to have quiet mouths and eyes on teacher when teacher is talking.

We took turns following each other.  One child would be asked "It's your turn.  Show us a new way to drum".  Everyone got a chance to be the leader.  Some chose to drum with their knuckles, or backs of their hands, or their forehead, or their fingers, or their chin.  Others chose to drum fast and loud or slow and loud, or slow and quiet. We all followed along and it was funny!

We experimented.  Which is louder - drumming on boxes or the floor?  Drumming on the sensory table or boxes?  Drumming on boxes or pillows?  What about drumming on the snack tables or the boxes?  Boxes were louder, but the sensory table was the loudest.

Miss Carrie didn't get pictures of everyone because we were so busy drumming.

We also explored short and tall and built a very tall tower during Work Time.

The weather was so nice to place outside!

HANDS UP!!!

Is the tower taller than me?

Is it taller than me, Miss Carrie?

We had a great time sliding.

Miss Jen wanted to slide, too!

DO THIS AT HOME:  Do some experiments drumming loud/quiet and fast/slow.  Drum on different surfaces and talk about what you hear.  Build some tall towers with blocks, pillows, or boxes.  How tall can you make it?

January Week 4: More HOT and COLD

phoneme: /c/

Transition Song: Colors by The Learning Station (See January Week 1 for video.  We sing it without the music and have added pink=try to wink, and gray=say hooray).

Materials: laminated letter C, hot pad, frozen coldpacks

Vocabulary and Concepts: hot/cold, touch, feel, fingers, sink, refrigerator, microwave, snow, ice, pizza, soup, ice cream.

Pre-literacy: talking about the letter C.  We each held our letter C in different ways to see if it still looked like a letter C.  No, we can't hold it up side down or the open end pointing up.  We practiced drawing the letter C: "Put your finger at the top.  Draw half a circle and then you stop."  Top and Stop are words that rhyme - they sound the same.  We remembered that the letter C can have 2 sounds: /k,s/.  Words that have the letter C: Carrie, cold, cute (why, thank you!), cupcake, circle.

Group Activity:  Today, I brought in one hot pad and 3 frozen coldpacks.  I had the hot pad plugged in and warmed up before the children came to Large Group at the rug.  I had the children come close and touch and/or feel the hot pad.  They liked that is was so warm.  Then I passed around the cold packs.  They said it made their fingers cold.  I had them touch their cold fingers to their faces. We talked about other things that were hot and cold: summer, winter, ice, snow, wind, fire.  Then we walked around the room to look for things that might be hot or cold.  The sink has hot and cold water.  The refrigerator that holds our Snack Time drinks keeps them cold.  The microwave makes things hot.  The pizza in the kitchen could be hot (if it were real).  Miss Carrie likes to eat cold pizza.  Some of the children said they liked cold pizza, too.

We gathered back at the rug again and felt the hot pad and coldpacks again.  We talked about building snowmen and how they melt when it is warm and no longer cold.  We sang Once There Was A Snowman and grew tall-tall-tall and then small-small-small.

Look around your house and talk about what is hot and cold.  This would be a great time to talk about what is too hot to touch (stove) and other safety issues.  Also discuss that we wear coats, hats, and gloves to protect us from getting cold.  Bath time is a good time to talk about hot/cold/warm water.
Point out hot and cold foods that your family likes to eat.

January Week 2: Opposites

Large  Group Activity

Date:  January Week 2

Title:  Opposites

Phoneme: /k,s/

Pre-Literacy:  Trace the Letter C.  “Put your finger on the top. Draw half a circle and then we stop.”  The letter C has two sounds sssssss and k-k-k.  Whose name has a C in it?  Miss Carrie has a C at the beginning of her name.  Other children have a C in the middle or at the end of their names.  What words have those sounds?  Cookie, cow, circle, circus, cracker, cup.

Materials required:  Laminated Letter C, music, book

Book: Quiet Loud by Leslie Patricelli.  Find it on Amazon (click on the title link) or click here to find it at the local library.

Concepts:  Music, Fast/Slow, high/Low, Loud/Soft, Quiet/Loud

Transition activity:  Song:  Colors by Learning Station

We're reading Quiet Loud this week and talking about OPPOSITES.  We're experimenting with humming quietly and then loudly.  Then we're dancing to Jim Gill's Silly Dance Contest and dancing fast and slow, jumping high and crouching low.

Stay tuned - more OPPOSITES next week!

December Week 1: Soft/Loud and Slow/Fast

Large  Group Activity

Date:  December Week 1

Title:  Music

Phoneme: /M/

Pre-Literacy:  Trace the Letter M.  “Draw up the mountain. Go back down. Draw up the mountain, and down to the town.”  Talk about words that have the /m/ sound.  Merry. Moo. Mouse. Me. Does anyone have a name with the /m/ sound?

Materials required:  Laminated Letter M, Laminated Santa parts, classical music, movie sound tracks, lullabies, rhythm sticks

Book: Quiet Loud

Concepts:  Music, Fast/Slow, high/Low, Loud/Soft, Who questions

Transition activity:  Song:  Must Be Santa, by Raffi

We're practicing to go caroling to the front office later this month.  We're singing Must Be Santa and Jingle Bells.  We're putting together our own Santa as we sing (see picture at the top). Don't forget to clap-clap right before "Must be Santa" in the chorus!

Discussion:  listen to the Santa Song.  Do we sing loud or soft?  When do we sing high?  When do we sing low?

Now let's listen to other songs.  We listened to Star Wars, Bridge Over The River Kwai, As Time Goes By, Libertango, Sing Sing Sing, and Taylor Swift's Shake It Off. (but I'm linking this Disney parody because it is hilarious.)  Use rhythm sticks to keep the beat.  Is the music fast or slow?  Is it loud or soft?

Now use your voice like a fire engine to go high and low.  Whisper, Inside table talk voice, Outside loud voice.  Ouch, Outside voices are too loud inside the classroom.

What voice do we use in the classroom?  Inside voice?

What voice do we use in the hallway.  Voices off.

What voice do we use on the playground?  Outside voice.

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 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.