February Week 3: What Do You Hear?

phoneme: /h/

Transition Song: H-E-A-R-T by the Kiboomers.  (This week we are singing it without music, slowing it down, and working on the clap pattern.)

Materials: SoundTouch App 1 & 2

Vocabulary and Basic Concepts: hear, loud/quiet, big/little, sheep, duck, horse, frog, dog, pig, cow, chicken/rooster, bird, cat, elephant, monkey, lion, zebra, dolphin, snake, flamingo, owl, peacock, bat, turtle, hippo, bee, warthog, What/Where questions, “I want” phrases.

Pre-literacy: we skipped drawing the letter H this week to allow more time for the listening activity.

This week, Miss Carrie pulled out her iPad.  We played a game where we used our listening ears while she played a sound.  We guessed what made the sound.  Then Miss Carrie turned the iPad around so we could see the picture.  There were all kinds of animals and insects.  

SoundTouch 1 & 2 are great apps to talk about environmental sounds.  Each icon has five pictures with corresponding sounds.  Along with animals are vehicles, household, weather, and music sounds.  In class we stick with the animal and vehicle sounds.

Sometimes we guessed right and sometimes we didn't.  Sometimes we even tried to predict what it would be before we heard the sound!  We talked about what it was and where we could see it; also,  if we had one at home.  Miss Carrie has a dog at her house. She does not have a cat, or a pig , or a cow?  Where can we see elephants?  Where do dolphins live?   We had fun talking about where we can see the animals.  We were surprised at the different sounds frogs make.  And the different sounds owls make.  We listened to elephants and tried to make that sound.

This is a favorite Large Group every year.  The children often ask to do it again.

DO THIS AT HOME:  practice making different sounds together.  Listen to sounds while you're driving around or at the store.  Visit the zoo or a farm and talk about different sounds you hear there.

May Week 2: Sounds

Phoneme: /s/

Transition Song: Circle Time Song by the Kiboomers.

Materials: Laminated letter S, SoundTouch App

Vocabulary and Basic Concepts:  What questions, predicting, animals, vehicles, Where questions, sounds, listen.

Pre-Literacy:  Let's draw the letter S.  Start at the top.  Swoop over.  Swirl down.  Swoop under and STOP.

Today we are using our ears to listen to sounds.  I've talked about the SoundTouch App before.  The children love this activity.  We turn off our voices and turn on our ears.  We are listening to animal sounds and trying to figure out what the animal might be.  Lion, dog, cat, pig, elephant, sheep, and snake are easy.  Bear, camel, zebra, frog, and kangaroo are hard.  Owl was challenging.  Train, fire engine, motorcycle, airplane, and boat were exciting.  Bicycle was funny (because of the bell and the squeaky wheels).

When you tap on the drawing, one of four possible photographs pops up of that object with a sound.  Each photograph is different with a slightly different sound of the same object.  The children were amazed that frogs would sound so different from each other. There were other objects that were similar or different in each photograph.  We talked about listening for "Clues" to help us determine what the answer would be. One the children predicted what it would be, I turned the iPad around to show them the picture. What is the animal?  Where does it live? 

This activity gave us a lot of opportunities to practice our /s/ sound.

Do this at home:  What sounds do you hear at home?  Walking around outside?  At the zoo or a farm?  In the woods on a hike?  Can you identify what made that sound?  

• "What is that sound?"
• "I hear a.....".
• Where is it?  Can you find it?

August/September Week6: Bus, Boat, Bikes (and other things that GO!)

Theme: Bus, Boat, Bike, and Other Things that GO!
Phoneme: /b/

Materials:  SoundTouch App, Stop and Go signs  

Vocabulary and Concepts: Stop/Go, Fast/Slow, Bus, Boat, Bike, Train, Airplane, Tractor, Vehicles, Fire Engine, Helicopter, drive, Wh- questions.

Beginning: Transition Song - Bouncy Bouncy Bouncy

This week we are talking about Things That Go and learned a new vocabulary word: vehicles.
We are listening to the different sounds that vehicles make on Miss Carrie's SoundTouch App and guessing what vehicles are making the sounds. This activity is always very popular!

We are asking What is it?  Where can we find them (on the road, in the water, in the air)?  Who has ridden in an airplane?  A train?  Who rides a bus home from school and who rides in a car?

Then we are picking our favorite vehicle and pretending to drive it all around the room.  Miss Carrie, Miss Jeana, and Miss Suzanne are the traffic cops and hold up signs to tell us when to STOP and GO.  We are beeping, honking, tooting, and sounding like fire engines, airplanes, motorcycles, busses, and cars.

At the end of Large Group we drive our vehicles to our tables for the next thing on our schedule.

Reading to your child

There is a fantastic review on Activity Tailor for a new iPad/Apple free app called You Tell Me Stories that trains parents how to read to their children to elicit language.  It demonstrates speed, inflection, and good questions or comments that will support listening comprehension.  Check it out here.