August/September Week 4: Bouncy Big Balloons

Theme: Bouncy Big Balloons
Phoneme: /b/

Materials: 3-4 balloons (not blown up).  I used red, yellow, and blue 15" balloons.

Vocabulary and Concepts:  high/low, empty/full, big/bigger/biggest, blow, bounce, hands, head, finger, hard, soft, "My turn", predicting, sitting, standing, turn-taking, stop/go

Beginning: Transition song - Bouncy, Bouncy, Bouncy

Today I told the kids I had something in my back pocket that was little but would get bigger.  I took it out and held it in my closed hand.  What is it?  The children made guesses before I showed them a balloon.

Miss Carrie:  What color is the balloon?

Children: (red, yellow, blue)

Miss Carrie: What do I need to do to make it bigger?

Children: Blow in it. (One answered "Put water in it!"  Hmmmmm, not today.)

Miss Carrie:   How many times should I blow it in to make it big?

Children: (predicted that I would need to blow 3 times, 10 times, A LOT times.)

I started to blow and the children counted how many times I had to blow in the balloon to make it big.  The first time it took 7 breaths.  I pulled another balloon out of my back pocket and repeated the process.  Then I pulled out a third balloon and repeated the process.

Miss Carrie:  How many balloons do we have?  (3)  What can we do with these balloons?  (pop them, play with them, hit them in the air)

We stood up and bounced or hit the three balloons to each other.  The kids were laughing and having a great time.  After 5 minutes I asked for the balloons and we sat down.  This time I gave instructions that we would remain sitting on our pockets with legs crisscross or out in front, and hit or bounce the three balloons to our friends.

The adults in the room would model the vocabulary, concepts, and description of the balloons during the activity.  If a balloon popped, we would laugh very loud before throwing the broken balloon away.  When it was time to move onto the next part of our schedule, I told the children that the balloons would be on my chair and that they could choose to play with the balloons during Work Time.

September Language Calendar

The Moog Center For The Deaf puts out a fantastic language calendar every year to give parents ideas how to promote and expand language at home.  You can download and print that calendar here.  Thanks, Moog Center!

Great article on raising a non-picky eater

Here is a great article titled:

How To Raise A Kid Who's Not A Picky Eater (Tricks That Actually Work).  

Every so often I will post articles and tips for picky eaters.  This is a great place to start.  Click on the title of the article to zoom to that page.

August/September Week 2: Germs

Phoneme: /b/

Materials:  Laminated Letter B, glitter, lotion, sheet to catch the mess.

Transition song:  Bouncy, Bouncy, Bouncy by Rachel Arntson

Vocabulary and Concepts:  Soap, water, germs, wash, inbetween, hands, fingers, thumbs, bubbles, sneeze, cough, elbow

Preliteracy:  practice tracing the letter B.  "Start at the top and draw down.  Go back to the top and bounce around."  Practice sound and CVC and CVCV words that have that sound.

Today we learned about germs.  Germs land on our hands when we cough or sneeze into our hands or if we put our fingers in our mouths or noses.  We can keep our hands clean by sneezing and coughing into our elbows.  We practiced sneezing and coughing the right way.

We can take germs off our hands by washing them with soap.  We can not put soap bubbles on our hands and then immediately put them into the water.  We have to rub our hands all over for a little while so the soap bubbles can work.  We learned to sing this song (to the tune of Frere Jaques):

Tops and bottoms, tops and bottoms (wash tops and bottoms of hands)
In between.  In between (lace fingers together)
Wash your thumbs.  Wash your thumbs (wash each thumb)
Now you're clean.  Now you're clean. (Final rub all over hands)

NOW we can rinse those soap bubbles off.

Miss Carrie, Miss Jeana, and Miss Julie do NOT want to get sick so we wash our hands A LOT!

We pretended that glitter was germs.  Miss Carrie rubbed a little lotion on her hands so the glitter would stick.  Then she pour some glitter in her hands and pretended to sneeze into her hands.  Look at her hands!  WHAT A MESS!  Miss Carrie high-fived the teachers and they got glitter on their hands!  Then Miss Carrie high-fived all the children who wanted to try and they got glitter on their hands!  Everyone went to the sink and practiced singing the song while they washed glitter off of their hands.

Aug/September Week 1: Bouncy Bouncy Bouncy

Every year I start with an easy song that children can pick up quickly.  The lyrics are simple, the body movement is repetitive, it allows practice for keeping a beat, focuses on concrete What-questions, and the kids learn anticipation/waiting skills.

Materials: Laminate Letter B

Song:  Bouncy Bouncy Bouncy
Artist: Rachel Arntson
CD: VocalMotion
Bouncy, ® Rachel Arntson and Chez Raginiak, 2007
Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy. Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy. Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy. Now we stop. Wait! Wait! Ready, set, go!

Phoneme: /b/.  Practice b-b-b.  Does anyone have that /b/ sound in their name?  What other words have that sound?  Baby, bubbles, banana, boy, bounce.

Practicing tracing:  Start at the top and draw down.  Go back to the top and bounce around.

Vocabulary: bounce, bouncy, wait, ready-set-go, back, top, down, body, head, toes, legs, knees, shoulders, tongue, head, feet, elbows.

We started with bouncing hands, feet, head, and elbows.  What other body parts can we bounce?  The kids came up with  knees, legs, whole body, and hair.  Miss Carrie came up with shoulders, noses, and tongues.  Try to bounce your tongue and sing the song at the same time!  We ended up in a fit of giggles and then bounced our way to our tables for Snack Time.

YES, I CAN!

I'm sharing the best commercial in the history of EVER!  This is my theme for our students this year. The video is a promotion for the 2016 Paralympics in Rio, Brazil.  Catchy song, great message, and incredibly motivational.  Check it out.  This tune has been running in my head since the trailer aired.

Welcome: 2016-2017 School Year

Summer is over, at least for me!  I had a great summer.  I went diving in Grand Cayman!  Unfortunately, everyone on the boat forgot to bring an underwater camera, so no pictures.  I saw moray eels, sharks, stingrays, angel fish, incredible coral and so much more.  It was incredible and I am very glad that I went out of my comfort zone to certify in scuba diving last year.

We're gearing up for classes next week.  We've had two Back To School Nights in order for parents and children to come meet the staff and see the classrooms

We have two classrooms:

This is the team for Miss Jeana's classroom.  L-R:  Miss Jeana (teacher), Miss Carrie (Speech-Language Pathologist), Miss Suzanne (paraeducator), and Miss Jan (paraeducator).  We're still waiting for one more paraeducator to join our team.

This is the team for Miss Julie's Classroom.  L-R:  Miss Shirley (paraeducator), Miss Carrie (Speech-Language Pathologist), Miss Debbie (paraeducator), Miss Sarah (paraeducator), and Miss Julie (teacher). 

We have the best teams at our school!  These women are all passionate about their jobs.  We are all excited about the new school year and have some great plans in the works.

First thing on my list is teaching the children to wash their hands.  We'll be learning a hand-washing song and about germs, covering our mouths when we cough or sneeze, and when we need to wash our hands (before snack time, or anytime hands are dirty).  I will be posting our lesson so parents can use the same vocabulary at home.

See you next week!