Materials: Laminated Letter S, Laminated Santa parts, bag of items to dress a snowman
Vocabulary and Basic Concepts: What questions, cold/hot, snowball, snow man, boy, girl, baby, bird, popcorn, berry, string, clothing items, melting.
This week we've continued learning Must Be Santa and Jingle Bells in prep for our caroling activity in two weeks. See the previous post for the music and information.
Pre-Literacy: Let's draw the Letter S. Start at the top. Swoop over. Swirl down. Swoop under. And stop! What words have that /s/ sound? Snow, same, sing, soup, baseball, kiss. Remember to hide your tongue and keep your teeth together.
Book. This week we are reading Snowballs by Lois Elhert. (Remember her? She wrote Leaf Man which we read in October). We are big fans of Lois Elhert!
Look at this snowman. Someone gave him a strawberry nose! What else do you see?
There was a snow dad and a snow mom and a snow boy and a snow girl and snow pets! That snow mom has peanuts in her purse. Miss Carrie does not carry peanuts in her purse. She carries chocolate in her purse.
This book also has lots of pictures of real snow people.
Miss Carrie wanted to build snowmen but there is no snow outside. We wondered how we could solve this problem? We decided to turn some of the teachers into snow teachers. Good thing Miss Carrie brought some things from home.
Who is it?
Miss Pam is a snow teacher.
Now it's Miss Jeana's turn to be a snow teacher.
Miss Jen's class opted to turn all the teachers into snow teachers.
Miss Debbie is a snow teacher.
Working on Miss Jen.
We also sang Once There Was A Snow Man.
Tall-Tall-TALL!
We had so much fun making snow teachers!
DO THIS AT HOME: If you have snow, great! Go build a snowman. But if there is no snow, turn one of your family members into a snow person. What do you have around your house to make a snow person? You could also cut out shapes and magazine pictures to make snowmen pictures. Talk about your activity and narrate your actions.
In case your children have been trying to tell you, Miss Carrie has new glasses for the first time. The glasses make her face look very different. A lot of the kids were commenting about them in both classes.
For the end of November and all of December we're learning the song Must Be Santa (first three verses only). We're going to go caroling to some classrooms and to the staff in the front office. We'll be singing Must Be Santa and Jingle Bells. I'm including a youtube video with music and lyrics. Be warned, the music goes too fast for most of our kids. So we sing it without the audio music in order to sing it slower. We have a Santa that I made for the children to put together to highlight the different parts of the song.
Miss Carrie sings the first part - the Who question. "Who has a beard that's long and white?" The children all sing the answer. (Psssst - the answer is ALWAYS Santa!) "Santa has a beard that's long and white." We're talking about how the answer uses the same words as the question. We're pointing to the parts while we sing. During the chorus we clap:
clap-clap "Must be Santa!"
clap-clap "Must be Santa!"
clap-clap "Must be Santa Santa Claus!"
Be sure to sing it slower at home than what is on the video. I will upload a video later to give you an idea of how we do it in class.
Pre-literacy: Let's work on letter S. What sound does it make? When Miss Carrie makes the /s/ sound, she hides her tongue behind her teeth so no one can see it. It sounds like a snake! Does anyone have an S in their name? What words have that sound? Bus, yes, Snack Time, Small Group, soda, soft. Let's draw the letter S.
"Start at the top. Swooop over. Swiiiirl down. Swooop under. And STOP!"
Did you hear all of those S sounds? Miss Carrie pinches her pointer and thumb together to show that your teeth need to be closed and hide your tongue while she makes the /s/ sound. We noticed that the letter S looks the same upside down and right side up!
Stretch your pointer fingers up high to show you are ready to start!
Miss Carrie points to her mouth to show that her teeth are closed to hide her tongue.
This week, Miss Carrie turned on relaxing spa music and we did yoga. We read this book:
You Are A Lion! And Other Fun Yoga Poses by Taeeun Yoo. The children were instructed to look at the teachers if they didn't know what to do. (Looking for clues to understand how to behave or what to do is an important skill. This was a great way to introduce it.) Miss Carrie read the book and everyone followed directions or looked at a teacher to help them understand.
Afterwards we sat with our legs criss-cross, hands on our knees with palms up and fingers touching. We closed our eyes, breathed in through our noses and blew out through our mouths. Miss Carrie said that she did breathing like this when she needed to calm her body. After breathing a few times more, we walked with very calm bodies to our tables for Small Group (Miss Jen), or to the sink to wash hands for snack (Miss Jeana).
Guess what else happened in the classrooms this week?
Miss Jen had a rock concert. I kid you not, one of the kids asked for Electric Light Orchestra's Don't Bring Me Down. We played music instruments along with it.
In Miss Jeana's class, it became very popular to give Miss Carrie a checkup and LOTS OF SHOTS! OW! Miss Carrie tried to be brave. When she was little and went to preschool, she used to scream when the doctor gave her shots. All the kids in Miss Jeana's room told her that they were brave and didn't cry when they had to get shots.
DO THIS AT HOME: put on some soft music and try some yoga together. Let your child come up with their own poses for the family to try. Work on the phrase "Look at me!"
Since we are in the classroom 2 days this week, we're just reviewing favorite songs and dancing with scarves. We're also What (What do you like to eat?) and Who (Who are you going to see at Thanksgiving) all day.
Transition Song: What Does The Turkey Say (Gobble, Gobble) by Nooshi
Materials: Laminated Letter T, binder with pictures for What Does The Turkey Say song. Book Yummy Yucky by Leslie Patricelli.
Vocabulary and Basic Concepts: top/bottom, left/right, yummy/yucky, food/not food.
We're learning a song about Thanksgiving and the food we might eat. We talked about stuffing, pumpkin pie, rolls, and mashed potatoes. Do you eat these foods? What do you eat at home. We talked about favorite foods. Some of us like mashed potatoes and pizza. Some like curry and rice. Some of us like tacos. Some of us like peanut butter sandwiches (but not Miss Carrie, she HATES peanut butter. Miss Carrie loves to eat sushi). We're also talking about family and who we might see during Thanksgiving this year. Miss Carrie is having dinner with her side of the family. Grandmas, moms and dads, aunts and uncles, and cousins. We looked at a picture of Miss Carrie's family. Her dog was in the picture, too!
Pre-Literacy: Let's draw the letter T.
"Draw top to bottom. Now back to the top. Draw left to right and then we stop."
Make the /t/ sound. Who has a name with that sound? What other words have that sound? turkey, toes, tickle, little, top, bottom.
Activity: This week we are reading the book Yummy Yucky by Leslie Patricelli. This is one of my favorite books because it covers a lot of items. Last week (I was there Monday before I had to stay home sick), we were discussing what is food (corn, grapes, spaghetti, potatoes, chips, soup, french fries) and not food (playground covering, toys, paper, glue, marbles). This week we ready about the baby who keeps eating things that are yummy (cookies, chocolate sauce, ice cream, soup, sandwiches) and things that are yucky (worms, sand, mud pies, boogers - oh yes, we went there!) This was a great opportunity to talk about what we liked to eat and what we shouldn't eat.
DO THIS AT HOME: talk about what is good to eat, what you like to eat, and what you do not like to eat. Talk about what you like to eat on special occasions. What foods are traditional for your family celebrations? This is a great way to get the entire family talking together, especially around the dinner table.
And some pictures of what happened in class. I'm sorry I wasn't able to get all of the classes this week. I've been making up the treatment time I missed when I was sick.
Miss Jeana's classroom is discussing the book Rosie's Walk this week.
They also learned the vocabulary words "flip" and "turn" and they discussed ways to manipulate objects and look at them from a different angle.
One of our birthday kids brought Birthday Oreos to share for snack time in Miss Jeana's classroom.
Miss Jen's class has been learning all about the concept of under and they hid under the box with flashlights and then popped out. The kids loved this and requested it over and over while Miss Jen sang "Who is under the box".
