October Week 2: Fall, Autumn, and Leaf Man

phoneme: /g/

Transition Song: Five Little Ghosts (see previous post for link)

Materials: Laminated letter G, autumn leaves, Book: Leaf Man

Vocabulary and Basic Concepts: environmental sounds (moo, quack, gobble-gobble) high/low, same/different, big/little, in front/behind, next to, throw, roll, leaves, autumn, fall, trees, labeling colors, What/Where/Who, abstract convo, -ing, plural -s EX:  I have red leaves on my tree.

Pre-Literacy: Draw the letter G together.  What words have that /g/ sound? Go, ground, game, grape, goat.

This week with Miss Carrie, we read Leaf Man by Lois Elhert.  Leaf Man used to live in my yard but he blew away!  We saw a lot of pictures made with autumn leaves: animals, vegetables, fruits.  We guessed what they were and made animal sounds or answered if we liked pears and apples.

Miss Carrie has  A LOT of big trees at her house and the leaves are turning red, yellow, orange, and brown.  She brought some (pretend) leaves in a box and sprinkled them all over.  We rolled in the leaves and threw leaves.  We found leaves behind, in front, and next to us.  We found leaves that were big and little and compared if they  looked the same or different.

DO THIS AT HOME:  Go for a walk and start looking for autumn leaves.  Compare sizes and colors.  Do they look the same or different?  Where did you find the leaves?  On the sidewalk?  In your yard?  At the park?

And one more thing:

These two designed a house.  And look what I see?

It's a piano.  With yellow piano keys and three yellow foot pedals.  I play piano and organ and thought this was very impressive!

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."

August/September Week 5: Bounce Your Body

Given that it is a short week, we used Large Group to move our bodies.  I introduced Wave Your Hands Up High from Preschool Action Songs:

This is a great song to reinforce basic concepts (high/low, front/back) and action words (jump, hop, swim, shake, wave).  Gross motor movement and fun music!

Miss Jen introduced us to Cosmic Kids Yoga Betsy The Banana:

This was FULL of /b/ words: Betsy, banana, breakfast, bicycle, bus, birthday, behind, bunch, ballerina, ballet, bing, bouncing, bounce house, boing, balloon, bird, birthday cake, birthday party, blow, breathe, back.  The teachers got a big kick out of the kids British accent pronunciation of banana. 

Do this at home:  dance together!  Talk about your movements and concepts (high/low, fast/slow, stop/go).

After School Restraint Collapse - yes, it's real!

There is a viral article circulating the past two years about After School Restraint Collapse by Andrea Nair.  You can find the article here.

After School Restraint Collapse refers to a child who is well behaved at school but seems to fall apart in that department once he or she gets home.  Learn more about it and what you can do about it.

PD Training in Classroom Behavior Management

Last week, Ms. Jeana, Ms. Jen, and I were able to participate in professional development training about classroom and  behavior management by the fantastic Melisa Geneaux.  Melisa travels the country, training schools about classroom behavior management and ways to teach children to understand and follow directions in order to participate fully in classroom instruction.  The session was full of ideas that Jeana and Jen are bringing into the classroom with the goal to help children become successful. We were excited for this session!