November Week 2: I Like It -or- I Don't Like It.

Transition Song:  Gobble Gobble (The Thanksgiving Song by Nooshi)

Vocabulary and Basic Concepts:  like/don't like/do you like, labeling food, What questions, Where questions. 

This week Miss Carrie said that there were a lot of foods we like and foods we don't like.  It's okay if someone likes a particular food that you don't.  It is okay if you like a food that your friend doesn't like.  Miss Carrie brought a lot of pictures of food to class.

We practiced asking "Do you like _________?" and named the food.  Then we practiced saying "I like it" and gave a 'thumbs up', and "I don't like it" and gave a 'thumbs down'. 

Miss Carrie handed pictures to everyone.  We showed the pictures to our friends and teachers and took turns asking "Do you like cookies?, Do you like spaghetti?  Do you like apples?  Do you like hot cocoa?"

Miss Carrie really likes tomatoes, french fries, spaghetti, broccoli, and hot cocoa.  She really doesn't like peanut butter or peas.  She also said that she keeps trying food she thinks she doesn't like to see if she changed her mind.  Sometimes we change our minds as we get older.

DO THIS AT HOME:  look at pictures of food in a magazine or cookbook or discuss food at your meal time.  Do you like it?  Do you not like it?  Did you try it?  This is a great way for kids working on /l/ to practice it. It is a great way to help kids expand phrases.

November Week 1: I Like My Shoes!

Transition song:  Gobble Gobble (The Thanksgiving Song) by Nooshi

Vocabulary and Basic Concepts: big/little, same/different, wet/dry, on/off, heavy/light, What/Where/Who/When, colors, shoe laces, Velcro, buckle, cry, wear

This week Miss Carrie read a book called Pete The Cat I Love My White Shoes by Erik Litwin and James Dean.  (Miss Carrie dressed up as Pete The Cat for Halloween.)

In the book, Pete The Cat LOOOOOOVES his white shoes.  He even sings about it. Pete kept stepping in things that changed the colors of his shoes.  Did Pete cry?  GOODNESS, NO! The kids loved singing the song with Miss Carrie. It was groovy and awesome.  There was a lot of discussion going on.

Next, Miss Carrie brought out two bags of shoes.  There were shoes that were the same and shoes that were different.  There were big shoes and little shoes.  There were lots of different colors!  We matched shoes and compared them to the shoes we were wearing. We compared weight, shoe fasteners.  We talked about if we had shoes like this at home.

DO THIS AT HOME: Read the book!  There are some great repetitive phrases as well as opportunities for kids to predict what will happen next.  Go on a shoe hunt around the house and compare shoes.  Talk about size, color, and fasteners.

October Week 4: Happy Halloween!

This week's large groups were full of Halloween fun.  Let's see what the teachers wore for Halloween.

In Miss Jen's Room:

Miss Debbie was a hockey player.

Miss Bella was Cinderella.

Miss Lauren was a dragon.

Miss Jen was Ursula The Sea Witch.

Now in Miss Jeana's Room:

Miss Traci was Minnie Mouse.

Miss Kelly was a cat.

Miss Jeana was a witch.

Miss Suzanne was a witch, too.

Miss Carrie was Pete The Cat with the Red Shoes.  Have you read that book?

In both classes we practiced saying 'Halloween' and 'Trick Or Treat'.

Have a great holiday!

October Week 3: WRECK IT! (but ask first......)

This week we read a story called Rex Wrecks It by Ben Clanton. But Miss Carrie changed it to Rex Wrecked It.  (to distinguish between the two words and also work in some past tense -ed.)

Rex's friends keep trying to build awesome things.  But....Rex wrecks it.  Every. Single. Time.  IT makes everyone sad.  They have to solve the problem.  Their first solution didn't work.  But their second solution........

The concept we were learning was that we can't just wreck things.  We can ask "Can I wreck it?" if we can wreck it.  Our friends could say yes or no.  If they said yes, we could wreck it together.

Miss Carrie brought out blocks. (Really leftover boxes, some covered in colorful duct tape.  Instant BIG blocks!)  We built things.  We discovered that if we worked together and pooled the blocks, we could build BIG things!

Even teachers had to ask if they could wreck it.  If someone said no, then no one could wreck it.  We noticed that if we did not ask, or if our friends said No and we wrecked it anyways, that our friends were sad or mad.  We learned to wait.  It was so much fun to wreck things together.

Psst - We learned that 'wreck' means to knock it down.

DO THIS AT HOME:  Build things together and practice asking if you can wreck it.  Remember, if the answer is No, we can't wreck it. 

October Week 2: Fall Leaves and Out In The Jungle Part 2

This week, Miss Jeana's class played Out In The Jungle while Miss Jen's class explored Fall Leaves.  See last week's post on both.

First, Miss Jeana's class:

We found so many animals!

We found Sea Slugs, Glow Worms.  We held up our hands for pretend binoculars.

Sometimes we knew the animal and other times we needed help to identify it.

We told our friends "Come here and see!"

If we knew what the animal sounded like, we talked about that, too.

All the animals and bugs were right at child eye-level.

We talked about WHERE to find them: at home, at the zoo, on the farm, in the sky, under the ground.

There were so many to find.

DO THIS AT HOME:  Go on a hunt at the zoo, in your local library, near a farm, or in your own back yard.  What animals, birds, and bugs can you find?  Check out books on animals, birds, and bugs from your local library.

In Miss Jen's class:

Lots and lots of leaves.

They landed on our heads.  We piled them on Miss Jen!

The leaves landed on our laps, our legs, and feet, our hair, our shoulders.

We compared sizes and colors and if they were the same or different.

We asked friends if we could throw the leaves at them.

We talked about if we saw leaves like this at our house yet.

DO THIS AT HOME:  Go on a fall walk or a leaf hunt in your own yard.  Talk about the different colors, shapes, and sizes.  What do you like to do with leaves?

Exploring Food

In preschool, we explore food during Snack Time.  This particular day in Miss Jeana's classroom, stick pretzels and canned green beans were offered.  Children can say yes or no.  You wouldn't be surprised by how many children immediately said no to green beans.  But guess what happened next?

We made letters from our pretzels.

We had fun showing our teachers how to do it.

Miss Carrie decided she could turn her pretzels into chopsticks.  Everyone wanted to try.

Then Miss Carrie made a green bean mustache!  It was so funny!

Some of us made pretzel mustaches.

More mustaches.

Then some of the children watched Miss Carrie taste the green bean.  She decided she liked it.  Soon, lots of kids were tasting green beans.  Some decided they didn't like it.  That's okay.  It's important to try foods to see if you like them or not.  Other children decided they liked the green beans.  Some even speared them with pretzel sticks or used pretzels like chopsticks.

The important takeaway here is to play with your food, explore it, and no stress about eating.  Cheer for the effort of trying it.  It's okay to put it down and not eat it.  It can stay on your plate or napkin until you're ready to clean up.

October Week 1: Fall Leaves and Out In The Jungle

This week Miss Jeana's class' Large Group was different that Miss Jen's class' Large Group.  It worked out for each teacher this way.  Next week we will switch so both classes get both topics.

This month we're singing Five Little Ghosts by the Kiboomers.  The children will have a lot of practice counting from 1-5 and backwards from 5-1. It also gives a lot of practices for the /g/ sound which is our phoneme we are focusing on this month.

In Miss Jeana's classroom we learned about Fall, leaves changing color, and read the book Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert.  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. 

Leaf Man is blowing all  over the place.  he sees a lot of animals and other things.  We tried to guess what he was seeing because all fo the pictures are made from fall leaves.  The children were excited when they recognized cows, chickens, and gardens. We talked about if the leaves on trees at their houses were changing yet.

Then Miss Carrie talked about what she liked to do the most with fall leaves - play with them!  She brought fall leaves for everyone to play with.

 

Ms Jeana had leaves in her hair!

DO THIS AT HOME:  Go on a fall walk to look at leaves.  Talk about shape, color, size, same/different.  Take some home.


In Miss Jen's class we went on a Jungle Hunt.  Vocabulary and Basic Concepts: jungle, animals, birds, bugs, loud/quiet, gopher, grasshopper, seagull, eagle, penguin, dog, goat, goldfish, gecko, glow worm, gazelle, grouse, earwig, grison, sea slug, wart hog, gorilla, pig, frog, flamingo, jungle, I like/don’t like, Where questions, What questions

Miss Carrie taught us to say:

Binoculars up!
Out in the jungle-
What do I see?
I.....see..... a.....

Miss Carrie put pictures around the room of animals, birds, and bugs that all had a /g/ sound somewhere in their name.  We looked for them with our hands up to be pretend binoculars.  When we found a picture, we told our friends about it, if we knew what it was, and where we might find it.

We came back to the rug so we could tell the rest of our friends what we found and where we might see it (in the sky, on the farm, at the zoo, in the water).

DO THIS AT HOME:  Go to the zoo, a farm, or other places to see animals, birds, or bugs.  Talk about if you like them or don't like them, are they big/small, tall/short, and their colors.