Hide and Seek

This week for Large Group,  we reviewed the story of Phil the Elephant.  We talked about how Phil liked to hide.  We also got to hide by playing Hide and Seek.  While teacher Heidi counted to 20, we found places to hide in our classroom.  After she found us, we went back to the rug to wait until everyone was found.  We helped Heidi count how many kids were on the rug so we would know if we found everyone. We  talked about all of the places we were hiding using prepositions.   Some of us are hiding under the table, under a blanket, in the pretend stove, under the pretend sink, behind a bookcase or behind a poster.  We are having a lot of fun playing hide and seek and thinking of places to hide.

Little Phil Hides UNDER

This week for Large Group, we continued to work on understanding the word UNDER by playing a game with Little Phil.  Little Phil is just a smaller version of Big Phil.  We remembered the story we read about Phil and how he hid UNDER things. We hid our eyes while Teacher Heidi hid Little Phil UNDER a box, a bag or a blanket.  When we opened our eyes, we took turns guessing which thing Little Phil was hiding UNDER.  We worked on answering YES or NO after we guessed where Little Phil was hiding.  

You can work on this concept at home by hiding a small object under something and have your child guess what the object is hiding under.  You could use this same game to work on understanding other prepositions by hiding an object on, next to, in, behind or in front of something.

Hiding Phil

                                                    

This week for Large Group, we worked on understanding the word "UNDER".   To do that, we read the book Hiding Phil  By Eric Barclay.  It's a story about some kids who want to take a pet elephant home, but then realize that maybe their parents won't be too happy about it.

When we read the book, we focused on the words "look" and "under".  As we read the story, we used our eyes to look at the things that Phil the Elephant was hiding under.  We then went and hid UNDER things in our classroom and teacher Heidi found us and took a picture of us with her iPad.  We then looked at all of the pictures and used our words to tell the class what we were hiding UNDER.

You can work on these concepts at home by playing hide and seek and talking about "looking" for people and hiding "under" things.

"H" The Panting Dog Sound

 

For the month of May, we are going to be talking about, singing about and practicing saying the "H" or panting dog sound.

 In order to produce this sound, you just have to open your mouth and breathe!!  This sound is unvoiced, which means what you hear comes from the movement of air through your throat and mouth.

To practice this sound at home, you can do any of the activities listed below:

-Go on a walk and say "hi" to objects, people and animals you see.

-Pretend to be bunnies and hop across a room or the yard. Say "hop" each time you hop.

-Pretend to cook something with your child and talk about the food being "hot".

-During a game or activity where your child needs assistance, model using the word "help".

Stop and Go

This week for Large Group we learned about the words "stop" and "go".  We also worked on using "ing" words and answering questions.

 

To work on those things, we used the rhythm sticks.  We listened for Teacher Heidi to say "go" and we tapped our sticks together or on the carpet until we heard her say "stop".  When she said "stop", we held our sticks up in the air until we heard the word "go" again.  We practiced understanding "stop and go" by tapping, rolling, waving, sliding and hammering our sticks.

We practiced using "ing" words by singing this song while we did different actions with the sticks:

Tapping, tapping, tapping

Tapping, tapping, tapping

Tapping, tapping, tapping

Now let's stop.

We sang this song using the words rolling, waving, sliding and hammering.

We each got a turn to choose how we were going to use the sticks as we sang the song.  We chose to twirl, circle, pound, drum, make ears, rub, roll, walk and many others.

You can practice the same concepts at home by playing Do As I'm Doing.  You and your child can take turns choosing an action and then saying, "go" to start and "stop" to end.  You can model using "ing" words to describe what you and your child are doing. 

Little Frog Little Frog

Last week for Large Group, we played a game focusing on understanding and using the word "IN" as well as, asking and answering questions, making predictions, drawing conclusions and understanding colors.

We met Little Frog who sometimes goes "IN" logs in the pond to cool off and take a break.  We played a game where Teacher Heidi hid Little Frog in a colored log and we all had a chance to guess what color log we thought Little Frog was hiding in. 

 

If we needed some support in choosing our color, we could point to the log we thought the frog was hiding in and if we needed some support saying the rhyme with the class, we could point to the words on the Boardmaker Page.

After we chose the color log we thought Little Frog was hiding in, we said the following rhyme while tapping our knees...

Little Frog, Little Frog, are you IN the (color) log?

If we guessed right, we would say YES, he's IN the (color) log.  

If we guessed wrong, we would say NO, he's NOT IN the (color) log.

Little Green

Last week for Large Group, we met Little Green Frog.  Little Green Frog had a BIG PROBLEM!! He lost his voice and could not say RIBBIT.  He asked all of his friends in the pond for help and finally Timmy Turtle was able to help Little Green SLOWLY say RIBBIT!!!  YAY we were so happy.

After we heard the story about Little Green, we played a game where we practiced saying different sounds as a way to help Little Green find his voice.

We took turns choosing what sound we were going to practice and what action we would do while we practiced it.  We could choose from one of Teacher Heidi's sounds or actions or think of one of our own.

We practiced the G, S, T, D, M, O, E, SH, CH, B, P sounds just to name a few and we practiced them while clapping, stomping our feet, tapping our knees, shaking our hips, jumping and bouncing.  We sang the following song for this activity...

MM (or whatever sound we chose) said the Little Green Frog one day;

MM said the Little Green Frog.

MM said the Little Green Frog one day,

but we all know frogs say RIBBIT!!

When we got to the RIBBIT part, we jumped just like a frog.  For some of our friends that have a hard time using words, they were able to use the Big Mac switch to help them say RIBBIT.

We had a lot of fun helping Little Green Frog find his voice!