"Go"

This week Large Group was all about the word GO.  We sang the song, Go In My Car and used our hands to sign the word "GO" as we sang.  

We looked at and talked about the book Go Dog Go by P.D. Eastman.  We talked about how the dogs were GOing in and out, up and down and around.  

We played a STOP AND GO game.  We took turns choosing an action and we listened and watched for Teacher Heidi to show us the GO sign and say GO and we did the action until we saw the STOP sign and heard her say STOP.  We marched, ran in place, few like a bird, acted like a monkey, clapped, buzzed like a bee and turned in a circle.  If we couldn't say the words for the action we wanted to do, we used the GoTalk to choose.

"G" The Frog Sound

The "G" Sound-The Frog Sound

For the month of March, we are working on the "g" or the Frog Sound.  This sound is made by keeping your tongue back and using your voice to say "g".  If you put your hand on your neck when you say this sound, you can feel your voice vibrating to make the sound.  

We practiced saying the "g" sound by itself and in words.  This month we are going to be singing the Go In My Car song because it helps us practice saying "g" in the word "go".  When we sing the song, we use our hands to sign the word "go" as we sing.  Ask your child to show you how to use their hands to say the word "go".

You can work on this sound as home with some of the following activities:

-Have a race between cars.  Ask your child to say "go" at the beginning of each race.

-Set up a goal and kick a ball through it.  Ask your child to say "goal" each time a goal is made.

-Play with toy cars and trucks.  Model the word "gas" by going to get "gas" in the car or truck.

-Have your child put gum balls into a container saying "gum" for each one.

-Practice the word "gone" by having your chid say "all gone" when a snack is finished or when toys get put away or when a family member leaves.

If I Were A Doggie

If I Were A Doggie

This week for Large Group, we played a game called, If I Were A Doggie.  This game helped us work on using the "d" sound in phrases.  It also helped us work on using phrases to make choices, following directions and using verbs in phrases.  To play the game, we sang a little song to the tune of The More We Get Together.  The song goes like this....

If I were a doggie, a doggie, a doggie.

If I were a doggie then here's what I'd do....

We each got a turn to choose a "doggy action" from the cards pictured above or we could think of our own action.  We sat, panted, played dead, rolled over, dug, barked, begged, shook, jumped, bowed and chased our tails.

You can work on this at home by pretending to be an animal too.  You can let your child pick different actions to do and then verbalize what you are doing or what you did.  By talking about it, you are modeling using present and past tense verbs in phrases. 

Doggie, Doggie Where's Your Bone

Doggie Doggie Where's Your Bone

This week for Large Group, we played the game Doggie, Doggie Where's Your Bone?

This game helped us work on using the /d/ sound in words.  It also helped us work on asking and answering "wh" and "yes/no" questions. We talked about how dogs like to chew bones and how sometimes, they hide their bones.   We all got a turn to wear the dog mask and be the dog.  When we were wearing the dog mask, we would hide our eyes while Teacher Heidi hid the dog bone behind one of the other kids in the circle.  When the dog opened his/her eyes, we tapped our knees while we chanted, "Doggie, doggie where's your bone?".  The dog moved around the circle asking kids, "Do you have my bone?"  If we had the bone, we said "YES" if we didn't have the bone, we said "NO" and the dog would then ask someone else.  If some of our friends sitting in the circle had a hard time using words to ask the "Do you have my bone?" question or to answer "yes or no", they were able to use the BigMac switch to help them.   

You can play this game at home by hiding an object and using questions to get hints on where the object might me.  This will help your child work on attributes (it's under something red or big) and prepositions (it's on, next to, under, behind etc..).  This will also help your child work on asking questions and answering questions. 

Musical Hearts

This week in Large Group, we played Musical Hearts.   We played some music and danced in the middle of the rug.  When the music stopped, we froze and Teacher Heidi had one of us choose a heart with an action on it.  We used our words to tell the class what action we were going to do and then we all did the action. 

  

 We did jumping jacks, touched our toes, froze like statues, sang a song, hopped, pretended to shoot baskets, ran in place and marched.  It was a lot of fun to move to the music and then do some of the actions.  We talked about the actions as a way to work on using verbs in speech.

To work on this concept at home, talk about what you are doing or what you see other people doing.  Use "ing" verbs to describe what you see.

Animal Yoga

Animal Yoga

Last week for Large Group, we continued to talk about the "d" sound.  I brought my friend Tiny Tony.  Tiny Tony is a dog.  We sang a song about Tiny Tony.

We also talked about different animals.  We looked at pictures of animals and named them.  We also talked about how the animals look, how they move and what sounds they make. We talked about animals that we could think of that started with the "d" sound.   We moved our bodies different ways by doing animal yoga.  We used the pictures you can see above to help us do our animal yoga.  We each took a turn choosing an animal and then we did a yoga pose like that animal.  We were ladybugs, snakes, lions, monkeys, giraffes, peacocks, dogs, flamingos, elephants, lizards and turtles. 

 The book You Are a Lion! byTaeen Yoo, is a good book to check out from the library if you want to talk about and try some animal yoga poses at home.  

The Mitten

This week for Large Group we read the book The Mitten by Jan Brett.  This is a book about a boy named Nicki who wants his grandma to make him mittens that are as white as snow.  It isn't long before Nicki loses his white mitten in the white snow and it becomes a warm home to some animals.  The story ends with the bear getting tickled by the mouse's whiskers and letting out a HUGE sneeze.  This sneeze sends the animals and the mitten flying through the air.  When Nicki finds his mitten it has been stretched and pulled and is bigger than his other mitten.

We all loved this story.  We learned that if you look on the side of each page, there is a picture that gives us a hint of what will be happening next.  We talked about the animals in the book and used descriptive words to describe them.  We made predictions as to what we thought would happen next and we even drew some conclusions about what happened based on the pictures we were looking at.  We talked about mittens and how they help us.  We sequenced which animal went into the mitten first and which animal went into the mitten last.  We talked about which animal was the biggest animal and which animal was the smallest animal.

We played a game where we pretended that a large sheet laid out on the floor was a huge mitten and we were the animals looking for a warm place to go.  When teacher Heidi said the name of our animal, we crawled in the mitten.  We had to squeeze so that everyone fit inside.  The mouse was the last to go in the mitten and then we all let out a big A-A-A-Choo and the sheet flew off all of the animals.  

When we were finished with the BIG mitten, we put all of our animals back inside a big paper mitten that teacher Heidi had.  We listened for our animals and as we put in in, we sang this song to the tune of Farmer in the Dell.

The (name of animal) squeezes in the (name of animal) squeezes in;

Help us please so we don't freeze,

The (name of animal) squeezes in.

You can read the book The Mitten at home by checking it out from the library or you can watch an online version by going to YouTube and searching Online Storytime: The Mitten.