Monday, May 15, 2017

"H" The Panting Dog Sound

 Image result for panting dog
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".

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Chicken Chicken Your Egg You Can't Find


This week for Large Group we talked about chickens and eggs.  We looked at a book that had many different types of birds and eggs.  We talked about how they are the same and how they are different.  Some eggs are really big, while others are small.  Some eggs are a plain color, while others have speckles.  We looked at some pictures that showed a baby chick trying to hatch.  We then played a game where everyone sat in a circle and we took turns being the chicken that got to sit in the middle.  Everyone would close their eyes and Teacher Heidi would put a big egg behind someone.  When we opened our eyes, we would all say "Chicken, chicken your egg you can't find, somebody has it, check BEHIND....".  The chicken in the middle would then go to his friends in the circle and ask them, "Do you have my egg?".  This game helped us work on learning what behind means.  It also helped us learn how to ask and answer a yes/no question.
 
 


Emotion Game


  Last week of  in Large Group, we played the Emotion Game.  Before we played, we reviewed the story of Emo Egg and talked about some of the emotions that Emo felt and how his face looked.  We then stood in a circle and we used our emotion and action dice to play the game.  One friend tossed the emotion dice to tell us how we were going to feel and another friend tossed the action dice to tell us what we were going to do.  We sang about the emotion and did the action to an adapted version of the song, If You're Happy and You Know It.  We sang...if you're happy, happy, happy clap your hands.  If you're happy, happy, happy clap your hands.  If you're happy clap your hands, if you're happy clap your hands, if you're happy, happy, happy clap your hands.  
We sang different words and did different actions to the song depending on what happened when we threw the dice.  We sang about being mad, scared, tired, sad, surprised and happy.  We growled, jumped, shouted hooray, clapped our hands, took a nap and stomped our feet. 
You can play this game at home by thinking of an emotion and asking your child what action they think would go with that emotion.  You can sing the song and do the action together.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Emo Egg

EMO EGG

This week for Large Group, we met Emo Egg.  Emo goes to preschool just like we do.  We heard a story about Emo's day at preschool and we learned about different emotions he felt and how his face looked when he felt them.  We practiced making those emotions with our faces.  
You can play an emotion game at home by showing your child different emotions on your face and have them guess how you might be feeling.  You can switch places and have them show the emotions on their face and you have to guess.

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Little Frog Little Frog

This 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.

Thursday, March 23, 2017

Little Green Lost His Voice

This 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!


Monday, March 20, 2017

Pass the Beanbag

Image result for kids playing bean bag games

This week for Large Group we played bean bag games.  We talked about different things we could do with the bean bags and when Teacher Heidi said, "GO" we threw the bags, caught the bags and moved them from one hand to another.

We played a game where we chose a classmate to toss the bean bag to.  We would say their name and then Teacher Heidi would say "GO" and we would toss the bag to the friend we named.  

We also played a game called "Pass It"  where we learned stop and go.  We learned what it means to "pass" something to the person "next to you".  We sang this song as we passed the bean bag...
Pass it, pass it, pass it;
Pass it, pass it, pass it;
Pass it, pass it, pass it;
Now let's stop...

When we stopped, we would look to see if we still had the same color bean bag after we had passed it.