More on where things live...

The Touch and Feel pool was rocking today as we used Unifix cubes of assorted colors to build big towers.  Some children built their version of firetrucks and hoses, and it was also fun to spin them once attached to each other.  Clearly a huge hit!

During Language Circle today, we continued to talk about where we live and where specific animals live.  We read the book, Where Is My House by Simms Taback.  On each page of this hide and peek book, a variety of different animals ask, "Where is my house?".  When Bristol and Ryan flipped the flap, the animals' houses were hiding behind it.  For example, a donkey found his shed.  A bunny found his hutch.  A mouse found his hole, and a dog found his doghouse.  After reading the book we completed an interactive language task about where different animals live.  Each sheet contained a different animal.  We learned the specific animal, the sound it makes, and then we had to circle (from two pictures) the correct animal habitat.  After completing this task, we painted and colored our "houses" using markers and Do-a-dot paints.

On the playground today we were all about bubbles and balls!  Every time Ryan and Bristol enter the playground, the other DUMC preschool children know that they always come equipped with bubbles.So the request was made, and we delivered a million bubbles!  The children used the sign for "more"and also yelled, "I want more bubbles, please!"  It was a breezy day, so we talked about how the bubbles were traveling high in the sky and all around us.  Bristol enjoyed rolling a ball back and forth with another preschool teacher, and Ryan specifically requested to play basketball, "I want up please!" and two points were scored!

  

Yay! We had music therapy today!  This week Ms. Gretchen and Ms. Kiley kept us busy as we sang a song about specific things that we like.  Bristol and Ryan had to make a choice between two picture cards (i.e. pizza or broccoli?, chocolate or vanilla?, dog or cat?) while singing their preferences.  We also sang about words that began with every single letter of the alphabet, first sounding out the first letter of each picture and then saying the whole word (i.e. a-a-a-apple! p-p-p-pig! etc.).

 
Bristol and Ryan were wiped out by the time we reached our lunches!  We finished the day with a few songs and a short video about our houses.  Have a great weekend and see you next Tuesday for another fun-filled day!

Where Do I Live?

The Touch and Feel pool was busy this morning as we warmed up for the day exploring many modes of transportation that were all different colors.  The kiddos flew, rolled, beeped, and zoomed helicopters, firetrucks, buses, cars, and trains.  

Our Morning Circle continues to target several songs to greet the friends in our class as well as calendar concepts.  We sing "Where is Bristol/Ryan?" and respond with "Here I am!" using picture cues to support the verbal output.  We sing a song about the days of the week (see attached YouTube video if you want to learn the song and sing along at home with your child), the months of the year, and we count the number of days that we have left in September.  We also answer the questions, "Today is ...", "Tomorrow will be...", "Yesterday was...."  We are learning to decipher if the weather is sunny, rainy, or cloudy using our "What's the weather song?" paired with picture cues (sung to the tune of Clementine).  

On the playground today Bristol and Ryan had fun pushing the bikes and shopping carts.  Bristol especially enjoyed zooming a toy train down the slide, and Ryan always enjoys a good game of chase.  They both had fun kicking the ball back and forth (with support).

 During Literacy Circle we read The Best Nest by Laura Datta and Matt Buckingham.  This story follows a sweet little owl, adorned with beautiful tactile glitter, as he decides to leave his crowded nest to find a new, bigger and better home.  As he visits the different animal habitats (a frog in a wet pond, a dark bat cave, a sticky spider's web, a pile of leaves with a sharp, spiny hedgehog, a tiny mouse hole, loud crickets living in the grass), he decides that his own nest, although crowded with his other brothers and sisters is the best nest for him!  As I read about the different settings where these insects and animals lived and the adjectives used to describe them, Bristol and Ryan got to experience "wet" by touching and splashing water in a bowl, "sticky" by touching masking tape, "sharp" by touching the tip of a paper clip, "dark" by turning off the classroom lights, and "loud" by listening to some chirping crickets on a sound machine.  We then went to our arts and crafts table to make our own houses out of construction paper using several different shapes (square, rectangle, circle, triangle) of many different colors.  We traced the outer edges of the shapes and verbally labelled them before glueing them onto our papers.

After we finished Language Circle, we headed outside with the rest of the Speech Garden for our 1st Out and About, an outdoor scavenger hunt!  Bristol and Ryan had amazing stamina as we walked around our school finding items on our picture-based scavenger hunt.  We had to look for a leaf, trash can, bugs, flowers, etc and then circle or mark them off as we found them.

After our adventure outside, we were hungry, thirsty, tired, and very ready for lunch.   I am truly enjoying the time I spend with Bristol and Ryan on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Thank you for sharing your sweet children with us!  See you Thursday!

What Can We Do With Friends?

The touch and feel pool surprises us every Tuesday and Thursday with something new to explore.  Today Bristol and Ryan played with treasures!  These treasures consisted of beautiful, jewel-like rocks and sequins of many shapes and sizes.  Everyone enjoyed feeling the treasures in his/her hands, and we worked on finding specific shapes upon the teacher's request.

Our Thursdays are always super busy with the addition of Music Therapy into our schedule.  So after a short morning circle and centers, we went straight to our Language Circle.  Today we read My Friends by Taro Gomi.  This book talks about all the fun things that we can do with our friends.  For example, I learn to nap from my friend crocodile...I learn to run from my friend horse.  This book gave us ample opportunities to boost our vocabulary...action verbs (nap, run, play, jump, read, etc), animals (horse, crocodile, dog, cat, etc), and we proceeded to act out all of the verbs and animal noises.  Bristol and Ryan love big, gross motor activities; and they especially love to be silly, so this book was just perfect for them and for attracting their attention and interest.

After we finished with our silliness and learning new vocabulary (even though we didn't even realize it), we headed to our table for some arts and crafts.  Today we made friendship necklaces and talked about all the different things friends teach us to do.  We wrote all of our friends' names in our class on strips of paper, decorated them with stamps, do-a-dot paints, and connected them with glue to make a chain necklace.  

It was a beautiful fall day, and Bristol and Ryan definitely got some energy out on the playground. They were playing what looked like a sliding marathon or obstacle course together...going down the slide, up the steps, and back down the slide over and over again one after the other.   They also enjoyed  popping bubbles with the other children and both requested "more bubbles" using signs and expanded sentences independently.   

After the playground, we had just enough time to wash our hands and head to music therapy.  Today we went on a bear hunt as we sang and pretended to crawl through the grass, walk through the mud, and tip-toe through the forest.  We also sang the song, "Five Little Ducks" while using picture cues to take ducks away as they "swam" away from the mother duck; and we continued to count the number of ducks that were left until they were all gone.  Bristol and Ryan also had the opportunity to play the drums, bells, and shakers as they learned the signs for "sorry" and "thank you."  See the special video below!  They end every music class playing the good-bye song on the guitar together.  

After getting totally worn out in music therapy, we had a little down time in our classroom to work on our fine motor skills to continue to get our hands ready for writing.  Bristol and Ryan thoroughly enjoyed stringing beads onto pipe cleaners to make beautiful bracelets.  I sent these home in their backpacks as a good activity to work on at home.   But be warned, beads have a tendency to go EVERYWHERE!   

We then headed to lunch with the rest of our friends.  It was another busy but great week.  Ryan and Bristol seem to be enjoying school and getting into their new routine.  Have a super weekend!

All About Friends

We've started another great week at the Speech Garden.  This week we are learning all about our friends.  Who are our friends?  What do we do with our friends? Where do our friends live?  What kind of friends can you have?  Why do we have friends?  So many questions to answer about our friends!

At the touch and feel pool, Bristol and Ryan began their morning playing with Bendaroos (also called Wiki Sticks).  These sticky, bendable sticks of many different colors can be shaped into all sorts of fun decorations.  We made a rainbow and also wrapped them to make a tiny little snail.

We then went to our cozy classroom for centers and morning circle before heading out to the playground.   Upon entering our room, Bristol and Ryan seemed particularly interested in the books in the book basket today.  So in keeping with the importance of following the lead of the child, I read all three books that they wanted to read instead of going straight to our morning circle.  We read (and sang), Wheels on the Bus, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Where's Baby's Belly Button? (which is a peek-a-boo type book).  In order for them to see what was under the flap, Bristol and Ryan had to use the sign for "open" or say "open please."

During centers, we continued to use Bristol and Ryan's favorite ball run and a shape sorter that makes a silly noise when you place the shape in the correct spot.  Bristol and Ryan were required to use expanded sentences and the signs for "go" and "more."

We had super big smiles on the playground today!  We all played chase together.  Bristol had a blast throwing a big yellow ball over the play equipment with me, and I got some really great laughs from Ryan when we played peek-a-boo through the plastic windows on the jungle gym.

For our Language Circle today we read the book, Where is My Friend?, a hide and peek book by Simms Taback.  In this book, a variety of different animals walk through various settings asking, "Where is my friend?"  Once Bristol or Ryan flipped the flap on the page, they would see another hiding animal friend and say, "I see my ostrich friend", etc.

Following the book, we used our fine motor skills to make a friendship garden by tracing and gluing our handprints to flower stems on our paper.  I also brought different types of scissors that Bristol and Ryan could use to practice cutting different edges.  

After we finished with our story and our art project, we had just enough time to watch a short YouTube video and song about friends.  Then we headed off to have lunch with the rest of our friends!

Our Family Tree

Another busy day at the Speech Garden Preschool!  We were so busy today that we didn't even have time for our snack!

Bristol and Ryan started their day at the touch and feel pool playing with plastic eggs of different colors.  They pulled them apart, put them together, sorted them, and especially loved pretending to crack them open on my head.  "Oooh, Slimy!" was the word we used that got such a fun reaction!

We welcomed all of the friends in our class during morning circle and continued to learn our calendar and weather concepts. Sometimes it is hard to sit on our carpet squares, so this is a good exercise for gradually increasing our attention span to a specific, structured task.

We were all about our "Dads" today during Language Circle.  We read the book I Love My Daddy by Sebastien Braun, which highlights all of the fun things that children do with their dads.  As I read the book, and we looked at the beautiful illustrations, we acted out the story.  For example, we pretended to eat when it said, "My daddy feeds me" and we got very sleepy when, "My daddy yawns with me" etc.  Bristol and Ryan especially loved it when I pretended to sleep, and they woke me up with a startle!  Lots and lots of eye contact and silly social interaction with this one!

We talked about how dads are boys and moms are girls, and we made a chart with magazine clippings sorting pictures of moms and dads into these two groups.  We also went back to our own personal family boards following the directions, "Where is Bristol's/Ryan's daddy?"

For our art activity today, we made a finger print family tree, labeling all of the leaves with our family member names. Our artwork had both a fine motor component as we colored all around it and a sensory component as we fingerprinted our leaves and talked about how it is okay to be messy!

On the playground today I brought our tunnel and bubbles to share with the other children at Dilworth United Methodist preschool.  Bristol and Ryan both loved going through the tunnel.  We worked on telling the other children that it is "my turn," and we used expanded sentences and signs to request more bubbles. 

Music and singing make language learning fun and bring words to life.  We sing when we transition to a new activity. We sing when we clean up.  We sing when we wash our hands, and when we walk down the hall.  We are always singing.  Try bringing music/singing into your daily routines at home.  With that being said, Bristol and Ryan had a blast during music therapy today.  We sang "When You're Happy and You Know It" while using picture cues expressing all of the specific feelings that we sang about.  We also targeted the words and signs for "please" and "thank you" and "stop" and "go" while we sang and played the instruments.  We also used scarves as we marched, swung, hopped, and put the scarves on our heads, shoulders, and knees.

  

After we ate lunch with the rest of our friends, we always have a short music session at the end of the day.  This week, Bristol and Ryan have loved learning the following song about families:

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  See you on Tuesday!

We Love our Families!

This week we are learning all about our families!  Thank you so much for sending in your photographs last week.  I laminated them and posted them on Ryan and Bristol's "Family Board" in our classroom.  We will use these all week as well as throughout the school year to talk about our families and to also give Ryan and Bristol "a piece" of home in our classroom.

Ryan and Bristol started their morning playing with shaving cream at our sensory table.  We drew circles, squares, and triangles.  We made eyes, noses, and smiles.  We talked about how it is okay to be messy!

We then retreated to our own classroom where we continue to learn how to sit and attend to our morning circle time.  Because there was such an incredible response to the use of instruments during Music Therapy last Thursday, I decided to incorporate some shakers into our morning circle in an effort to increase attention span and interaction.  To start off our morning circle, we always get our hands ready with the song "Open and Shut Them."

Open and Shut Them
Open and shut them, open and shut them.
Give a little clap, clap, clap.
Open and shut them, open and shut them.
Fold them in your lap, lap, lap.
Creep them, crawl them. Creep them, crawl them.
Right up to your chin, chin, chin.
Open up your little mouth but.......
DO NOT LET THEM IN!

We sang our Good Morning Song to welcome all of our friends to school, and we use picture cues to help Ryan and Bristol say, "Here I am!" in response to our song, "Where is Bristol/Ryan?"  We also targeted calendar and weather concepts through songs and picture cues.

On the playground today, Bristol and Ryan enjoyed taking turns passing the ball back and forth while using the sign (patting chest with hand) and saying, "My turn" or expanding our sentences to say, "I want the ball please." We got great eye contact and long interactions with this activity.

After getting some energy out on the playground, we headed back to our classroom for Language Circle, which is all about "Mom" today. We read one of my family's personal favorites, Llama Llama Misses Mama by Anna Dewdy.  This book talks all about Llama llama's first day of preschool and the challenges of leaving his mama, learning a new schedule, and meeting new friends and teachers.

After we finished the book we used our family photographs to follow 1-and 2-step directions (i.e. "Find your mom.  Find your dad and sister."), and we worked on verbally identifying our family members, either vocalizing a name approximation or by saying, "This is  _______."  Finally, we matched the written name of each family member to his or her picture in order to facilitate early word recognition.  Our art project, involved using "Do-A-Dot" paint sets to decorate "Mom's" name.  As we painted we vocalized, "Dot, dot, dot."and "We are painting." We were also able to target our colors. We made "hugs" for our moms with our arms wrapped around hearts.  During our Language Circle, Ryan and Bristol enjoyed matching animal babies with their animal mommies using one of our Memory Games.  We worked on saying, "Baby pig, where are you?" and "Here's the baby pig!" They specifically loved the mommy and baby skunk when we said, "Pee You! Stinky!"

After our very busy morning, we headed to lunch and music with the rest of the Speech Garden preschool.  Can't wait for another great day on Thursday!