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!
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