2013 TSGI Sprouts: I'm A Little Airplane

I am so excited about this month's theme, because I know two little boys who especially love all things related to transportation. It won't be hard to spark their attention spans this month! Ryan and Ethan loved the planes, trains, buses, firetrucks, and cars that filled the touch and feel pool this morning! We talked about the names of these modes of transportation, their colors, their sounds, and where we might be able to find them...on the roads? on tracks? in the sky? The touch and feel was also full of different colored links that we could hook together to make various patterns.

Because the items in the touch and feel pool were such a hit with Ryan and Ethan, we brought them back to our room as an option to work with during center time. The boys sorted each mode of transportation putting each one in its own group...all the planes together, all the trains together, etc. We counted how many were in each group, labeled their colors, and clapped the syllables in the names of each one. We also talked about the sounds that each one made. Ryan and Ethan also did a great job using their words to request more. For example, if Ryan was playing with three buses and Ethan wanted one, Ethan asked, "More bus please." Ryan did the same. It was also a good exercise in sharing some very prized items. We also targeted following multi-step directions as we cleaned up. "Find the train, and put it in the cup." Try asking your kiddos 2- to 3- step directions at home to practice this skill.

After Ryan and Ethan tired of playing with all the different vehicles, they enjoyed working those fine motor skills as they strung beads onto pipe cleaners. They pushed the letter beads "through the holes" to spell their names.

Then they moved on to practice cutting with scissors and both of them are getting quite good at it!

For our language lesson this week, we are learning all about airplanes, and we began our language circle with our song of the week!

I'm a little airplane,

Now watch me fly!

Here are my instruments

From down low to up high.

First I get revved up.

Then I can fly,

Lifting off the runway

Up into the sky!

Our book today is A Plane Goes Ka-ZOOM by Jonathan London. This is a great book for teaching all about airplanes and how some can go fast and slow, high and low. The book talks about the different parts of the airplane, the sounds of an airplane, and planes that can land on water and in the snow. As we read the book, I emphasized that airplanes usually take off from a runway and lots of them "sleep" in an airport.

After we read the book, I drew an airplane and labeled all the parts to emphasize our new vocabulary. We also learned that a "pilot" is the name of the person who flies the plane, the people are the passengers, and the flight attendants help the people/passengers on the plane.

For art today, Ryan and Ethan made their own airplane scenes. On a piece of blue construction paper, we glued two popsicle sticks in a criss-cross manner. We added cotton balls to the clouds and talked about how "soft" and "fluffy" the clouds looked and felt. We reviewed the new airplane vocabulary once again as I drew in propellers on the wings, windows in the middle, and a nose and tail on the plane.

Instead of going on the school playground, it was a perfect day for a trip to the park. Finally, some beautiful weather! In keeping with our theme, we listened and looked carefully for airplanes flying through the sky as we walked to the park. We enjoyed a picnic lunch with the rest of our Speech Garden friends and then hit the playground for some fresh air and exercise. Both boys were exhausted on our walk home. They both worked really hard and played really hard today. Hopefully, they will both sleep well for you tonight!