Construction Tools

The touch and feel pool was a flurry today as the boys played with magnetic letters, unit cubes, and empty egg cartons.  A menagerie of items with endless possibilities!  We used the unit cubes to make tall towers, trains, hammers, cranes, and letters.  After making a hammer out of the unit cubes, we used the hammer to pound pretend nails into the cardboard egg carton.  We used the letters to spell our names and other fun words like, "pop!"  

"Look at my train!"

Ethan examining letters and trying to spell his name.  

Ryan and Ethan shaking hands during "Hello Neighbor" song. Best Buddies!

Ryan and Ethan had several options during open centers today.  They stayed busy gluing puff balls to a picture of a bulldozer.  We learned that a bulldozer helps to clear a construction site by scooping dirt, sand, and rocks into a dump truck to take away.  We counted the puff balls, talked about the colors of each one, and talked about how soft they were in comparison to the "rough" sandpaper that we used in the touch and feel pool on Tuesday.  It was a fun way to introduce the opposites of "soft" and "rough" as I rubbed each material on their arms.  Ryan and Ethan also used the bin of rice and construction trucks that we used on Tuesday.  As they played, I worked with each of them one-on-one following simple directions using pictures of construction trucks and a hill.  We glued a picture of their favorite truck to a popsicle stick and then they had to place the truck in the appropriate position on the hill following my direction (i.e. under the hill, on the hill, in front of the hill, behind the hill, etc.).  These pages can be added to the construction booklets that I sent home on Tuesday and can be used at home for additional practice.  Start out with simple one-step directions (i.e. put the dump truck under the hill) and then challenge the boys to 2-step directions (i.e. put the dump truck in front of the hill and then behind the hill).  

It was a beautiful morning to play outside.  The boys had their usual fun with shopping cart races, and they enjoyed playing catch with me.  There was also a request for me to be the big bad wolf while they hid in their "brick" playhouse that I just couldn't blow down!

Our book today, Tip Tip Dig Dig by Emma Garcia is another great review of all the construction trucks that we have been learning about this week.  The book introduces great action verbs as the digger "dig, dig, digs", the mixer "mixes," the crane "lifts," the dump truck "tips," the bulldozer "pushes," and the road roller "rolls."  This book is a speech pathologist's dream because at the end of the book, it reviews what each truck did in the past tense (i.e. dug, mixed, lifted, tipped, pushed, and rolled).  At home you can read the book and then follow up with..."What does the bulldozer do...? etc" so that the boys can get additional use of these new action verbs.  

Before we started our art today, we got out all the tools that a construction worker might use and talked about the function of each one.  The hammer pounds nails. The screw driver turns screws.  The tape measure measures wood and other things on a construction site.  The wrench also turns screws, and the saw cuts wood.  As we reviewed all of the tools the boys took turns gluing pictures of them to our easel.  

Then we sang the songs, "Johnny's hammers" and the "Construction Song" (a copy was sent home today), and then they headed to the art table to make their own tool belts.  The boys colored each tool and then glued it to their tool belt.  We measured their waist and then stapled it together so that they could wear it.  

It was another great day at the Speech Garden.  Next week we will be changing our themes to include Spring, Summer, Fishing, and Mother's Day!  Have a great weekend!