With October being fire safety month, we have been going over all things fire safety related and even had some special visitors stop by to see us.
So far, we have covered:
Stop, drop, and roll
Calling 9-1-1 if there is a fire or an emergency
The importance of not being afraid of firefighters in their gear and realizing they are here to help us.
This week, Goldilocks and the Three Bears visited our classroom. Throughout the week, we sorted and discussed items as small, medium, or large. This exploration of sizes allows children to make direct comparisons. Beyond enhancing math skills, the story also fosters literacy development, including language acquisition and memory recall.
The children have been exploring the concept of grouping, identifying items as belonging to a group of red, a group of blue, a large group, or a small group. They engaged in sorting and classifying various objects found around the classroom according to their color. Additionally, the children sorted and classified leaves and pine straw collected during an outdoor walk. To deepen their understanding, we took it a step further by grouping ourselves based on the color of our shirts. Then, we tallied our numbers on the board, recognizing that each tally mark represented one of us.
We used the Gingerbread Man Hunt to work together as a group. During the hunt, the children practiced following directions, letter recognition, and working together as a group.
Click the link to watch our video of the Gingerbread Man Hunt!
Foundation Skills:
Naming the parts of the body
Listen to oral directions to attend to a simple task
Imitate teacher's body movements
Sequencing
Social Emotional:
Take turns with peers
Oral Language:
Demonstrate active listening by attending to instruction
Sensory Motor:
Move an object in one hand to position it for use, placement, or release
Notice and attach meaning to visual information.
We finished off last week's lesson on Monday with a visit from Grandmother! Penny Butter Fudge is one of our curriculum books. In the story, Grandmother surprises her grandchildren with a change in the schedule. Mrs. Denise works at our school, and she pretended to be grandmother. We were blown away when grandmother changed our schedule by making Peeny Butter Fudge. During this activity, the children practiced following directions, taking turns, and counting.
Benefits of Old McDonald:
Vocabulary Expression- The children learn the names of the different farm animals and the sounds that they make.
Verbal Expression- Singing along builds the children’s confidence in speaking and articulation.
Social Interaction- Singing in a group shows the children that everyone belongs and gives them the feeling of belonging, and helps the children to learn to listen to others
Each child started with ten keys. I would then take a few away, and they each had to tell me how many keys they had left and how many I had taken. The children also got to play with the keys and sort them into different groups. The children sorted the keys into small, medium, and large groups and different color groups.
Our letter of the week is F. The children all learned how to write an F, the sound it makes, and different things that start with F, such as fish or frog. We had a fun activity where the children made an F out of Play-Doh. Making the letter out of Play-Doh helps to strengthen the muscles in the hand because the children had to pinch and roll out the dough. Building those muscles in the hands helps to strengthen their grip and writing.
The first weeks of school have been all about learning new things such as names and building new relationships. During circle time, we have really fostered our oral language development skills, and demonstration of phonological awareness with reciting, repetition, and acting out of nursery rhymes. We have focused on growing those skills with Humpty Dumpty, The Three Little Kittens, and Little Miss Muffet.
The children not only got to recite and act out Humpty Dumpty but also got to incorporate some science with exploring the effects of dropping an egg and investigating the break.
The Three Little Kittens were used to incorporate a fun game involving name recognition. All the children acted as the kittens who lost their mittens and had to find their matching color and name mitten.
All of the children got to dress as either the spider or Little Miss Muffet which the children loved so much but they also were able to actually sample curds and whey.
The children not only are attending weekly music class but also having it incorporated in the classroom. The children always love and enjoy going to see Mrs. Wright for music, the class is always very engaging and interactive. We incorporated music in the classroom to teach a lesson on tempo and rhythm. The children danced with scarves to the rhythm of the music and listened to different tempos where they in return tried to match fast or slow with their rhythm sticks.
