Wrapping up the Beginning of the Year Unit

Gingerbread Man

Focus Question of the Week: How can we be a part of a group?

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!

Gingerbread Playdough

Mat Man

Benefits of teaching Mat Man

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.

Peeny Butter Fudge

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.

Bailee Lowery
Beginning the Year

Old McDonald-Exploring Musical Concepts and Expression

An important rule for playing musical instruments is to learn the resting position. Controlling impulses is part of building self-regulation.

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

Counting and Sorting

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.

Fine Motor Skills

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.

Bailee Lowery
Beginning the Year

Nursery Rhymes

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.

Humpty Dumpty

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

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.

Little Miss Muffet

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.

Musical Lessons

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.

Bailee Lowery
Ball Unit

Ball Painting

Painting with balls is a fun way to combine process art and science with our kids. There is no set way to make a ball painting. We used three different types of balls for our project. I ask each student to predict what type of pattern each ball would create. Why does this ball make a different design?

sorting by size

St. Patrick’s day activities

The TOOTH FAIRY

We had another surprise visitor this week, Twinkles the Tooth Fairy! Her and her partner from Pediatric Dentistry of Texarkana talked to the children about how to take care of their teeth and even sprinkled some fairy dust to help remind them to brush their teeth.

Cristen Gerber
Valentine Exchange

We started off our valentine exchange with a color by number page and a few rounds of alphabet bingo. The kiddos then had a blast passing out all there valentines and candy grahams!

Cristen Gerber