Seven Weeks of Lesson Plans

I've put together 7 weeks of lesson plans for Julie (our student teacher and our substitute) for while I am on maternity leave and for the first week I'm back. She'll be following a lot of them but she has many years of experience and as much training in the High Scope curriculum as me so she may change anything she needs to based on student's needs, interests as well as any requirements for her student teaching. That being said, a lot of it will probably stay the same so I'm posting this for you to reference back to based on how the pink "What I did in school today" forms are filled out (e.g. if it says ABC paint stamps or Birthday Large Group, you can look it up on here for the week).

I've picked out most large group lessons from earlier this year or previous years so our assistants are familiar with the activities. Under each week is a link to details on how the Large Group activity is set up.

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Birthday Large Group (Click Here)
Train Obstacle Large Group (Click Here)

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Goodnight Gorilla Large Group (Click Here)

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Pete the Cat & Old MacDonald Large Groups (Click Here)

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Napping House and Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches Large Groups (Click Here)

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If You're Happy and You Know It
(as stated above combined with this one: Click Here)
Let it Go Large Group (Click Here)

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ABC Song Large Group (Click Here)
Song Board Large Group (Click Here)

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Old MacDonald Large Group (Click Here)
Rub-a-dub-dub Large Group (Click Here)

Mr. Potato Head and Birthdays

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Mr. Potato Head Large Group

We have a large potato (about 3 feet tall) and a dice with Mr. Potato Head parts on it. The children chant, "One, two, three, toss!" as each gets a turn to throw the dice. They then put up the piece on the potato head (pieces from therapyfunzone.net). We're working on body part vocabulary along with colors and prepositions.

Birthday Large Group

Our students love having the birthday song sang to them and since one of our KDIs (from our curriculum) is knowing each other's names, this becomes a great activity for it. Pulling in name recognition (both in the curriculum and some of our IEP goals), we'll write down the name of a student on the white board and if it's their name they get to come up to the front to have the song sung to them. They get to pick what we do while we are singing the song to them (e.g. stomping, patting knees), flying like super heroes etc.

If You are Holding Red, Stand Up Tall

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Colors Large Group

Ms. Carrie has been doing some color song activities with the students and they love it. Due to the amount of language she needs to color, she isn't as able to go in to color recognition and songs as we would like so to help support her large group we're doing this one as well. Each student has a color the get to hold. We sing the following song to the tune of If You're Happy and You Know It:

If you are holding (Red) stand up tall.

If you are holding (Red) stand up tall.

If you are holding (Red), it's the color in your hand.

If you are holding (Red) stand up tall.

We'll go through each of the colors, singing the song as a class. Then students get to switch colors with their peers and we sing the song again.

Colors and Mittens

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Color Large Group

Ms. Carrie has been doing some color song activities with the students and they love it. Due to the amount of language she needs to color, she isn't as able to go in to color recognition and songs as we would like so to help support her large group we're doing this one as well. Each student has a color the get to hold. We sing the following song to the tune of If You're Happy and You Know It:

If you are holding (Red) stand up tall.

If you are holding (Red) stand up tall.

If you are holding (Red), it's the color in your hand.

If you are holding (Red) stand up tall.

We'll go through each of the colors, singing the song as a class. Then students get to switch colors with their peers and we sing the song again.

Mitten Large Group

Remember the Mitten Large Group? We did it with our Monday/Wednesday class and they had a lot of fun. We wanted to make sure our Tuesday/Thursday class got to join in the fun and learning as well. Click here for info on this large group.

We All Go Traveling By & Snowmen

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We All Go Traveling By Large Group

We have a song from the book We All Go Traveling By by Sheena Roberts. Each mode of transportation has it's name, color and another descriptive word. We have a visual aid board to go with it. The students take turns helping to add the different items and remember what each phrase for each item is.

Snowman, Snowman, What Do you See Large Group

We did this last year and being a great one for the students, did it again this year. You can click here to get a copy of the book along with a description of the activity.

Polar Express & Winter Pajama Fun

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Our Class Winter Party:

As you probably have gathered from our other class parties, we like to keep the routine as familiar as possible for our students so they can enjoy the festivities without too much craziness. Here are our plans for our class Winter Parties which will be during the AM and PM sessions on Wednesday and Thursday. The only exception is that we will have a short film instead of small group on Thursday afternoon since our assistants will be tied up in a required (but don't worry, still festive) 'meeting'. The short film will probably be a Caldecott winner book put to a movie. Ms. Jeana has a DVD of quite a few so we might have the students help pick which one. All of our parties will be as follows:
Pajama Days! Send you child in the PJ's if they want to!
Small Group: Snow activities (see above lesson plans)
Snack: Cookies and 'hot' cocoa (with marshmallows)
Large Group: Christmas Caroling at the front office. We will be singing Jingle Bells and Must Be Santa with musical instruments.

For the Polar Express Large Group, click here for pictures and a synopsis.

For Must Be Santa Large Group, we will be practicing our Christmas Caroling songs with musical instruments and visual aides including focusing on the "wh" word, "who?".

The Mitten and Polar Express

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Due to unplanned scheduling conflicts, last Monday's AM and PM class missed the Mitten Large Group and they still want to do it so it's back on the lesson plans for this coming week.

Mitten Large Group

For our Mitten large group activity we will tell the story of the mitten with pictures from the book. The students will then be given a mask of one of the animals in the story. We found these on Jan Brett's website:  http://www.janbrett.com/mitten_masks_main.htm. We will hold out a blanket over our large mitten shape taped on the floor and sing to the tune of The Farmer and the Dell:

The mitten in the snow

The mitten in the snow

Help us please. . . so we don't freeze

The mitten in the snow

Carter squeezes in

Carter squeezes in

Help us please. . . so we don't freeze

The mitten in the snow

Once everyone in the whole class is under the sheet we will all sneeze "Ah, Ah, Ah, Chooo!!!!!" And everyone will rush out of the "mitten" and back to their seat.

Polar Express Large Group

"All aboard!" Students get to take their tickets and go on an obstacle course to the North Pole. Under the table, around the mountain, through the tunnel, over the bridge, on the tracks and stopping at the north pole. For more details, here is a link to the last time we did it with just a 'train theme' (click here)