The Mitten & Jingling Many Ways

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The Mitten

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.

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingling Many Ways

Every student gets their own Jingle Bells, we then sing the song Jingle Bells, but with a twist:

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way

Oh what fun it is to shake my Jingle Bells today, Hey!

Shake them high, shake them low, shake them fast and shake them slow

Oh what fun it is to shake my Jingle Bells, Ho Ho.

Each student gets to choose a different verb, we'll give ideas like, tap, twirl, bounce, twist etc. 

From: http://theteacherwife.blogspot.com/2012/09/dont-eat-pete.html

Week of Thanksgiving

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Three Pigs and Jack

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The Three Little Pigs Large Group:

"I will huff and I will puff and I will blow your house down!" We will tell the story of the 3 Little Pigs with visual aides including sequencing cards, straw, sticks and a brick. The students will follow along as they do the actions and say the words.

Jack Be Nimble Large Group:

Jack be nimble, 

Jack be quick, 

Jack jumped over the candle stick. 

The students each get to take a turn deciding how they want to jump based on a choice of prepositions. For example, over, under, behind and in front over. While they do it, the rest of us will pat our knees and chant the rhyme as they do it.

Levels and Heights Small Group:

Just as an FYI, we have made our levels out of science tubes with water, food coloring and just enough space left for an air bubble.

From: http://peoniesandpoppyseeds.com/

Goldilocks, Three Bears and a Pile of Leaves

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Leaf Hunt Large Group

We have a leaf hunt chant with pictures that we are going to say introducing different attributes of leaves; big, small, colors, and positional and directional words as well. We will then take a walk around the school, using these words and reinforcing these concepts as the students find leaves to collect.

We're Going on a Leaf Hunt Chant:

“We’re going on a leaf hunt”

“We’re going to find some big ones”

“Some Small ones too!”

“Some might Be Yellow”

“Some might Be Brown”

“Some might Be Red”

“We’re going on a leaf hunt”

“We’re going to find some big ones”

“Some Small ones too!”

“Look, Ones up High”

“Stretch way up!”

“Reach to the sky!”

 “We’re going on a leaf hunt”

“We’re going to find some big ones”

“Some Small ones too!”

“Look way down low”

“Reach way down”

“Now grab it as you touch your toes!”

Goldilocks and the Three Bears Large Group

We have lots of copies of this story in the classroom and the students love it. Some of them dress up during work time as 'papa bear' and other characters. Other times they like to fill in the story with their own names. During our large group. We'll act out a simplified version of it over and over so everyone can have a turn. We'll emphasize attributes such as big, medium, small, hot, cold, hard and soft and sequencing. The students will have props to use and they can add their own names in as well if they would like.

Writing, Writing, Writing

We wanted to make sure we provided more opportunities for students to write in our classroom aside from small group writing and letter activities and writing their names on art work. Here is what we have come up with to include as part of our daily routine.

Student's write their names whenever they come in before sitting down at greeting time. They have name tags on symbols they recognize to use as a model if needed. They then place their name cards up on the wall in the blue pocket organizer. We can keep some of the name samples to see how their handwriting is developing over the school year.

After review, before washing their hands for snack, students get to 'sign-up' on our snack chart for the chore they want to help out with for the day. The assistants know their handwriting skills so even if they are at the beginning stages of writing their names, we can still recognize them.

Just and an FYI, these are the stages of writing that we see most of our students go through while in our class:

1. Random scribbling
2. Scribbling across in a horizontal direction
3. Creating letter like forms (including 0 and l )
4. Writing letters from their name (often starts with the first and the last)
5. Writing their name (by 5 years it's still big and all over the page, sometimes in random orders and that is more then ready for writing in kindergarten)

You are a Lion and Red is the Color

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You Are a Lion Large Group:

We will read the book You Are a Lion and Other Fun Yoga Poses by Taeeun Yoo. As we read, we will follow along with the Yoga poses. Our main focus of this activity is to build body awareness, follow directions and count as we breath. That being said, there are other good benefits to children doing yoga. If you're interested in finding about it more, check out this handout from Super Duper (click here).

After we read the book, we have some cards from ABC Yoga for Kids. Students will have turns picking out what figure they would like to pose like. Each time we pose, we will hold it for 10 seconds while we breath.

Red is the Color Large Group:

We have a set of big color books from Lakeshore. Each one has a song the says and spells the colors and colorful pictures that go with it. For example, for the color green:

Green is the color of the grass

And shamrocks in the springtime.

G-R-E-E-N, G-R-E-E-N, G-R-E-E-N,

Let's spell the color green again.

Each student will get a turn to pick the color they want us to sing next as a group.

Little Miss Muffet and a Costume Party

Little Miss Muffet

Sat on a tuffet,

Eating her curds and whey.

Along came a spider,

Who sat down beside her,

And frightened Miss Muffet Away.

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Little Miss Muffet Large Group:

This will be an active way to present one of our nursery rhymes we have been learning in greeting time and to further support understanding of it's meaning. We will go over the rhyme together and the words that may be new, "Muffet sounds like Tuffet. What is a tuffet?". Then we will act out the rhyme while repeating it together. Each student will have a turn to sit on the cushion 'tuffet' and to eat imaginary 'curds and whey' with their spoon and bowl or wear our spider hand puppet and sneak up from behind. We'll say "Mr. Muffet" and "he" when a boy is on the cushion during the rhyme. Rhymes are really good for helping students learn phonemic awareness. We post with our lessons plans each week the new rhyme we say at Greeting Time. If you're following along with them at home, you could have your child clap out the rhythm or the syllables with you. It's fun to come up with different ways to do it, especially when your child is the one to choose (e.g. patting your head or alternating between patting your legs and clapping).

Trick-or-Treating

For our last two days of the week, we will be going Trick-or-treating during Large Group as part of our 'Costume Party' around to five different locations in the school (some classrooms, the kitchen, office etc.). Feel free to send them in costumes (for details, see my emails). We'll focus on "Please", "Thank you" to support our speech therapist's Large Group on polite words, sequencing and following directions.