The First Week!

I had so much fun with these cuties this week!

To recap, FYI, here's what we did:

Wednesday

Circle Time
We started out with Circle Time and our 3 songs. I let the kids identify their own names on their sitting mats. They loved all the songs, especially the hello song  when they have to jump up and turn around.

Reading
We did a "free read" where I let each kid pick out a book to read. I read those all first, then I read our book of the day, Go Dogs, Go! They all loved reading time, though some attended longer than others...

Letters and Language
I introduced G by showing them a "big G" and a "little G" and discussing the sound the G makes (this one was a little confusing--they all said "juh", but we stuck with the hard "guh" for now). Then I had each kid make the sound.
Next, we looked into the "G" bag, which included things or pictures of things that start with the sound "guh". Each kid had to pick one out and say which sound and letter it started with (all the same).
Next, they looked around the room to find G's on the wall. There were a lot of different letters all over the house, and they had to each find a big G and a little G.
Lastly, they got to practice writing G and g in vanilla pudding (and then lick their fingers).

Snack
For snack, we had grapes, graham crackers, and granola on yogurt (which no one ate).

Fine Motor/Art
First, I had the kids trace G and g. Then they cut and glued green things to the letter G. I think this was the favorite activity of the day.

 

We didn't have time for math and music today, so we went outside at this point to do our gross motor activities

Gross Motor
First we did a little game I made up called Stop-Go (to practice listening to the "guh" sound). The kids started at one side of the grass and I yelled "Go" and then "Stop" and they had to follow my directions.
Then we did some more movement practice. They had to act like gorillas, guitar players, and grasshoppers.

Day 1 was really fun and quite a success!


Thursday

Circle Time and Reading were the same as Wednesday. We read Go Dogs, Go! again, except this time I had them try to predict what was happening in the story or fill in the blanks on some of the pages.

Letters and Language
We reviewed big G and little g, and the sound G makes. Then we got out the G bag again, except this time, there were objects included which did not start with G. When they picked out an object, they had to tell me if it started with "guh"/G or not.

For the language concept this week, we discussed over/under, around/through, and inside/outside. I used big legos and some little animals as manipulatives to demonstrate each. Then I had each kid make something with the legos and show everyone else over/under, around/through, and inside/outside. They definitely had the hang of it by the time we were done. Around/through was the trickiest concept for them.

Snack
Green apples, garbanzo beans, and goldfish.

Science
Green Fizzy Fun! The kids each had medicine droppers, filled them with green vinegar, and saw what happened when they put the vinegar on baking soda. They loved it and some did not want to stop. They got some fine motor work in with the medicine droppers.

Since we were heavy on the fine motor/art on Wednesday, we did music and math instead on Thursday.

Math
Very simple concept today: they were given a bunch of little puzzles and matched parts of G things together (guitars, gorillas, goats, geese) to make a whole.

Music
First we learned about guitars. I took out the guitar and told them all about it. Each child counted the strings. Then each child got to hold the guitar and strum. Next, we listened to guitar music and danced to the music. Lastly, we sang "Give Said the Little Stream" and "God's Love" (Primary book), emphasizing the words starting with G.

 

Gross Motor
Time to go outside! Today we played t-ball. We practiced taking turns, holding the bat correctly, hitting the ball, and running around the bases. I think we should enroll all of them in t-ball this spring! They were great!!!

I had so much fun with these cuties this week. Now I can't wait to hear everyone else's ideas!