We had a great time today decorating our little Christmas tree as we learned concepts. First we read a book about placing favorite items in, on, under and beside the tree. But the most fun was placing these items with a real tree! The children's receptive knowledge was assessed as they followed directions. Their expressive knowledge was displayed when they answered questions such as "Where is the present?" Sign language was used to prompt their verbal response. The children enjoy sign and it is always used with the spoken word. Sign is known to prompt verbal speech and not hinder it.
December 16, 2011
November 18, 2011
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Today in Ms. Friedmans's class we had to figure out what was in our surprise bag. It was a turkey! We made some friends for him with our turkey finger puppets. We read a wonderful story showing us how we are thankful for some of the same things as the Pilgrims, like our homes, people who help us such as Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa, our friends, our food, our teachers and our special time together. The book is called "Celebrating Thanksgiving" by Joel Kupperstein. In Mrs. Orr's class, we did a group story using body movements about a native american brave going hunting. This was fun! We finished our lesson with a special turkey poem that Mom and Dad will love! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!!!
November 05, 2011
Lovely Autumn
October 7, 2011
Today we focused on apples. In Mrs. Orr's class we read "Johnny Appleseed" by m Benet. What a wonderful man! The children created their own mini Johnny Appleseed book.
October 13, 2011
In Mrs. Orr's class, we began by looking at how seasons change and what makes us think of the Fall. We looked at many Fall item in my Amazing Autumn box - pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns large and small, Indian corn, a toy Stellaluna bat, colored leaves, acorns, and a Halloween cat. We finished the lesson by creating sentences about the items - "In the Fall we see_____."
October 28, 2011
In Ms,Friedman's class we read a cute Halloween book called "Wee Witches Halloween" by Jerry Smith." The signs for Halloween, witch, pumpkin, jack-o-lantern were used throughout the lesson. The most fun was when we carved our own jack-o-lantern on the Smart Board at the following website: http://spookathon.com/halloween/pumpkin-carver.php Try it, it's fun!
November 4, 2011
In both Ms. Friedman and Mrs. Orr's classes we read a sweet story about a squirrel who came to visit called "Nuts to You." We practiced the signs for vocabulary from the story for squirrel, nuts, tree, flower, and bird. The most fun was singing along to the song Gray Squirrel on the following website: http://www.scarysquirrel.org/special/movies/gskwerlsong/. Finally we put together puzzle pieces and made our own cute squirrel.
September 30, 2011
Ladybug! Ladybug!
In Miss Friedman's class today we had fun with bugs. Emily reached into the surprise bag and what did she find? A ladybug! That led right into a rousing song sung to the tune of The Ants Go Marching. We located and named various insects including the ant, the ladybug, the spider, the grasshopper and the bee. Each one had a special location in, on, under and beside an object. We finished with the fun story "The Grouchy Ladybug." In Mrs. Orr's class we continued learning how Braidy can help us tell stories. Today the story element, the setting, was introduced. We sang songs to remind us what the character and setting are. We played a game on a powerpoint and had to guess the location after hearing a description of a place. We also practiced sorting pictures of characters and settings after listening to a descriptive sentence. Boy, did we work hard!
Braidy is Quite a Character!
The lesson today for Ms. Friedman's class was based on the following math standard: Element: MKN1.a Count a number of objects up to 30. We performed our usual hello song, our "Guess what this is" bag, our good bye song, and our final yoga mantra to help us calm down. Included in this schedule was an activity with song about the Five Little Ducks who wandered away from mom and finally came back. We finished by making our own little duck that hangs in the hallway. In Mrs. Orr's class the doll, Braidy, was introduced. We talked about how Braidy helps us to tell stories. We sang a song about the first story element, the main character, and how to distinguish it from other items. For our final activity, we played a game on the Smart Board in which we selected the picture of a character when given a choice of two. This lesson was based on the following language arts standard: Element: ELAKR6.c Comprehension Asks and answers questions about essential narrative elements (e.g., beginning-middle-end, setting, characters, problem, events, resolution) of a read-aloud text
September 16, 2011
The country or the city.......??????
Do I want to live in the country or do want to live in the city????? This is the question that plagued two little mice in the story "The City Mouse and the Country Mouse" from Aesop's Fables. This was a perfect story to tie in with Mrs. Orr's unit about places where we live. The Cobb County standard associated with this lesson is: SSKIP1: Information processing skills Element: .a Compare similarities and differences. The children displayed their newly acquired knowledge by sorting city and country characteristics. In Ms. Friedman's class, the children sang songs about various clothing items while they put the clothes on a teddy bear. They were able to listen to the item description, select it from several pieces and place it on the proper part of the bear. Very good attending skills!
September 09, 2011
America the Beautiful!
Today in Group Language we read "My Teacher for President."
We followed this with a bingo game using all the new vocabulary. The students were all very adept at finding the correct picture when I described it. They also enjoyed shouting "Mrs. Orr for President1"
In Ms. Friedman's classes we focused on the 5 senses. We sang a song for each sense. Then the student's took turns and each one created a face on the clown. We had fun while we learned!
September 02, 2011
My Teacher for President
We began our lesson with the Hello song. Then we searched in our surprise bag for a hint to what our new unit is about. It was an American flag! The social studies standard, SSKH2: American symbols and meanings, provides the guidelines for our lessons. Today we read "My Teacher for President" by Kay Winters. It tells of some of the responsibilities of the president of the U.S. that are the same as a teacher's responsibilities, like signing papers, having meetings, cleaning up the earth, finding jobs for people, using media, providing health care and loving peace. We hunted for these characteristics in the bean bin during the vocabulary part of our lesson. After all the activities, we were convinced us that our teachers, Mrs. Orr and Ms. Friedman, should run for president!
August 25, 2011
Wonderful You!
We've spent the week talking about how everyone is different and how that makes us all special in our own way. One of the books we read was "All About You" by Catherine and Laurence Anholt. We talked about our feelings, what clothes we were wearing, where we live, who was in our family, what we like to eat and what we do for fun. Besides pointing out our special individuality, this helped us to get to know one another!
December 10, 2010
Run, run, run........
Today we had a good time in group language. We began the lesson with our hello song - a very lively, fun song. We took turn guessing what was in the surprise bag. Guess what it was? You're right -a a gingerbread man cookie cutter. Our story today was about the gingerbread man and all of the creatures he met along "the way of all gingerbread men who have ever been baked." The children caught on to the repetitive chant and were able to tell the story along with me. We finished the lesson by decorating our own gingerbread men. Some lovely creations!
