First week of Thanksgiving Unit
We were very busy and had a fun week learning about Thanksgiving and what it means to be thankful.
Monday- Celebrated Nikki's 5thy Birthday with a Go Noodle birthday song and her choice of a couple of Danny Go Movement Activities. We read the book, Thanksgiving is for Giving and had a great discussion and carpet time share about what it means to be thankful/grateful. Enjoyed outdoor recess in the last full-day of dry weather for the week. Made colorful dot painting turkeys and completed a Silly Pumpkin Patch activity with color matching by attributes and following directions.
Tuesday- We made Name Turkeys with ech feather having a letter in the students name. Students had to color and cut out the turkey, then cut out the fingers with the letters in their name. Finally, they had to glue the feathers to the back of the turnkey in the correct order of their nam. We also started making our handprint turkeys which tool a couple of days to complete. First, painted student's palms with brown paint, then fingers with green, yellow, red and orange. The students printed their colorful hand print on paper with a fall border and a sweet poem In music with Ms. Li, we danced and moved like turkeys, then each student played a tambourine as we marched and sang. Finally, we got to use drum stikcs to keep the beat to a song about being "CURIOUS", LECC Character Education word of the quarter. The tune of the song was to We Will Rock You by Queen (Boom, Boom, Clap. Boom, Boom, Clap.). Next week we will get to use the drum sticks on bucket drums as wel wear the rest of the CURIOUS song.
Wednesday- Introduced the letter G and made the uppercase letter G out of wooden shapes with one Big Curve and two little lines. We worked in our Handwriting without Tears workbook on the letter G and completed our Name Turkeys for those who didn't get a chance to complete one on Tuesday. We finished up our Handprint Turkeys by adding googly eyes, a waddle, a beak and feet. We worked on tracing our names from our handwriting binder.
Thursday- Our Students were busy making colorful and creative turkeys out of Model Magic Clay and markers. This fun, hands-on activity provides benefits to fine motor skills and hand strength. Kneading the Model Magic to mix the marker colors into the white clay is a form of resistance work that strengthens the small muscles in the hands and fingers.This helps prepare hands for writing, buttoning, and zipping. Pinching, rolling, and shaping the Model Magic to for the turkey head, body, and feet improves finger control and coordination Tiny fingers pushing in googly eyes and feathers improves dexterity and bilateral coordination as they use both hands together to complete the different tasks involved. Based on the Thanksgiving books Run, Turkey Run by Diane Mayr and Turkey in Trouble, by Wendi S. Silvano, we made Turkeys in Disguise, coloring our turkey and picking a costume to color, cut and glue on our turkey to keep him hidden or in disguise from the hungry farmers. In the afternnoon, we went to 4th Grade Musical, Let's Eat. I was very impressed and proud of the way the Spoede Pre-K students showed Spoede ROCKS behavior at our first full-length assembly (40 minutes) sitting with the rest of the school without our buddies.
Friday- We celebrated George's 5th Birthday (which is actually Sun., Nov. 23) with a Go Noodle birthday song and his choice of a couple Danny Go movement activities. In Art with Ms. Tara, we listened to the book Turkey in Trouble and made Turkey Crowns where the students became disguised as Turkeys instead of the turkeys. We finished our Turkeys in Disguise project and Dot painted G is for Gratitude. We also wrote what we were grateful for at the bottom of the page. In the late afternoon, we had popcorn with our 4th Grade Buddies for a symbolic Thanksgiving feast. We read The Thankful Book by Todd Par with lots of great ideas about being thankful. Then the 4th Grade buddies and Pre-K buddies worked together to use words and pictures that represent things that they are thankful for. Here is the final product.
Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Update:
We continue to increase our phonemic awareness and as the weeks progress, Heggerty adds new skills for us to work on. Here is what we are doing now.
Rhyme Recognition: Students hear two words, repeat the two words, and identify if the words rhyme or not by indicating thumbs up or thumbs down. (Teaching tht middle and final sounds are the same in rhyming pair.)
Initial Phoneme Isolation: Students will hear a word, repeat the word, and isolate the first sound they hear.
Body-Coda Blending combines the body of the word (the first two sounds) and the final sound into a spoken word. Students can be instructed to say it fast when blending the tow parts together. (Ex. T: ho -t , hot. T & S: ho -ot hot). (Ex. T: see -k. seek. T & S: see -k seek)
Phoneme Isolations: Medial Sounds. Students will hear words with short /a/ and short /i/ sounds for two weeks. (As we move forward, Students will hear words with short /o/ and short /u/ for two weeks and then words with short /e/ for two weeks.)
Segmenting a Word into Onset - Rime: Segmenting separates a spoken word into two parts, the onset (first sound) and the rime (the vowel and all the sounds after). Students hear and say the whole word aloud, and then separate the word into the two parts. (Ex. vote, v - ote; nap, n -ap)
Adding Inital Phonemes: Students will make a new word by adding an initial phneme to a word or word part that is said aloud. (At first) explicit teacher language is provided in the lessons to scaffold support for the students by saying th initial sound and the rime, and blending the two parts into a whole word. (Ex. T: Say. -in. S: -in; T: Add /f/ to the beginning and the word is f - in, fin. T & S: /f/ -in, fin.)
Deleting Initial Phonemes: Students will delete the initial phoneme for the words that were used for the Adding initial Phonemes activity. Again, at first, explicit teacher language is provided in the lessons to scaffold support for students when deleting the initial phoneme. (Ex. T: Say fin. S: fin. T: without /f/, what's left is -in. T & S: -in)
Alphabetic Knowledge: M,T, Th: Teacher will show a card for each lettter and say, "Letter is ____; Sound is _____." The students will repeat the teacher, saying the letter name and letter sound. W, F: The teacher and students will sing an alphabet song, showing letter cards or using and alphabet chart to track letters as they sing.
Language Awareness: Each week we introduce a nursery rhyme and the fifth week is a review of the four previously learned rhymes. M,T, W; Teacher and students recite the complete rhyme each day. Th, F: Teacher and students recite the rhyme together.The teacher leaves out some rhyming words and students supply the rhyme.
Upcoming Dates to Remember
Making Handprint Turkeys
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Messy fun with sidewalk chalk at lunch recess.
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Outside P.E.
Art With Ms. Tara
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Making Words
Getting Ready for Carpool
