Arctic/Winter Theme

This past week we did everything Arctic and winter themed!  We had so much fun!  Here are some of the highlights:

Books:

 There are so many great books about arctic animals and winter time.  I had a few of my own books, and I got some more from the library.  My students really liked the non fiction books about all of the arctic animals.

At one point, my students got tired of looking at the books and wanted to play with blocks.  To make sure that we were still working on our vocabulary words, I had them pretend like the blocks were food and they helped feed all of the animals on the covers.  It's important to always follow the child's lead, and you may have to get creative!

Sensory Play: 

Arctic Sensory Bin

We had so much fun with our Arctic sensory bin! With this bin we worked on answering questions, learning new vocabulary words, following directions, and eliciting spontaneous language.

Contents:
Arctic animals (i.e. penguins, walrus, polar bears, artic foxes, arctic hare, etc.)
Large cooking utensils
Ice
Water
Anything you can find that is white and floats to look like an iceberg

Gross Motor Activity 

For our gross motor activity, we watched clips of Arctic animals on Youtube and then acted like them!  I put all of the videos on silent, and we talked about what the animals were doing and what they looked like.  The kids loved acting like them!  

Actions:

Polar Bear: Walked on four legs

Walrus: "Swam" on our stomachs

Hare: Hopped 

Penguin: Waddled

Seal: Rolled around on our stomachs and back 

*** Remember to put the videos on silent, and you may have to fast forward through some clips to see more of the animal actions!

Easter Sensory Bin

Here is the sensory bin we will be using in Mary's class! We will work on the vocabulary words rabbit, grass, eggs, flowers, and bounce.  We will also work in matching the eggs up with lower case and upper case letters, as well as numbers!

Pig Pig Activity

This week in APPLE and KIWI we will be reading "Pig Pig Gets a Job."  We will be focusing on final /g/ words.  If you would like to do this activity at home, please print out the following pages:

Give your child the following directions:

Put the pink pig on the school.

Put the purple pig in the garden

Put the orange pig above the balloons

Put the yellow  pig on the plane

Put the blue pig under the cloud

Put the red pig next to the school.

Put the green pig  in the cloud.

While you say a word with a /k/ or /g/ sound, but your hand to your throat to symbolize that you are putting your tongue back to produce the word. 

After they have completed the steps, have them tell you where the pigs are using a complete sentence.  Tell them to put their tongue back when they say words with /k/ and /g/.  Again, put your hand to your throat as a cue to put their tongue back if they are having trouble.  

Example:  “The pink pig is _____.”

                  “The purple pig is  ___.”

We will also be singing the following pig song:

We are also using a "farm" sensory bin.  We will work on using our "good sounds" to talk about the animals, where they are, and what they are doing.

Garden Sensory Bin

The sensory bin for this week was created by my co-worker Anneli! We will be playing in soil, cilantro, and birdseed. We will be digging and scooping with flower pots.  We will also talk about flowers, insects, and plants. Please ask your child about the sensory bin they will be playing in either this week or next (Mary's class on Thursday, APPLE on Friday, and Alissa's class next Tuesday).

*The vocabulary words we will be working on are in bold.

Zoo Sensory Bin

Here is our sensory bin for the week! The vocabulary words are: cave, body of water, tree, and all of the animal names.  We will work on classifying where the animals live and animal actions.

Arizona Sensory Bin

Here is the sensory bin that we are using for this week!  It has rocks so that we can talk about mountains, and different types of citrus (only oranges are shown here).  I am also including the "Arizona Vocabulary" pictures from my earlier post into the bin.  Please talk to your child about what they saw and played with in the sensory bin this week!