Every Saturday morning our eldest son's friends come over for playgroup. This morning everyone was so excited because, like many in Rome today I imagine, they had plans to go to the beach later on in the day.
We doodled a bit:
and sang some songs--there are some that we do each time, but one thing I also incorporate is the ability for children to have a choice over which songs we sing. There is no better way to make difficult decisions, such as whose turn it is, than "Eenie Meenie Miney Mo." Based on random selection using that method, our songs for the morning were "5 Little Monkeys", "Little Bunny Foo Foo" and...
Who doesn't love the Hokey Pokey?
After our songs we completed the calendar, and read a very popular predictable book that's appropriate for their ages:
The kids had a snack, and they finished up eating at different times...so I pulled out the blocks for those who were a bit quicker than others eating.
I normally put on songs for kids as background music while they work, but today I accidentally hit the wrong playlist and the following songs had them jammin' as they built:
No, seriously. Heads were boppin'. Kids know good music.
Earlier in the week I found a cool coloring sheet to go along with the book "Brown Bear Brown Bear". Here's the link:
http://www.makinglearningfun.com/t.asp?b=m&t=http://www.makinglearningfun.com/Activities/Bears/BrownBearBrownBear/BBRollandColor.gif
When I saw it, I thought "Wow, you can do so much with this--Bingo! Color Recognition! Headbands! Sequencing!..."
For our son's 3 and 4 year-old friends, I focused on listening and following directions as well as animal and color recognition. I re-read the story to them very slowly, and we worked on staying together as a group and coloring the animals to match how they were illustrated in the book.
Did they all turn out looking like this. No. They did not...but that's not the point. The point is that they learned some important stuff that they can add to the things they already knew--like Bob Marley will get you grooving on a lazy Saturday morning.
We doodled a bit:
and sang some songs--there are some that we do each time, but one thing I also incorporate is the ability for children to have a choice over which songs we sing. There is no better way to make difficult decisions, such as whose turn it is, than "Eenie Meenie Miney Mo." Based on random selection using that method, our songs for the morning were "5 Little Monkeys", "Little Bunny Foo Foo" and...
After our songs we completed the calendar, and read a very popular predictable book that's appropriate for their ages:
The kids had a snack, and they finished up eating at different times...so I pulled out the blocks for those who were a bit quicker than others eating.
They made castles... |
And a tower where a princess was being held against her will. |
I normally put on songs for kids as background music while they work, but today I accidentally hit the wrong playlist and the following songs had them jammin' as they built:
Earlier in the week I found a cool coloring sheet to go along with the book "Brown Bear Brown Bear". Here's the link:
http://www.makinglearningfun.com/t.asp?b=m&t=http://www.makinglearningfun.com/Activities/Bears/BrownBearBrownBear/BBRollandColor.gif
When I saw it, I thought "Wow, you can do so much with this--Bingo! Color Recognition! Headbands! Sequencing!..."
For our son's 3 and 4 year-old friends, I focused on listening and following directions as well as animal and color recognition. I re-read the story to them very slowly, and we worked on staying together as a group and coloring the animals to match how they were illustrated in the book.
Did they all turn out looking like this. No. They did not...but that's not the point. The point is that they learned some important stuff that they can add to the things they already knew--like Bob Marley will get you grooving on a lazy Saturday morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment