Music- Elements and Instruments

Gathering Activity- we finger painted little pop bottles.  The kids loved using their fingers to paint the bottles and cover the whole thing with all sorts of colors. After painting the kids played with Mega Blocks while everyone finished painting.  (Thanks for T's Dad for stepping in and helping out this week while W was sick and couldn't be my helper).

Circle Time- Weather, Pledge, Day of Week

Letter M/W- We learned about the letter M and how when you turn it over it is the letter W! The kids made the M sound “mmmmmm” and the W sound “wuh”.

Each kid then picked out a picture from the hat and had to figure out if it was an M word or a W word.. then we sang the W or M song accordingly:

M is a letter a letter a letter

M is a letter that sounds like mmmmmmm

Mmmmmm is the sound Mmmmmm is the sound

Mmmmmm is the sound that the letter M makes

_________ starts with Mmmmmm- M!

_________ starts with Mmmmmm- M!

_________ starts with Mmmmmm- M!

(Yell)- ________ starts with M!

For W change the sound to "wuh"

Number 4- The kids practiced counting to 4 then we played “Duck, Duck, Goose” with 1, 2, 3, 4!  The kid tapping heads would count, "1, 2, 3..." then on the "4" the kid's head who was tapped was the goose and had to run around the circle.

Sound Game-  We talked about "What is music?" Anyone can make music- all sounds are music! The kids listened to sounds with their eyes closed and each kid took turns trying to make the sound I made- music is the sounds we make! Some of the sounds they had to identify were; tearing paper, clapping hands, knocking on the door, stomping feet, banging on tub, tapping a pen.

Movement Activity- Since we can make music with anything we made music with our hands and feet.  We sang "Mexican Hat Dance" with motions: Da da da da da da da- clap clap- da da da da da da da- stomp stomp.  We started slow then went faster and faster.  We talked about fast and slow and how music can be made fast or slow. We then played Freeze Dance- the kids danced and moved to fast/slow music (Slow and Fast from The Feel of Music) where they had to move fast in the fast parts and slow in the slow parts then Freeze when I said "Freeze!"  They all really liked Freeze Dance and asked to do it again (although most of them said they were tired afterward... what a great indoor activity to get out some wiggles!)

Click here to see a cute video

Music Notes/Staff- The kids then helped set up the music staff puzzle and I explained that this is how people read what notes to play by putting music notes on the music staff- we also talked about how notes and staff are always BLACK.  If the note is high they play a high note, if the note is low they play a low note.  We listened to a short clip of High music (Dance of the Reed Flutes from the Nutcracker) and Low music (The Elephant from Carnival of the Animals).  The kids then put on notes on the staff choosing high or low and we sang the notes- HIGH, LOW, LOW, HIGH or whatever they have marked.      

Instrument Introduction-  We discused how an instrument is anything that makes music- just like our hands and feet we just used.  We look at the examples of instruments that we had and experimented with them to see what sounds we could make.  

Free Time with Instruments- The kids got to play with the instruments freely, but had to switch instruments when I said "switch" so that everyone could have a turn on the instruments that they wanted to try.

Snack Time-   We had black cherry jello notes with black licorice for music staff lines.  My amazingly awesome helper substitute (T's Daddy) read The Maestro Plays by Bill Martin while they ate.

Craft- After snack we finished our, now dry, maracas by putting beans inside them.  The kids had fun shaking them around and seeing what kind of music they could make with their new instruments. 

 

Loud/Soft-  T's Daddy then talked to the kids about how music can be soft and loud.  He had them play softly with their maracas then loudly.  We then listened to March of the Toys while playing their maracas loudly during the loud parts and softly during the soft parts. 

Recorder Activity- The kids were each given their own recorder to experiment with and try to make sounds with.  They tried blowing hard and soft and were each shown how to put their fingers down.   Some of them had a lot more control of their fingers than others (and those ones leraned the first three notes of "Hot Cross Buns"), but it didn't matter because they all had fun tooting away on their new recorder.  I let them toot recorder and play maracas for some free time before our last activity.  It sounded like what you might expect six 3-4year olds playing recorders to sound like, but it was sure cute and they were all having a blast.

Scribble Music- Our final activity tried to tie all the elements of music that we had learned together.  Each kid had a paper and some crayons on the floor.  They were instructed to close their eyes and listen to music (Hoe Down from Rodeo) and scribble to what they heard.  They scribbled hard when it was loud, fast when it was fast, slow when it was quiet, etc.  While they were playing I would say, "switch" and they had to hurry and pick up a differnt color of crayon (still with eyes closed) and continue scribbling.  They all really liked this and the pictres were varied and really cool.

Free Time- To end I let the kids play with blocks, cars, and Mega Blocks during free time while we had some soft music in the background.  It was amazing how quiet they all were after all the loud music activities:)

Snow/Winter Lesson

S gave a fun lesson about snow and winter on Tuesday.  The kids even got to put on their snow gear and play in the snow at her house!  Here are her lesson plan and pictures:

Gathering activity: Play in snow
Welcome: Song, pledge, calendar, weather.
Introduce: color White, pointed out things throughout the lesson that were white. 
Number 10:  Sang 10 little snowflakes....One little two little three little snowflakes, four little five little six little snowflakes seven little eight little nine little snowflakes 10 little snowflakes falling down.
Letter W...W is for Winter,  Learned the sound wuh wuh.
Shape:  Snowflake - Made snowflakes for book.
Free time
Snack time: two biscuits with raisins as eyes and buttons
Reading time: Hurray for snow!Discussion:  Winter is one of the four seasons.    Snow is water that freezes as it falls to the ground.
Project: Made snowmen out of different shapes.
Playtime

 

 

Thanksgiving- Giving Thanks!

Today we had a great preschool for Thanksgiving. Here is my lesson plan:

Thanksgiving Gratitude Lesson

Objective: Students will learn about gratitude, what we can be thankful for, and how to give thanks.  Students will also learn how to form the letter T and learn what it says- be able to recognize and name the oval shape- be able to recognize and name the color brown- and recognize and form a number 8 and count up to 8.

Gathering Activity: Play-dough.  Boys will be able to play with the play-dough when they arrive and each have their own ball that will be put into a plastic baggie with their name on it for further use. 

Welcome: Welcome song, pledge, calendar, and weather. Here is T as the star helper!

Introduce: Color BROWN- sign brown and look at brown fabric then point out brown objects in the room. Number 8- form a letter 8 with play-dough and practice counting to 8 together.  Letter T- tuh, tuh, tuh (Turkey)- each form a letter T with play-dough.  OVAL shape- say oval and form an oval with play-dough.

Use all the information to create some tuh tuh tuh Turkeys!- Brown color with 8 ovals.  Have each kids pick 8 oval feathers for their turkey then bring them to the table and show them how to make the turkeys with glue.  While turkeys are being made one kid at a time will go to the bathroom with Teacher W to get hands painted for place mats.  clean up for snack- clean hands and table off.

Free Play

Snacktime/Storytime:  Use half apples, toothpicks, marshmallows, and raisins to make Apple turkeys- then eat! Discuss how Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks for all that we have and there are so many things in our lives that we can be thankful for.  Like in this book: My Book of Thanks by B. G. Hennessy.

Discussion: Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks for all that we have.  Another way to say that we want to give thanks is to say we are grateful. 

Grateful Song: "If you’re grateful and you know it, clap your hands… stomp your feet… spin around…"

We can give thanks by saying thank you and helping others.  There are so many things in our lives that we can be grateful for.  Like in the My Book of Thanks and in this song:

Let’s Be Thankful song: (to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star")

Let's be thankful for this day
For our friends and our play
Let's be thankful; let's be glad
For our food and the things we have
Let's give thanks for you and me
And our home and family.

It makes people happy when we tell them thank you.  We especially need to say thank you to our Father in Heaven for all that he has given us. 

Thank you jars: Brainstorm things that we can be thankful for- each kid takes a turn and we write it on their oval and stick it in their thank you jar along with a few others that will already be filled out- family, sun, food, bed, clothes, friends, happiness, no owies, no sickness, blue preschool, etc.  The jars will have this little poem I wrote on them:

This Jar is for you to use on your way

To help you be thankful night and day

At time for prayers just pick one or more

And you’ll always have something to be thankful for

 Place mats: After place mats are dry attach poem and draw feet, beak, and wattle.

"This turkey is a part of me—

It is made from my hand you see.

I have so much to be thankful for,

like my family and so much more.

 It is time to say:

Have a HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAY!

Boys can use this place mat for our Thanksgiving feast on Thursday and remember as we eat our big yummy meal that we should think of all the things that we are thankful for. 

Playtime

(P was not able to come today because he was sick.  We missed him and hope he feels better soon!)

Fire Safety!

Today's Blue Preschool was all about fire engines, fire trucks, fire fighters, and fire safety.

LESSON PLAN:
Gathering Activity: Puzzles
Welcome: Pledge, Calendar, Weather, Happy Birthday to E.W. (he got a special birthday button to wear), introduction of RED, RECTANGLES, LETTER E, and NUMBER 7.
Discussion: Fire Safety at Home.
(We talked about why you shouldn't play with matches or fire. What is a smoke detector, and what does it sound like? We should find at least two escape routes from any room in our house. What is a fire extinguisher? Stop, drop and roll. Crawling under the smoke to get out of a room.)

Practicing Stop, Drop, and Roll was fun:
We used a sheet to simulate "smoke" and the boys had to crawl under it. They could choose whether they wished to be blindfolded or not. The blindfold would simulate crawling in the dark.
I had intended to, but completely forgot to teach the kids this cute "911 Song." My plan had been to talk about only using "911" for emergencies, never just for fun. Then we were going to learn this song:



911 (to the tune of "This old Man")


9-1-1, 9-1-1,

Press the buttons, 9-1-1.

If you're hurt or scared or you don't know what to do,

9-1-1 sends help to you.



We read a book called "The Fire Engine Book" which basically goes through what firefighters do when they are called to a fire.

For snack time, we made fire engines out of crackers and pretzels, stuck together with cream cheese:After snack time, we made another fire engine out of a RED RECTANGLE. It's cute to see how much these boys enjoy making paper crafts. Professional glue-stick-ers, I tell you.

After completing our paper projects, we had free playtime. Some of the boys chose to listen to a book about Curious George, when he accidentally calls the fire department. Other boys played with toys or played the "Fire Matching Game."Most of all, I think everyone is VERY READY for our trip to the Fire Station tomorrow morning! See you there!

Pumpkins!

Today, at Blue Preschool, we talked about Pumpkins. After reviewing the calendar and weather, I introduced the number 4 and the letter C. I drew a large "C" on the Magnadoodle, and each child had a chance to trace it. They really liked the hands-on. We all practiced doing the letter "C" in sign language.
Next, we read a book called, "The Pumpkin Patch Parable." Very cute story, darling pictures, and it held their attention pretty well. We then reviewed how a pumpkin grows with a short flannel board story:
We talked about the different things we can do with a pumpkin: decoration, food, seeds, jack-o-lanterns. We talked about the difference between a pumpkin and a jack-o-lantern. Then we sang a few songs about both:

ONE LITTLE PUMPKIN (to the tune of "One, little, two, little, three little Indians")

One little pumpkin smiling, smiling. (Hold up one finger and then make a smiley face!)
One little pumpkin smiling, smiling.
One little pumpkin smiling, smiling.
One little pumpkin is happy. (Smile and put your fingers on your cheeks.)

Two little pumpkins pouting, pouting. (Hold up two fingers and then frown and look down.)
Two little pumpkins pouting, pouting.
Two little pumpkins pouting, pouting.
Two little pumpkins are grumpy. (Cross your arms and frown.)

Three little pumpkins yawning, yawning. (Hold up three fingers and then cover your mouth with your hand as you yawn.)
Three little pumpkins yawning, yawning.
Three little pumpkins yawning, yawning.
Three little pumpkins are sleepy. (Stretch and yawn like you are falling asleep.)

Four little pumpkins crying, crying. (Hold up four fingers and then pretend to wipe a tear from your eye.)
Four little pumpkins crying, crying.
Four little pumpkins crying, crying.
Four little pumpkins are sad. (Wipe tears from both eyes with both hands.)

Five little pumpkins laughing, laughing. (Hold up five fingers and then hold your tummy as you pretend to laugh.)
Five little pumpkins laughing, laughing.
Five little pumpkins laughing, laughing.
Five little pumpkins are playing. (Run around the room!)

FIVE LITTLE PUMPKINS

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate;

The first one said, "Oh my it's getting late."

The second one said, "There are witches in the air."

The third one said, "But I don't care."

The fourth one said, "I'm ready for some fun!"

The fifth one said, "Let's run and run and run."

"Wooooooo" went the wind,

And out went the lights.

And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

Jack-O-Happy
(Original Author Unknown) Instruct children to make big circles around their heads using their arms.

This is Jack-O-Happy. (Children smile.)
This is Jack-O-Sad. (Children frown.)
This is Jack-O-Scared. (Children make frightened expression.)
This is Jack-O-Mad. (Children make angry expression.)
This is Jack-O-Silly. (Children make silly expression.)
This is Jack-O-Glad. (Children smile again.)

(We got some really cute faces for each of these emotions. Moms- try it at home with your preschooler & see the cute silly & scared faces!)

Next, we moved to the hands-on part of the lesson: exploring the inside of a pumpkin! We cut a medium-sized pumpkin into pieces and each boy got one piece to explore. We talked about which parts would make good food and which would not. We talked about what it looks, smells and feels like. Some of the boys were brave and touched the slimy pulp. (Others wanted nothing to do with it and kept their hands clean!) The boys each got a spoon and happily chopped away at their piece of pumpkin.

Our snack was Pumpkin Chocolate Chip bread. EVERYONE loved it and even asked for more.
The activity for the Blue Preschool book was decorating an ORANGE OVAL to look like a pumpkin or jack-o-lantern.

We ended the lesson by enjoying the nice weather outside for some free time. We ran and played a lot of "duck-duck-goose" and "red light, green light." (and other games that three-year-old boys play, which have no name but involve a lot of running and screaming.)

(EW, P, EM, G, J, & T - all sporting some orange!)

Dinosaurs

Phew, finally a moment to post about the dinosaur lesson.

Objective:
To help students learn to identify differences and similarities in things (different/same). Also implementing the number 3, letter D, color green, triangles, and dinosaurs.

Gathering activity:
For my gathering activity I had a bucket with rice for each child with a plastic dinosaur skeleton buried in the rice for them to dig up. (I found the dinosaurs at Dollartree two to a pack, too perfect to pass up!) Each child used a plastic spoon to dig for their dinosaur. Once they found the dinosaur they could use the magnifying glasses to look more closely at it or bury it again and trade with another student. This activity went quite well, all the boys seemed to enjoy it and I don't believe any of them ate the rice.
Welcome:
We went through the calendar and weather, then I introduced the number 3, triangles, and the color green.

Blue Book project:
For the blue book each student was given a paper with a green capital D printed on it. I showed them when the D was turned on its side it looked kind of like a dinosaur back. They were then given green triangle of varying shape and size to glue on and create a Dinosaur. I will admit most of them did not look like dinosaurs but the kids still had fun gluing on the shapes. The picture below is the sample I made.
Singing time:
For singing time we sang the following song to "The Wheels on the Bus" tune:

All Around The Swamp
The Pteranodon's wings went FLAP,FLAP,FLAP,
FLAP,FLAP,FLAP,FLAP.FLAP,FLAP
The Pteranodon's wings went FLAP, FLAP, FLAP
All around the swamp.

The Tyrannosaurus Rex went GRRR,GRRR, GRRR,
GRRR, GRRR, GRRR, GRRR, GRRR, GRRR,
The Tyrannosaurus Rex went GRR, GRR, GRR,
All around the swamp.

The Triceratops horns went POKE, POKE, POKE
POKE, POKE, POKE, POKE, POKE, POKE,
The Triceratops horns went POKE, POKE ,POKE,
All around the swamp.

The Brontosaurus went MUNCH, MUNCH, MUNCH,
MUNCH, MUNCH, MUNCH, MUNCH,MUNCH, MUNCH
The Brontosaurus went MUNCH, MUNCH, MUNCH,
All around the swamp.

The Stegosaurus tail went SPIKE, SPIKE, SPIKE,
SPIKE, SPIKE, SPIKE, SPIKE, SPIKE, SPIKE,
The Stegosaurus tail went SPIKE, SPIKE, SPIKE,
All around the swamp.

I was kind of losing their attention so we did head shoulders knees and toes and moved on.

Lesson:
For the lesson I had a bag full of green items that each student took turns picking out. I was hoping to talk a little about how the items were the same and different but for the sake of time I moved on to dinosaur concentration. This ended up being a perfect way to discuss same and different while keeping their attention.

Snack:
For snack I had three items they could choose from, string cheese cut into thirds, pretzels, and sugar snap peas with water to drink. They could then choose whether they wanted their snack to be all the same or different. At first none of them wanted the sugar snap peas until I showed them what was inside. It was very cute to see some of them try it even if they ended up not liking it.

Story Time:
While they ate I read them One-O-saur, Two-O-saur by David Bedford.

Free Time:
The kids were pretty restless at this point so I let them have free time. They seemed to do well at free time, though I did have a little trouble getting them to start cleaning up, even when I sang the clean up song. Perhaps I didn't give them enough time for free time because it was almost time to go.

Craft:
For the craft I gave them each a dark piece of paper and drew a dinosaur with Elmer's glue on the page (sorry for my crude artistic interpretation of a dinosaur) The students were then given macaroni and spaghetti noodles to glue on the page. The picture below is of E's dinosaur. I think he spent more time sword fighting others with the spaghetti noodles then doing his picture.
I was hoping to snap a lot more pictures than I did. The time went really quickly and I barely had time to pick up the camera and take this picture of all the boys in their green and dinosaur shirts.
EM, J, T, EW, G, P

All in all it went really well. Cute group of boys!