letter sounds game

Today we played with letter sounds at school.  When teaching letters and the beginnings of reading, it can be hard to keep it developmentally appropriate and hard to make it fun and stress free.  After the children are able to recognize letters, and when they begin to stretch out words to recognize the letter sounds in them, they are ready (in my mind) for this game.  For this game I set out a few letters with easily identifiable sounds- today we worked on "L, H, G, C, B, and T," I set out a whole bunch of pictures representing words that start with those letters.  I also set out sheets of paper with those letters on it.

Usually this game is best played by two or three children at a time who have similar phonological abilities.  I start by saying "lets play a game. I wonder if we can work together to figure out what letter these things start with?"  The children go one at a time:  each child picks a picture, says what it is, and puts it on the letter they think that word begins with.  If they pick the "leaf" picture and put it on a paper like "g" I say what the word would be if it started with g - "geaf,"  h- "heaf,"  etc, until they find the right one.  Most children at this point know what letter these things start with at least 75% of the time, but will intentionally put it on the correct letter last so that they can hear all the sounds- they think the wrong words are funny.  Within a few turns they will start saying what the word would be along with me "galloon," "halloon," "lalloon," and so on.  This gives them an environment to play and experiment with letters without worrying about being "wrong,"  but at the same time reviews/teaches letter sounds.

To make sure this isn't just an exercise of memorizing which pictures go where, if we do it again, I change the pictures and/ or the letters.  I am very careful not to do this until they are at a certain level, but if doing it with children who have lesser aptitude, it may be beneficial to do only two or three letters at a time.

Coming in for a landing!

When searching for some new run-around-indoor-games when I stumbled upon "areoplanes and airports" on this website.
In stead of hoops, I used some orange "circle bases" we had around the room.  The game is simple; have fewer "bases" than children.  These bases will be your "airports" and the children will be the airplanes.  Whenever a child comes in for "a landing" the child on the "airport" has to move and go "land" in a different airport.  When demonstrating the first time I said "coming in for a landing" and so they did the same thing each time, and after this the game became know as "the landing game" to them.

Simple, fun, and takes the edge off of cabin fever.

If you like this game you might also like builders and bulldozers.

10 Ideas for Valentine's Day

Since I do not spend an inordinate amount of time on Holidays (some Holidays we only really celebrate the day of), I thought that I would write an entry on things we do and have done in the past for Valentines Day for any one who is scrounging around for ideas.

I don't really like the traditional Valentine's Day parties that involve a lot of sweets and a lot of commercialism (although what more can you ask of a holiday that was practically invented by commercialism then, well, commercialism).  Instead we spend the day celebrating friendship and celebrating the things that they love.

1:  Most everyone probably already does this but I let them sort the Valentines they bring in into their friends Valentine's Day "mailboxes,"  (some years mailboxes have been boxes, some years decorated bags, and my very first year we made hearts laced together all around the edges, except for the top that they would slide the Valentines into).  As most 4 year old preschool classes, they can all read each others names, and so have a great time delivering mail by themselves.

2:  Letter Delivery
In the past I have equipped them with miniature mailboxes, "letter bags" and baskets, envelopes and cheap Valentines day stationary in the "dramatic play" center (although truthfully any number of "centers" involve dramatic play, and this activity never stays quarantined to that area).  They love making "love letters," Valentines, and pictures for their friends and playing mailman/ women to deliver the precious cargo.  I should mention that every year the class invariably starts using the shopping cart to more effectively taxi their mail.

3: Valentine's Ice
This past week we have been experimenting with ice in our sensory area and will continue to do this on Monday, adding a little bit of a Valentine's sentiment to it to satisfy their interest in the Holiday.  They have had fun the last few days extracting toys from ice that we have let freeze both in the freezer and outdoors.  So for Valentines day We will experiment with both extractable and non extractable objects.
The non-extractable pan is made by filling a large pan half way with water and letting it freeze while making colored ice shapes (in this case I am using circles and hearts), once both are frozen I put the shapes on top of the sheet of ice and put it back in the freezer, meanwhile I put I pitcher of water in the freezer.  When the water in the pitcher starts to form a thin layer of ice on the top, I break through the ice and pour the water in with the shapes on the sheet of ice.  When the water is about a third of the way to the top of the shapes I stop and put it back in the freezer.  Once that water freezes (it will be higher than you poured it because, remember, water is one of the few substances that expands when frozen), I add more water so that it nearly touches the top of the shapes.  Once that freezes the shapes are either submerged or just level with the surface of the water.  I prefer them to stick out of the top just a little bit so they can feel the shapes.

For the extractable bin I have some beads, blocks spelling LOVE and some Valentines cookie cutters.  For this, just add water and freeze.
When they play in the ice they use hammers and screwdrivers from their tool set, metal spoons, and some rationed rock salt to extract (or try to extract) objects.

4.  Play "A Tisket a Tasket,"
And yes, I actually use a green and yellow basket that I save from Easter! Although, in a pinch I have just tied a green and yellow ribbon around the handle.  There are instructions for this game here after the song- to spare myself writing it all out; we actually use a letter instead of a handkerchief like these instructions suggested in this document.

5.  Lipstick kisses
This is actually an idea from Lisa Murphy's book the OOey Gooey Handbook.  Buy some cheap lipstick, sometimes they have some at dollar stores or Big Lots or other such stores- preferably enough for each child to have one, but if not, set up q-tips prepared with lipstick on both ends before hand.  Let kids put lipstick on themselves (make sure to have a big mirror or some hand mirrors around), and them let them smooch the paper! Clean up is easy with baby wipes.

6. Loving Sentiment Cards
For this activity I have a large paper heart with each child's name on it.  On each heart I write one thing that I really like about that child (Bev loves to paint, Sam always works really hard to finish puzzles, Sally always greets teachers with a smile), and have all the other teachers in the room do the same.  Then the children are offered opportunities to tell a teacher something they really like about their friends (sometimes it's things like love her shoes, sometimes I like when he plays with me, he's funny, or I just love him), In years past I had them say something about each of their friends, other times I just let them say something about whoever they want to (or no one if they don't want to at all), at the end of the day I send it home for them to look at with their parents.  All of the kids in preschool are pretty close, almost like a little family, so every child always ends up with quite a few loving (and sometimes comical) sentiments left on their heart.

7.  Valentines Brunch

Instead of having parents bring sweets which gives kids sudden bursts of non constructive energy and then causes them to crash and be grumpy and moody the rest of the day, I have parents bring in ingredients for our brunch... cinnamon raisin bread, eggs, juice, syrup,  and fresh or frozen strawberries that I add a tiny bit of sugar to (the school provides milk and celery and carrot sticks because they are part of the would have been lunch that is no longer served because we are having an 11:30 brunch in it's stead).

8.  Put a little love in the air
For Valentine's Day I create a CD from music that I already have at home:  A collection of love songs from Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, and others.  I love the love songs of that era, and they like to bubble along with the music all day.

9.  Put a little love song in their heart
We sing some fun love songs through out the month of February or whenever they are requested there after (and sometimes make a CD for the parents of the kids featuring these songs, but I can't tell you if we are doing it this year because parents read this blog).  Some of these songs include "Skinamirinky "  from the Elephant Show
"I love you" from Barney
"L is for the way you look at me"- jazz love song
"Two little bugs"- by Shari Louis
"A Frog went a courtin'"
They love all these songs- of course you could do any number of catchy love songs with them and they would love them equally, these are just some suggestions.

10.  Write about love
Many, many times a week, a month, a year, the children get to dictate stories or similar things to teachers in my room and we write them down.  For Valentine's day I love to ask them "what is love?" and write whatever they say.  You get some hilarious answers and some tear- jerkers too.   I will never get my first year teaching that a little boy told me "love is my baby brother"- his baby brother had been born only weeks earlier.   I usually keep a copy for their portfolio and send a copy home.


(For another, more structured, idea you could make heart shaped stained glass which you can find instructions to here).

Questions the teacher can't answer

Do you ever start out planning an activity in order for your children or students to learn or experience something and what they walk away with is something that you never expected?  It happened to me just yesterday.  Let me tell you what my class took away from the activity and then I will tell you how we got there.  My class has come to the conclusion that all our toys are made in china. 
The activity was simple.  I wanted to create a literacy game, so I asked the children to look around the room for toys that had words on them- a scavenger hunt.  They would find the words on the toys and I would race around the room on their heels writing down every word they could find. (Books were not to be included in this scavenger hunt lest they demand that I transcribe every story in our room). Now, what I was expecting was to find were words like "zoo" that is on a duplex man's shirt, or the words "wrong way" on one of our miniature road signs, the word "crayola," and "brown" on one of our markers, "Nemo" on a puzzle, "Little Tikes" on our tool set, etc.  We did find all of these word and more (we literally found hundreds of words).  We also found things like "patent pending," "ages 3+," "not for individual sale" and codes like "0XXI25LP," and signs of the person who donated them like "B.M.C.," and "this belongs to Ryan." The thing that I did not expect, (though perhaps I should have), was that the most common group of words on our toys was "made in China."  Nearly EVERYTHING that had a "made in" label said China.  Once, I was excited because I saw "Ohio" on a plastic clamp, but underneath OHIO, it said "Made in China."  We found two things that said "made in the USA"- one was part of a castle set, and the other was a puzzle.  
After we had found many of these "made in China" words, one of the children asked me, in a somewhat exasperated tone, "Why are all our toys made in China?"  Half the class looked at me waiting for an answer when she said this, and I had to say "I don't know."  
The truth is, I might have a vague idea about why, but I didn't think I should tell them that to my understanding, one of the biggest reasons was that toy companies that started here went to China where they could pay people very little, expect them to work long hours, and long work weeks, with little if any vacation time so that these companies could make more money from the toys that they sold.  I grant you that this is a complicated issue, that few people, (including myself), entirely understand.  Still, I have to wonder, what this says to young minds that grow up being read and reading "made in China" on some of the things they love the most? 
This made me question further; We are being told that our schools have to become factories because Chinese test scores are better than ours, but why does this matter and what are we trading for this choice?  Will having higher test scores make us more competitive in the job market?  I suppose it depends on what jobs you are referring to- but I wouldn't want the job of a Chinese toy manufacturer- many of them face inhumane work conditions.  In the mean time, we are sacrificing the quality of education to get these mystical "jobs" that I suppose will come from having higher test scores than a child in China who is forced to specialize in his/ her education at a young age and made to study like an adult working on a master's thesis. 
In the end, I don't know; I don't know the answers to my own questions, and I don't know the answer to the national question of "why is everything here made in China?" and "how do we fix it?"  However, I do know that I am not willing, personally, to sacrifice the development of the WHOLE child in the interest of manufacturing test takers like the Chinese manufacture "all of our toys." 

Builders and Bulldozers

This past summer we had a woman, (who unfortunately I only knew as Miss Lynn), who came to our school to do Eat Well, Play Hard lessons with the children.  There was much of this program that was not really well suited to our threes and fours, but there was one game that she brought for the children to play that was perfect.  
This game is called "Builders and Bulldozers" and it is one of the children's favorite games.  It requires very little by way of materials and very little instruction.  All you need are several large plastic cups (we have 14 that we use).  First set cups upside down on the floor, spaced out across the entire room or playing area outside. We split the children up into two groups; the "bulldozers" knock the cups over and the "builders" put them back up the right way.  There are two rules: no "flying" cups, and you have to keep moving. We give the bulldozers a five second head start so that the builders have cups to build back up. They will usually play for about 10-20 minutes without getting remotely distracted, and we switch bulldozers with builders half way through.  

This game can be great for transitions and can also be great for days when all the children are antsy or grumpy.  I have never once (so far) had a child not want to play this game.

Sometimes when we play it's every child for his or herself, but other times they work as a pair or in teams trying to be the faster group.  In the past they have come up with a type of wave strategy where all the builders travel from area to area "building," or sometimes they assign each child an area of his or her own to demolish so that no area is left unattended at anytime.  Above you can see two children working together to build faster.  This pair discovered that it was faster to run and slide on their knees the build the cups back up rather than bend over! 

Have a great weekend, readers!