Old Mother Hubbard

Objective:
a. teach and memorize Old Mother Hubbard
b. focus on rhyming

Points to Remember:
1. Teaching Nursery rhymes have so many benefits for young children. Look here
2. Repeat this nursery rhyme over and over....say it in the morning, during car rides, have your child say it to friends or to grandma on the phone. Get lots of practice this week.

Lesson:
1. Introduce the rhyme on a poster. I printed the rhyme from Enchanted Learning

I like this poster since it has pictures as well as words. Point to Old Mother Hubbard and identify her by name. Tell children the meaning of 'bare'. What are some reasons the cupboard might be bare? Was there food for Old Mother Hubbard? How do you know? Then read the poster and run your finger under the words and pictures as you read.

2. Have an acting day! Have your child pretend to be Old Mother Hubbard. Use a stuffed animal as the dog. Have your child go to the cupboard to get the dog a bone and find that there is nothing in the cupboard.

3. Ask you child some questions to get an idea of her comprehension of the rhyme:

a. Where did Old Mother Hubbard go?
b. What was she going to get?
c. What happened when she got to the cupboard?

d. What pet did Old Mother Hubbard have?

e. What did she get her doggie to eat?

4. I created a book of Old Mother Hubbard with 8 pages. Download it here

Modifications:
1. Put on a puppet show. Use your own puppets or dolls

Jack and Jill

Objective:

a. Teach and memorize Jack and Jill

b. focus on rhyming

Points to Remember:

1. Teaching Nursery rhymes have so many benefits for young children. Look here

2. Repeat this nursery rhyme over and over....say it in the morning, during car rides, have your child say it to friends or to grandma on the phone. Get lots of practice this week.

Lesson:

1. Introduce the rhyme on a poster. I printed the rhyme from Enchanted Learning

I like this poster since it has pictures as well as words. Point to Jack and identify him by name; then point to Jill and identify her. Explain that FETCH is another way of saying getting something and bringing it back. Talk about Jack bumping his head, and that CROWN is another way of saying head. Put your hand on the top of your head and say, "Touch the crown of your head." Then read the poster and run your finger under the words and pictures as you read.

2. Have an acting day! Have your child pretend to be Jack or Jill and you be the other. Hold a pail (real or imaginary) between you both. Have Jack carefully fall and gently hit his crown on the floor. Then Jill can carefully tumble after Jack.

3. Enchanted Learning also has sequence cards. Have your child color the pictures and then cut them out.

Once the cards are in order, say a line of the rhyme and ask your child to point to the correct scene on the cards. For example, say "Jack fell down and broke his crown." Your child should then point to the 3rd scene card.

4. After practicing with the cards, staple them together to create a little book for your child to read. Having your child, "read" her Jack and Jill book will help her practice memorizing the rhyme as well as give her the confidence that she can read!

5. I created a book of Jack and Jill with 8 pages. Download it here



Modifications:
1. Put on a puppet show. Use your own puppets or print puppets from the Enchanted Learning website.
2. Print off some coloring sheets of Jack and Jill if your child enjoys coloring.

more apples

Objectives:

a) taste and explore three types of apples;

b) introduce basic bar graphs;

c) practice one-to-one correspondence;

d) develop fine motor skills using tweezers

Points to Remember:

1. Use a dice for the apple game that has "dots" on it. Have the child count the dots and then count the apples....twice the practice.

2. If you do not have child-size tweezers, use salad tongs.

3. Cover your table with scrap paper----the apple stamping gets messy.

Lesson:

1.Begin with your three apples: red delicious, yellow delicious, and granny smith. Let your child help to cut the apple in half as you help and supervise. Use half the apples for tasting and save the other half for painting. Talk about the different colors and then, after tasting them, talk about the tastes: sour, sweet, crunchy, good, favorite, and best are some good vocabulary to use.

2. Use a basic bar graph to record your favorites. Have the whole family involved.

3. Using red, yellow, and green paints, allow your child to stamp with the apple.

Brooke's stamping turned into more smearing but that is okay!

4. Apple counting. Using a paper with an apple tree printed on it and red, yellow, and green pom poms, play the apple counting game. Roll the dice, count the dots, and the put the corresponding number of pom-pom apples on the tree.

5. Use tongs or tweezers to pick up the pom-pom apples for some fine motor practice.

Modifications:

1. If you cut the apple core horizontally you should get a star shape to use for the apple stamping. I forgot about that until after we finished.

2. Instead of pom poms use apple erasers, balls of colored tissue paper, or painted cotton balls.

3. The Apple Counting game was difficult for Brooke and we only did it two times. I can easily do the same game again using pumpkins at Halloween, trees at Christmas, etc. to get more practice.

Listening to Sounds in Words

Objective:
a. teaching Brooke notice the individual sounds in words
b. beginning syllables

Things to remember:
1. Some sounds are fast sounds and will not be stretched. (t,d,b,k,g,p)
2. Play at the grocery store, in the car, while making dinner and your child will not even realize she is learning

Lessons
Teaching a child to hear the individual sounds in words is such an important skill for Brooke as I notice her leaving sounds out of words or substituting other sounds. As her vocabulary grows and she knows more words, she seems to be making more mistakes. These are fun games to play during the day....and she wont even know that she is learning to listen!

1. Separating Sounds - Ask for things or say some words in everyday conversations with a pause between each sound. For example: “Can you get a (t)…(ow)…(el)? Did you remember your (l)…(u)…(n)…(ch)?”

2. Change Beginning Sounds - Be silly and make a different sound for the beginning sounds of some words while talking to a child. For example: “Let’s take the pog for a walk. Can you hand me that fencil, so I can make a grocery list? If the child doesn't notice, tell the child you said one word wrong. Repeat the sentence and see if the child can correct you.

3. Guessing Game - Choose a category: Farm Animals, Food, Pets, etc.
Examples- You say “I’m thinking of a farm animal.” Then separate the sounds. (c)…(ow) Leave some time between the sounds to make it more difficult.

Farm Animals- (h)…(or)…(se), (d)…(u)…(ck), (sh)…(ee)…(p), (ch)…(i)…(ck)…(e)…(n)

Food- (c)…(or)…(n), (p)…(i)…(ck)…(le), (h)…(a)…(m)

Pets- (d)…(o)…(g), (b)…(ir)…(d), (p)…(ar)…(o)…(t), (f)...(r)…(o)…(g)

Modifications:
1. If this is difficult, have the child stretch sounds with you. Say, “Let’s make the sounds together.” Stretch the sounds without leaving space between the sounds. hhhhh-orrrrr-sssssse, d-uuuuuuu-ck, ssshhhh-eeeeeeee-p, ch-iiiiiiii-ck-eeeee-nnnnn, c-orrrrrrrr-nnnnnnn, p-iiiiiiiii-ck-lllllllle, hhhhhhhhaaaaaaammmmmm, d-ooooooooo-g, b-irrrrrr-d, p-arrrrrrrr-ooooo-t, fffff-rrrrr-ooooo-g
2. Let the child separate sounds and make you guess. When a child can guess words with the sounds separated and can separate individual sounds in words and make you guess, the child has developed a sense of phonemic awareness.

Our New Dog

Our New Dog
It's an exciting day for Miranda, Mark, and their parents. They have just acquired Duke, a playful puppy--and the first thing they need to do is gather all his things together: a leather collar, a water bowl, a food bowl, a leash, a bed, and some toys to keep him amused. Mom and Dad make it clear to the kids that Duke is not a toy, but another family member. Step-by-step, Miranda and Mark learn the many details that are a part of proper puppy care. But most of all, they discover how much fun it is to have a little dog in their home.

We were given this book by a sweet family at preschool. It is a wonderful story and the girls have enjoyed reading it! Since they loved the book so much, I thought we could do an activity to reinforce the concepts in the book. Hmmmmmm, what should we do?
Actually, the puppy can before the book; but he looks like to dog on the cover! Meet our new puppy Tex! And he has encouraged a lot of conversation and new vocabulary for Brooke. She called his Max for a few days and even confused me enough that I started calling him Max. She knows his name now and treats Tex like her baby!

Play and Learn

Brooke, Kate and I attend a Play and Learn Group Session each Tuesday morning at 10am. I love the language enrichment the program provides. The group is a part of Buncombe County's Smart Start Program which is designed to help prepare kids for kindergarten.

When we first get to Play and Learn, Ms. Marna has tables set up for free-play. There are sorting, building, categorizing, patterns, and a variety of other skills designed for preschoolers. Brooke and Kate usually head to the train table first.


One of my favorite parts of Play and Learn is the story and puppet theater. As the story is read, the puppets act it out! This helps to keeps the children interested and engaged in the books. We always review the parts of the book as well: cover, spine, and title. Today we read "Three Billy Goats Gruff"




Often we do some categorizing. Since this weeks theme is "On the Farm", the children are given a paper with a picture of a forest and a farm. In their baggie of animals, the children find animals that either live in the forest or live on the farm. They place the animals on the correct picture.

Ms. Marna read another book, "The Farmer in the Dell". Each child is given a puppet that is part of the book. When we get to their puppets place in the book, they hold up the puppets. Brooke and Kate were given nurse puppets. We sang the book together as Ms. Marna turned the pages. There was even a giant Cheese Bag for all the puppets to go after the song. Ms. Marna always hands out the puppets with a "You get what you get!" - I think that is a great skill to prepare the children for preschool!

We sang "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" and each child got a animal puppet. There were dogs, cats, sheep, roosters, goats, pigs, cows, and horses.

In keeping with he theme, each child was given 5 horse finger puppets for the "5 Little Horses Jumping on the Bed" song. As we sang each verse, the children removed a horse from their fingers until there were no more horses jumping on the bed. Before we sang, Ms. Marna talked about the different color horses, since each kids bag of horse-puppets was a little different. She asked, "Who has a gray hose?" "How many gray horses do you have?" and other questions about other colors.

Our craft project was a farm mobile. The children were able to color the farm animals and tie them onto a big red barn. This craft has lots of pieces and we brought it home to finish.

There is also a rhyming time during Play and Learn. Ms Marna will do about 20 rhymes with the children, such as:

I say barn, you say farm. barn. (and the kids say) "farm"

I say pass, you say grass. pass. "grass"

I say how, you say cow. how. "cow"

We use this rhyming pattern at home. It is a great way to get kids listening for rhymes. It is fun to play in the car too.