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.