Pets !
I would love for someone to do a study on why kids love to act like cats and dogs. There is rarely a day goes by that there are not two or three kids walking by led by their ” owner” and pretending to be a cat or a dog. They love to pretend to be pets . This week we are talking about pets. Yesterday Dallas introduced pets and they talked about how you take care of them and made a little book. They also brainstormed in circle time what they knew about pets . Here are some of the answers Dallas recorded ( One of the main reasons we do activities like this is so that children understand that print has meaning. They say it . We write it. We read it back. They understand as much as they can at the developmental stage the are at that print has meaning. It isnt just a jumble of letters. One way you can do this at home is to write shopping lists. You can also write notes to friends and family. ) Ok.. back to our thought. Things the kids said when Dallas asked them what they know about pets :
tutles elephants ride with us cats jump on us get out get in Loves lovin’ on us
cats bark dogs bird chains jump snuggle rabbits meow horses ruff ruff
pet hold allergies touch
It seems they knew a lot about pets. At the end of the week we will revisit the chart they made and ask which ones fot and which ones dont. Hopefully we will figure out that elephants dont make good pets . 🙂
Today we read books about pets. One was a fiction book that tells a story. ( Which is what most of our books are .) The other was non-fiction or one that tells facts. We read both. Although the Eric Carle book ” Have you seen my Cat ” was fiction it did have a lot of different kinds of cats in it . We saw bobcats, jaguars and tigers ! The other book was the non-fiction book and in it we found out that when kittens are born their eyes are closed and stay closed for a week. We also learned that kittens lap milk.
We did a colors story about a lost kittens mitten.
We made a cat puppet after reading a book about a kitten who lost it’s purr. When we do teacher directed activities like this my main goal is to assess skills. I am looking to see who is holding their pencil right, who can cut on the line etc… Today the three year olds only colored the cat. I had cut it out for them. The kiddos going into kindergarten were challenged to color their cat and cut it out.
With each new ” unit ” I take out there are new materials that appear. Wouldnt you hate working the same stinking puzzle all year. The challenge would soon be over. The puzzles are getting a little more difficult but we have some real whizzes at puzzle solving. This is a math skill !
Another math skill is sorting . Today the kids were sorting the animals by color. I dont give them direction on HOW to sort It will be interesting to see later in the week if someone choses to sort them by TYPE of animal.
Another file folder game that was on the table today was ” kittens in a basket.” The children could look at the number on the basket and put that many cats in the basket. Great counting game !
Ty even got into the dress up area today !
One of the songs we are singing this week is called ” Im Being Eaten by a Boa Constrictor.” The kids LOVE this song and pretend like they are getting eaten. Maybe I will do a video of this tomorrow !
One video I did upload today was of Joslyn. She is three and bilingual. She is one smart little cookie who loved to paint. Today I caught her ” reading” the book that we read in small group today. I love when I see kids doing something like this. It makes me realize that no matter how much they squirm or look around the room they are listening and they are learning. They just arent ready to sit completely still yet … it isnt in the makeup of a normal three year old. When you see this video you will see how obvious it is that she was listening when I read the story. She is retelling it . ( Which by the way is one of the indicators we look for when assessing children ! )
IMG 3815 from Debbie Stringfellow Mays on Vimeo.
We had a busy day. Have I told you lately I love my job?
Dont forget ! Family field trip to the animal shelter at 315 this afternoon after pick up !