Name: Mick
Dullaghan Date:
10/22/02 Tuesday
My Day at School
Theme Unit -- Fall/Pumpkins
Story -- The Very Busy Spider, by Eric Carle
Music -- Bat Dance; Spider on My Head
Special Activity -- Making Spider Webs
Group Game -- Hungry Hippo
Center Time -- I played with: trains; puzzles;
farms
Snack -- Chex Mix
(ate a good amount)
Lunch --
(ate a good amount)
My emotions today -- happy
Teacher Comments -- Mick continues to make wonderful
progress. I will call you this week about new objectives for
him.
letter re: new unit, 10-22-02
Dear Parents,
We just completed our two-week
unit on feelings. The kids labeled pictures of various facial expressions,
and discussed things that make them happy, sad, and mad. They also
practiced imitating facial expressions that were presented in our story.
We used a hand-held mirror to help the kids see how their various expressions
looked. You can work on this at home too by making a silly face and asking
your child to give it a try. The ability to observe facial expressions
and imitate is a tool that aids in social skill and
communication skill development.
Our next book and theme unit for
the year is The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda
Williams. In this story, a little old lady is walking home through the
forest on a cold October evening. She is accosted by some spooky figures
trying to scare her: a pair of shoes that go "CLOMP, CLOMP;" a pair of
pants that go "WIGGLE, WIGGLE;" a shirt that goes "SHAKE, SHAKE;" a pair of
gloves that go "CLAP, CLAP;" a hat that goes "NOD, NOD;" and finally a pumpkin
head that goes "BOO, BOO." With each encounter the little old lady tells
the figures that she is not afraid. Saddened, the figures come to her door
to ask her who they can scare. She whispers a suggestion to the
pumpkin and his cohorts. The next morning the little old lady awakens to
find that they have taken her suggestion. There is a Halloween scarecrow
in her garden made from her spooky friends, and it is scaring all the birds away
from the garden.
We will spend two weeks with this
book. We will read the story each day that we don't have speech
group. Our activities for this unit will include:
- A texture scarecrow: Each child will make a
scarecrow with scratchy shoes, smooth pants, and soft shirt, gloves, and
hat. This art project is intended to teach the descriptors
scratchy/rough, smooth, and soft, as well as provide opportunities for
enhancing fine motor skills.
- Mr. Pumpkin: Each child will make a Mr. Pumpkin by
gluing facial features, legs, arms, hands, and feet onto an orange
circle. This is a great opportunity to label body parts, build fine
motor skills, and assemble a project by looking at a model.
- Leaf Wreaths: Each child will bring home a paper
bag in which to collect leaves. Please send the bag back to school full
of leaves that can be used to make leaf wreaths.
- Carve a pumpkin: teachers will cut, and the kids
can scoop out insides and watch the candle glow inside.
- Cooking activities: We will make monster muffins
and scary spider cookies.
- Halloween party: Our class will trick-or-treat
around the school to the other three preschool classes at 10:45. The
kids can wear costumes, but it may be best if you send the costume in and let
us help the kids put the costumes on just before we trick-or-treat.
Afterwards we will have snack and enjoy some of our treats.
During this unit, we will target
the following skills:
- Vocabulary: shoes, shirt, pants, gloves, hat, feet, legs,
hands, head, pumpkin, scarecrow, scratchy, smooth, soft
- Matching items of clothing to the correct body
part
- Counting the articles of clothing
- Discussing emotions: happy, sad,
afraid/scared
- Comparisons: e.g., big hat versus little hat
- Recall questions
--Mrs. Kris