Sunday, November 20, 2016

Circle Time with Mother Goose Time

I am looking through my pictures on this day and I am realizing we mostly focused on the Circle Time.  First I handed out the My Little Journals to each boy.  Peter always likes to do the puzzle on the backside and then I had them write their name and draw on the front.  We got our My Little Journal's in the day 3 Police Officer bag.
We had an awesome discussion after I asked the question "What does a police officer do to keep us safe?"  This was the discussion question that Mother Goose Time provided for us to ask during Circle Time.  This is how we introduce the topic each day.  We talked about how they enforce rules and why that keeps us safe and how we can call them when we are in trouble.

Then we sang the Fingerplay/Song.  Everyday they give us something to sing or a fingerplay to act out.  On this day the song incorporated colors.
Look for yellow, look for yellow
In the town, in the town
Adam can you help us
Adam can you help us
Find the yellow; find the yellow
This was sung to the tune of "Frere Jacques".  When I got done singing I grabbed the yellow ribbon from our Circle Time display and reminded him of the color and then asked Adam (2.5) to find and bring me something yellow.
 He grabbed two yellow pencils!
Out of all the colors we have been learning, he knows yellow best.  We have been pointing out colors to him and naming the ribbons we have collected so far this year.  But having him go find yellow, really seemed to make this one sink it.

I had the circle time board up on the counter and we talked about each of the items we have on the front side first.  The calendar, today's day and date, the months, all the colors so far, the one letter I have up and police officers.  I try to do this daily.  I have really simplified it for Adam because it is just for him.  I put just one letter up the whole month and I put just one new number up each month.  So instead of doing 3 and 13, I just put up 3.

I had Peter walk Adam through the circle time board and made a quick video.
Circle Time is a really great opportunity to talk about and look at all the basics of learning on a daily basis.  Then Mother Goose Time really hones in on the learning and getting it to stick, through play. It's a great and powerful combination.

Then I moved the board to the floor and Adam really started to explore.  He found a teddy bear getting his hair combed.

I asked him if he could find someone wearing glasses.

And he though the puppy in the house was pretty cute.
After he was done with the theme poster he wanted to explore the world map.
He was pulling on his cheeks, not sure why, maybe it helped him see?
He pointed out a bird flying over the Indian Ocean.
And something in Africa looked cool to him.
I can't tell you how useful this map has been for us.  Not just Adam but for the older boys.  We are studying ancient Egypt in history and they had some map work to do.  They had to find Egypt on the map and draw the great pyramid to the left or to the west.  Because this map is always up in our classroom they study it on a regular basis and have been trying to figure out cardinal directions.  That made this lesson from The Story of the World quite easy.
We have also been studying oceans for science and we were learning the names and location of the 5 oceans.  This "preschool" world map has all the oceans labeled.  How handy!
Thank you Mother Goose Time for making such awesome displays.  Displays I don't mind having up in my home because they are incredibly cute and displays that draw the kids in for exploration.  Not only that, but displays that can grow with the kids and be used for a wide range of learning.

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