The Language of the Body

We had Mother Goose Time with just the three of us today, thanks to a little cold caught by Littlest over the weekend.  We focused on body language, especially facial expressions since I think those are a little easier for really young children to understand.

After our morning devotional and while they ate breakfast, I let them watch Daniel Tiger.  This episode focused on times you might feel sad and was a great opportunity to point out the body language of the children when they were sad and how it changed when they got happier (it also reinforces that it is okay to be sad sometimes and you don't have to immediately feel better.  I love this show).

Following circle time, I brought out several of the daily posters from the past few days and we looked at the children in them, describing how they felt and how we could tell from the picture.  Miss M enjoyed this activity and started playing the part of teacher, leafing through them and questioning me about the pictures.  It was a good way to keep her engaged while providing vocabulary and explanations she may not possess yet.

Surprised.

I supplemented some of the activities today with games I found on the internet to help teach the girls more emotional vocabulary.  One idea was to draw faces on circles and use them on a flannelboard to create an emotion word version of "Brown Bear, Brown Bear".  I found some pre-drawn faces by Googling "facial expression pictures", printed and laminated them.  Miss M liked identifying the emotion on each face and putting it in the familiar pattern (we have all the books in the Eric Carle series so she knows it really well).  For example; "Happy face, happy face, what do you see?  I see a sleepy face looking at me."  We talked about how we could tell what the emotion was by how the mouth and eyes were lifted or scrunched.  She practiced making her version of the emotion when I pointed to it.

The second game was simply another emotion matching game, similar to the one provided in one of last week's day bags but with a few more expressions to help boost her vocabulary (like exhausted, disgusted and bored).  I printed two copies of this free worksheet, laminated them and cut one apart, leaving one whole for an easier matching game.  The girls took turns picking a card and matching it while I explained the emotion and when they may have felt it.

I attempted several times to introduce the ASL activities but the girls weren't interested today.  I'm going to keep the poster out and try again another day.

Checking out the craft and trying
to make the sign.

They both scurried to our craft table in the kitchen when I announced that we were going to make a project.  They both love having their hands traced, even though it tickles.  I love the multiple mementos of their tininess that I get to save to look back on in the future.  They put the glue on the hearts and placed them in the palms of the hand cutouts, then (their favorite part) sprinkled the green sand on the top.  The project is meant to be a hand signing I love you in ASL, with the third and fourth fingers bent down.  My husband and I use this sign all the time with each other and Miss M has tried imitating it when we do but was adamantly opposed to bending down the fingers of her project so for now it is a high five with a sparkly heart.

Have you noticed that she's always wearing her crown?  She loves this
craft from June, even though most of the jewels have fallen off from constant use.  I rue the day it finally gets destroyed.  It is her "most favoritest" accessory (in her own words).