So, we had
school yesterday. Or at least I tried to have school yesterday. We barely made it through circle time and as soon as I brought out the safari counters from our monthly materials bag, school was over. All they wanted to do was play with the animals. I did manage to show them some pictures from our trip to San Diego's Safari Park in June so they could get a little bit of an idea of what I was trying to talk about with them. We taped off our park and I did get them use the safari bucks to pay me for their tickets. Then it was a race to collect as many animals as possible so I made the girls "buy" them from me for $2 each. They grabbed up the ones they wanted, we lined them up and counted out $2 for each, then counted all of them together. That was pretty much the academic extent of the day.
A little later on I was able to cajole them, one at a time, to come into the kitchen for a little art project I put together. I searched for free "savanna coloring pages" and printed the first one that came up without any animals. I had a couple pages of zoo animal stickers and designed a quick following directions activity. I had them color specific items, draw a sun, pond and birds and place stickers different places on the sheet using positional words (under, over, next to and in). They liked it and did well with the simple 1-2 step directions. I used to work on this skill a lot as a speech therapist, using activities like this.
 |
| Making her elephants "hug" |
We didn't even get to snack. As soon as they finished the coloring/sticker page, they were back to playing with those animals. Some days are like that. I was frustrated and a little upset until I took a moment to listen to them. They were dialoguing with each other, describing their animals' actions and emotions, taking turns driving around the park we'd outlined earlier. Miss M asked for a chimpanzee. Her request was denied and a teaching moment ensued. Some times we don't get what we want, even if we ask nicely and we have to find a way to be ok with that. I needed to learn that lesson as much as she did that morning.
So, we had school yesterday. Or at least I tried to have school yesterday. We barely made it through circle time and as soon as I brought out the safari counters from our monthly materials bag, school was over. All they wanted to do was play with the animals. I did manage to show them some pictures from our trip to San Diego's Safari Park in June so they could get a little bit of an idea of what I was trying to talk about with them. We taped off our park and I did get them use the safari bucks to pay me for their tickets. Then it was a race to collect as many animals as possible so I made the girls "buy" them from me for $2 each. They grabbed up the ones they wanted, we lined them up and counted out $2 for each, then counted all of them together. That was pretty much the academic extent of the day.
A little later on I was able to cajole them, one at a time, to come into the kitchen for a little art project I put together. I searched for free "savanna coloring pages" and printed the first one that came up without any animals. I had a couple pages of zoo animal stickers and designed a quick following directions activity. I had them color specific items, draw a sun, pond and birds and place stickers different places on the sheet using positional words (under, over, next to and in). They liked it and did well with the simple 1-2 step directions. I used to work on this skill a lot as a speech therapist, using activities like this.
No comments:
Post a Comment