I is for Instruments

A lovely site:  http://www.dsokids.com  I especially like the Listen Tab- we can listen by instrument or composer and read about the instrument or composer.  We did so as we looked through our number instrument pictures.

Numbers Chart

http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/ for the instrument pictures.  I printed them smaller to save paper, ink, and laminate.

In elementary, they use a hundreds chart.  I personally think that is too overwhelming for most preschoolers.  But I do see the benefit of introducing and working a bit with a number chart.  Once a child sees the patterns...it's a lot easier to count in the higher numbers and to recognize those higher numbers.  So today, we looked at a hundreds chart (and she noticed the 10, 20, 30 and sang our song to one hundred) but then made our own out of the number instruments, but only up to 50.   She did great and I was pleased with where the conversation went and what patterns she noticed. 

Musical Numbers

http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/

These xylophone number cards are from her Letter of the Week "Curriculum".  I printed them smaller and we used them with various instruments.  They stated the number and then shook, tapped, etc whatever instrument they chose.  A very simple activity but it is well liked.  This would be a lovely transition activity for a larger preschool group.  I suggest that you keep the cymbals OUT of the choice of instruments as there will be complaints from other students or your own ears will complain! 

The Remarkable Farkle McBride

This is one of those books where we have the conversation that "This is a fiction book and would it really be okay to behave like he did?  No, and what could he have done differently."  However, it is a very humorous book and it has a bit of onomatopoeia and goes through some of the various instrument families ending with Farkle McBride being the conductor of an orchestra.  I haven't found one child who does not like this book and though I would recommend it for PreK or older children, most any age (including my 2.5 year old) stays interested throughout the book.  Must have been all the onomatopoeia's.  :-)

Not the greatest picture.  Sorry, we used the black and white mini book.  A World of Music, each page shows another continent with an instrument that originated from there.  Neat!  Great conversation.  I did want to put a plug in for www.kidssoup.com.  They have SO many resources.  It's so worth the membership fee.  I also have the ABC Twiggles membership but I don't think I'll keep that membership up but I do think the KidsSoup membership is worth it.  It is the one site that I actually pay a membership for and am glad that I do.  Perfect for preschool teachers or homeschooling moms! 

Before we did this book we used the globe and sang the following song

to the tune of "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands."

We've got the whole world, in our hands.

We've got the whole world, in our hands.

We've got the whole world, in our hands.

We've got the whole world in our hands.

We've got North and South America in our hands.

We've got Europe and Asia in our hands.

We've got Africa and Australia in our hands.

We've got the whole world in our hands.

When we did this song with the Head Start program, we used an inflatable globe and passed the ball around during the first verse and worked it so that an adult was at the second verse.  (We got good at that too!).  Then the teacher would point to the continents during that second verse.  :-)  I think this was off the Dr. Jean CD.  I really do not know for sure though.  Today, by the time we were done with our lesson about world instruments and the world in general...we sang the song about four times and she had the first verse down and could fill in most of my pauses for the continent names.

I Vocab Cards

Vocabulary cards were from www.abctwiggles.com. 

K. chose a word from our I Vocab Card selection, built the word with Scrabble tiles, calculated how many points the word equaled, and wrote the word in it's section.  When we were done, she put them in order on our wall from smallest amount of points to largest. 

*  There are various Read, Build, Write mats available on the web.  Since we were adding numbers and were going to need to see all the numbers together, I chose to just use our old dry erase lapboard.  :-) 

*  The calculator definitely added interest and it reinforced the + and = signs.
*  Veggie container works nicely to keep the tiles contained and orderly.  I choose to put the letters for each word together and she had to "unscramble" them to build it.  It takes too long for her to find all the letters from just a pile and she loses interest fast.  So if you don't want to separate all your letter manipulatives for each word, then please organize them in alphabetical order for your child.  Otherwise it really won't be a success (speaking from experience) and do plan on the activity taking longer that way!

Just a side note here about what I was able to observe that you all can't see with just pictures.  K.'s first word and second words written were pretty wibble wobbly.  They are usually with dry erase markers anyway...but definitely more than normal.  So I brought her attention to how she was holding the marker.  Then she corrected and went on with more confident strokes.  When she noticed a wibble again she corrected on her own...yippee!  Also, lately I've been encouraging her to notice how much space she has to write her words, bringing her attention to lines and so forth.  You can kind of see it in the top right word "iguana".  She started out really big and then said to me, "Oh, I need to write small."  She noticed it on her own!  Okay...big smiles from this teacher!  And, of course, this was perfect to reinforce short and long I sounds.