Correction on Feelings/Emotion

We had our alphabet mats out and were moving to some various movement songs and I realized that I said "Sammy" on the Getting To Know Myself CD was the song that was great for emotions.  Well, that's not correct.  The correct song on this CD is... Feelings.  :-)  Hmmm.  Interesting title.  Anyway, at the Head Start program we often referred to this particular CD as the Sammy CD.  The main two songs we did were Feelings and Sammy :-)  I just got confused. Sorry!  I changed it in the post.

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Another side note:  My not quite two year old was stamping today.  And then he started putting the stamps in a row and "counting" and then looked at me and said "three!"  Oh, that put a huge smile on my face.  No, he wasn't counting correctly...and there were definitely more then three but boy oh boy...he isn't even two yet and he is exploring with counting already.  Yeah!  Just had to share it with someone.  :-)  Lucky you!  LOL

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All for today.  Sorry.  Needing to prepare for our summer.  I did come across a new site I'll share with you.  I plan to incorporate her lessons this summer with my own boys and K Readiness students.  Relatively new site, www.theartgarden.info.  A daily "art journal" task as well as an art lesson a week, seems like is the plan.  I may not use her videos that were made for the children but they are there if you are interested!

Feelings/Emotions

So, we got our new feelings toys.  They are called the Kimochis Mixed Feelings Pouches. Not quite what I expected but last week they were on the shelf and they used them a little bit, especially toward the end of the week.  One thing that one child noticed right off was there was not a happy, mad or sad face. We had just talked about how happy, sad and can be overused and there were so many other feeling words out there.  :-)  These sets each come with a "make your own" so maybe we'll draw one for each of those feelings.  I thought I got them all but today I see there is one more pouch that has the happy, sad and mad.  So maybe I'll purchase that one with my next order just to have to whole set.  Here is the link:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dtoys-and-games&field-keywords=kimochis+mixed+feelings+pouch&rh=n%3A165793011%2Ck%3Akimochis+mixed+feelings+pouch&ajr=8

Side note:  The feeling word is printed on the back of each.

A bit about emotions in our program and a few simple activities and at the end is something we did today with the Kimochis and our zoo theme.  :-)

A lot of what we do with regards to emotions is done informally, through conversation.  It's very important to label your own feelings and talk your way through "problems" that arise.  It's also important to help children label their feelings also.  We problem solve all day long and along with problems come various emotions...so label them and teach your child to state their feelings when their are talking to their sibling/friend.  So, even though the majority of our emotions learning is done informally and through conversation...here are some things we've done in the past.


*  If You're Happy and You Know It:  We often change the "happy" to other feelings and change the action accordingly.  Much more meaningful if you let the children choose the action.
*  Make feelings finger puppets.  You can easily make these on your own.  You can also draw directly on the children's fingers.  They love this.  One time we sang "Where is Thumbkin?" song and I had drawn a different face on each finger. :-) Printable:  http://www.supersimplesongs.com/worksheets/halloween/emotionsfingerpuppets.pdf  I'm sure there are plenty more finger puppet patterns available but this one is very simple and you can use the idea to make your own feeling finger puppet set.
*  Feelings Collage:  perfect scissors and language activity.  Have them cut out pictures of faces showing a variety of feelings from magazines and glue onto construction paper.  Encourage conversation!  "Tell me what you think they are feeling?"  "What do you think happened here?"
*  Feeling Stamps/stickers or make your own simple circle faces with different feelings.  Encourage them to make patterns.  Children love crowns and a pattern crown might be just the thing. 
*  How Are You Peeling? is a cool book!
*  Paint to different types of music...this helps children get "in touch" with how they are feeling.  When we painted with fast classical music I heard them state, "exciting and happy".  When we painted with slow classical music I heard "sad".
*  Feelings can be slipped into the "basic concept activities".  One thing my kiddos enjoy doing is when I put flash cards up on a wall/door and let them move across the room (run, walk, skip, jump) and with a fly swatter, jump up and slap a card, telling me what it is.  You can do the same thing with emotion pictures.
*  Play concentration with feeling cards.
*  Sensory is a perfect way to "release" emotions.  You can really tell what a child is feeling when they are working in the sensory pool/table/tub.  Wow!  When you sense frustration/anger etc, even if you don't know where it's coming from (we get that more when we have children coming into our home/center...perhaps the morning was rough at home, etc) you may wish to get out the pounding activities.  Pound bubble wrap, egg shells, dirt clups, etc with a child sized hammer.
*  Feelings, on Getting to Know Myself CD (Hap Palmer) is a great song about feelings!  Check your local library.
*  Feelings journal.  Each day provide a page with a large blank section and predictable, fill in sentences at the bottom such as
In this picture I am feeling _________________.  I feel this way when ______________________.  Have them draw a picture of themselves with an emotion (do after you have reviewed the different emotions) and then when you have all the pages done, make a construction paper cover and staple.  Keep out so your child can read and reread the book!
*  English muffins are perfect for making edible faces :-)

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 Here are a couple pics before we got started.  I have been planning an activity like this for months but $$$ kept getting in the way.  Well, I hit the jackpot at one of the garage sales I was at on Friday!  Yeah! 

Are you thinking, "what on earth?!"  :-)  This was a fine motor activity that incorporated feelings and zoo animals.  Each of those wallets/change purses cost me 10-20 cents a pieces vs. the $7-8 I was finding at the stores!  Even the dollar stores didn't have anything besides zippers!  So I purchased quite a few wallets/change purses, not all used with this activity, that provided a variety of fasteners.  Inside each was one of our Kimochis.  One of the items I picked up was a little picture album, with a completely different latch.  I put in pictures I found on Google and the animal name in each one.  24 zoo animals all together!  I encouraged them to tell me what they thought the animal was feeling and why.  They enjoyed this.  We'll have it out all week.  Tomorrow will be the same Kimichos and then I'll "surprise" them by changing the items inside of the pouches.  Awesome fine motor...working those fasteners!



Bugs II

A side note:  I heard a child say to another "I frustrated in you".  :-)  Brought a big smile to my face.  Teaching about feelings is very important.  Most of it is done informally, through conversation, helping a child through problem solving steps that include stating feelings, and being verbal and labeling what you yourself are feeling.  But there are some "emotions" activities you can do and that would be a good future blog.  :-)  Especially when we receive our new toys from amazon that is focused on feelings.  So, stay tuned!

Yesterday I spent much of my day in Lansing and then in Bay City in the evening as the parent rep for the QRIS project.  QRIS stands for Quality Rating Improvement System that the state of MI is in the process of implementing to boost quality in child care/preschools.  It was a very profitable day...helped me see a little of where they are going and how they are working together to create a feasible system for the various types of early childhood settings.  I'm excited!  Another parent focus group is Monday the 16th at the BAISD.  Please come if you are from this area.  Contact me for more information.

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So, onto BUGS!

Day number 2.

Maybe I'll break it up like I do when I lesson plan.  Please keep in mind that so much more is done then just these activities.  But planning like this helps me make sure that the children experience a little of everything every day.  Also, I would like to remind you that there is no reason to "recreate the wheel".  There are so many ideas out there...use them! 

Literacy:  Bb is for Bees (Mailbox)

I chose five "leapfrog" consonants to review recognition, sound and capital letter review.  F, D, P, R, B.   My 3 and 4 year old understand exactly what I mean when I say a "leapfrog letter".  They know, line down from top to bottom and leapfrog back up to the top of the line.  My newer child hasn't experienced this before so I really wanted to review them. It's so hard to break a habit!  Start young teaching them the correct way!!! Another thing I teach is to not pick up their pencil/writing tool/finger if not necessary to.   Another tip for the children is to start their letters at the top and their circles should be started top, off center just a wee bit to the right, drawing the circle to the left.  As you can see here, K. definitely knows how to form an R.  Someone who doesn't know the correct formation will do a circle at the top and two lines out on angles at the bottom, all done separately.  That's because it's how they see it.  Here we can see she did the leapfrog line and closed the circle in and made her leg without picking up her finger.  Excellent!  By the time she goes to school she'll have letter formation down pat!  The three year old also does very well with letter formation because he was just beginning to explore when he came to my program and so the correct habits are already in place.  Am I picky about letter formation?  You bet!  And I'm not going to apologize for it!   :-P  Tactile letters are excellent for helping a child learn how to form their letters.  My sandpaper alphabet set came from www.amazon.com for only $11.55 for both upper and lower case letters.

Fine Motor:  Band-Aid Lightening Bugs (www.notimeforflashcards.com)

There you have it.  :-P  We wrote the number of lightening bugs (or fire flies) at the bottom of the paper.  They did as many as they wanted.  Peeling the backing off of bandages without getting them the stick on itself takes a bit of fine motor.  Meijer was out of the neon bandages (which happen to be on sale) but they had sparkle ones...so they turned out pretty cute that way too.  We used regular brown ones for the body.

Scissors:  Where are the Bees? (Mailbox)

Here is the beehive.
Where are the bees?

Hidden away, so no one sees.
Here they come creeping, out of the hive.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Children cut out the hive and wrote the numbers across the bottom of the fingerplay words,which they glued to their hive.  Then they taped their hive onto the white paper and added and decorated 5 yellow fingerprints to make them bees.  They enjoyed this. (The little tab of yellow is just covering a name, is all.  We respect the wishes of families who do not wish to have their children's pictures or names posted.)

Math:  Ladybug Sorting/Matching (www.childcareland.com)

These were both very easy activities for my kiddos but I wanted a quick, hands on activity that I could observe for their assessments.  So size, color, and shape.

Sensory:  Bugs in Shaving Cream (Bugs are a set from Toys R Us.  Nice details!)

Wasn't exactly what I had planned today but because of time and energy last night...I went the easy route.  Next week we'll do goop and the bugs.  :-)  That's liquid starch and liquid glue. 

Art:  Flyswatter Flower Garden (OUTDOORS!!!)

Well, maybe it didn't turn into a beautiful garden but the process was fun!  The older child here actually got the hang of slapping the flyswatter down multiple times and so she had some beautiful flower prints.  The younger ones were into the effect of having a glob of paint and splatting it.  Speckled we were when we were done.  :-)  I might try it with my summer group if time allows and see what we can do with it.  We purchased the flower and butterfly flyswatters from Dollar Tree.  I have seen basic shape swatters at www.discountschoolsupply.com

And we even got a chance to eat lunch outside before it rained!  :-)  That was neat in itself though.  Watching the change of the sky, feeling the change in the wind and temperature...and the little scientists..."Ms. Amber, it's going to rain!"  :-)  "Notices and describes changes in natural environment".  Love it!  We haven't got the rain yet but...sooner then later probably.  Too bad the garden isn't in!