NEWSLETTER
November 6-9
Books we read this week:
Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?
The PreK classes performed this book for us this week so we centered our group activities around it to extend the experience.
Giving (Taubman Book Series)
Retelling the Story
We began by using manipulatives to retell the story "Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?" We used two different sets of manipulatives - stuffed characters you can velcro to the board and laminated pictures. These different materials provided two different sensory experiences for the children and they had to manipulate the materials in two different ways. This additional motor work was naturally integrated into the matching part of the retell. Each child held one of the picture cards in their hand as they listened to the story. When they heard their animal come up in the story they had to hold it up, pick up the stuffed matching animal and put it on the velcro board. This experience also integrated receptive language practice (the ability to comprehend and respond to what they hear) as they carefully listened and followed along with the story. The three step process of receiving the information from the story (their animal is identified), looking at their picture and then matching it with the stuffed character is the type of task that preschool children practice often to strengthen their receptive and expressive language skills.
Matching Colors and Pictures
Since color is a key piece of content in the story, we extended our retell experience to matching the color of the animals to the animal picture. The color words had a clear visual cue which allowed the children to "read" the color word and match it up. As we told the story again together at the tables, the children had to once again listen for their animal but this time focus on the color of their animal when it came up. They then chose the appropriate color word from the group on the table and physically match them together. Finally we went through the story and the children identified the color of each animal out loud. Changing the information that they have to listen for and focus on practices centration (focusing on one key characteristic and disregarding the rest) for different characteristics. This experience shows us how easily they can change what to listen for and respond to, which is a developing skill in preschool.
Writing Words from the Story
And finally, why not integrate some writing into our retelling experience! We extended our color activity from yesterday by giving the children the color words to trace and write. We introduced the Handwriting Without Tears Crayons for this particular experience. These short, small crayons are the appropriate size for preschoolers who are developing their writing skills. They are also doubled-sided, so it adds some fun to the writing because the kids can use two different colors if they want to. Crayons require the children to use more pressure than with a marker, so we were able to observe their writing grip and their writing strength with this experience. Finally, tracing over the highlighter lets us observe the children's visual tracking skills, which are very important as they participate in activities where they need to look at materials and make connections. It's pretty amazing how much we can see in this one writing experience!
