November 13, 2018 My Community Unit

Our Community

This month we are learning about Our Community (the town of Franklin).  We started with Places In Our Community and now we are going to learn about People in Our Community.  

We start the lesson by talking about the vocabulary words for the week.  Vocabulary words this week include: doctor, firefighter, librarian, mail carrier, police officer,work, and workers.  We look at pictures and define the word.  I often use questions to facilitate words associated with the vocabulary word we are trying to define.  Then we try to connect the word to the children's lives.

For the activity, the children look at case files that contain clues to who the community helper is.  For example, if the answer is Police Officer, we turn over clues one at a time.  Clues include: police hat, police car, handcuffs.  Then the children guess who the community helper could be.

Miss Diane
Speech-Language Pathologist

November 5, 2018 - My Community Unit

My Community

This week we have started a new unit which focuses on Community.  This unit will include places, people, vehicles, and recycling.

The first unit we are talking about is places we go.  We  began the lesson by talking about the target vocabulary, which includes:

apartment, block, building, community,

firehouse/fire station, hospital, library and neighborhood.

For our activity, I made a map without buildings.  I then found real photos of buildings around the town of Franklin (library, post office, fire station, etc.) and printed them out.  We used the photos of the familiar buildings to place around the map.

 Each child had the opportunity to roll a large dice.  On the dice when clues to each building (i.e.: "This building in our community has books that we can read and borrow." - library;  "This building is where we go to learn.  It has teachers and students." - school/ECDC)

If the child was able to name the building/place, they found the picture and placed it on the map wherever they wanted.  If the child needed assistance, they were given a choice of 2 pictures, then placed it on the map.

Miss Diane

Speech-Language Pathologist

October 29, 2018 - My Familly

My Family

This week in language group, we finished up our unit on FAMILY.  We reviewed the vocabulary for the week, which included: tradition,, special, respect, alike, similar, and different.  For our activity everyone picked a picture of a person (boy/girl).  Each person looked different, but we sorted by what was similar.  Some of the characteristics we used were: bald, brown, hair, blonde hair, glasses, long hair, short hair.  Then we sorted ourselves by boy/girl, pants color, sneakers/boots, and glasses.  We focused on how we are alike.

Miss Diane

Speech-Language Pathologist

October 22, 2018 My Family Unit

My Family

This week in language group, we continued the unit on FAMILY!  We reviewed the vocabulary for the week, which included: celebrate, holiday, relatives, thinkful, and together.  We reviewed these vocabulary words by saying them, then defining them a a group.  I also asked questions to make it meaningful to them (i.e.:  Mom is your relative.  Am I your relative?).

We then looked at various pictures of celebrations (a wedding, St. Rocco's Feast, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Years Eve, and a birthday celebration).  We talked about about different things to celebrate and how to have a celebration.

For our activity, I printed out two rooms in a house, a kitchen and a living room.  The children made a scene of a celebration with the pictures provided.  The first child decided it was a birthday celebration for the sister.  Each child after that choose either a family member or a party item to place on the pictures.  At the end, all the  family members were at the party, which had decorations and a cake.

This activity worked on:

1.  vocabulary related to family (mother,, father, grandfather, grandmother, sister, brother, etc)

2.  vocabulary related to items used/needed at a party (balloons,  cake, candles, drinks, etc)

3.  location words (on the table, on the couch, at the stove)

4.  attending

5.  turn taking

6. labeling

7.  answering questions

Miss Diane

Speech-Language Pathologist

October 15, 2018 - My Family Unit

My Family

This week in language group we read the book "My Day From A to Z" by F. Isabel Campoy.  This book goes through the alphabet to describe what happends during a day.

"A - awake;  Good morning!  Are you awake?" asks mom.

B - bathroom;  I go to the bathroom to wash my face.

C - cereal;  I have cereal with fruit for breakfast."

For our activity, the children were presented with a picture of a house, with the rooms 

showing inside.

We looked at pictures of people performing various activities in the house and had to decide what room it went in.  For example, if a child picked the picture of the man cooking, he/she decided what room that a dad would cook in.  Other examples include: eating, taking a bath, watching tv, playing with toys, etc.

This activity worked on:

1. attending to the book
2. letters in the alphabet
3. the names of rooms in a house (bedroom, kitchen, etc)
4. vocabulary related to actions (cooking, washing, etc)
5. labeling actions

Miss Diane

Speech-Language Pathologist

October 9, 2018 - My Family Unit

My Family

We started the My Family unit in Big Day for Pre-K!  In Language Group we read the book "Bear's Busy Family."  In this book a family prepares for a birthday by doing a variety of chores...

"Smell the bread my grandma bakes.

Touch the bowls my grandpa bakes.

Taste the fish my uncle brings..."

This book goes through each family member (grandma, grandpa, uncle, aunt, mommy, daddy, sister, brother, cousins, and baby) and how they helped to prepare for the party.

We talked about the vocabulary related to family members and who had each one (Who has a __?).

For our activity, we sorted family members by what they do.  A variety of family member pictures were given as a choice.  Each child chose one family member and had to decide what they do from a closed set of options (cooks dinner, washes clothes, showers, takes a bath, rinks milk and sleeps ina crib).

This activity worked on:

1. vocabulary related to family.
2. defining words
3. attending to the book
4. taking turns
5. action vocabulary (cook, wash, etc.)
6. 5 senses (smell, touch, see, hear, taste)
7. identifying family members
8. sorting

Miss Diane
Speech-Language Pathologist

Month of February

Franklin Community and Community Helpers

We started learning about our community (the town of Franklin) and about community helpers.

The following activities were presented over the month!

Activity #1

One activity was being a detective, looking at clues

figuring out who the community helper is.

We made Case Files that had clues in them to each Community helper.  We looked at each clue and made guesses along the way!










Activity #2

We read the book "Who Uses This?" by Margaret Miller.  One page showed an item then we made a guess as to who uses the item (i.e.: rolling pin - baker).

For our activity, we sorted items by the community helper that uses them.  Each child picked a card, labeled it and decided which community helper uses the tool.  For example, the firefighter uses a firetruck, hose, helmet and fire jacket.

Activity #3

We read the book "Clothesline Clues to the Jobs People do" by Deborah Hembrook and Kathryn Heling.


For our activity, each child was given a community helper taped to a Popsicle stick.  Clues were read and the child with the community helper being described held up their community helper.




Acitivity #4

In small groups, the children were brought into the hallway where different mailboxes were hung on the wall for different community members (families, police dept, fire dept, etc.).  Each child was given 2 letters to deliver.  The Police Station address was a blue star, so their mailbox had a blue star and the address on the letter had a blue star.  To deliver the letter they had to 'match' the address (color/shape).  We talked about the different community helpers, as well as colors and shapes.

Things you can do at home include:
1.  visit community helper sites
2.  talk about community helpers when you see them 
(what they drive, what they do, what they wear)
3.  pretend to be a community helper during play
(grocery store, fire fighter, police officer)
4.  play 'red light green light'

Miss Diane and Miss Linda

Speech-Language Pathologists