Gathering- coloring sheet
At the very beginning we colored a picture of a train with the letter "D" on it. After they were all done I had each boy stand up individually and tell about their picture, like what colors they used or what part of the train they colored. After they were all done telling about their picture everybody clapped for that child and told them good job. I think they really liked this part. They were all excited to do that after finishing a paper. It was fun to hear what each of them would say about their work.
Jobs-Song, Pledge of Allegiance, Prayer, Weather
After that we did the jobs for the day. That was fun. They all seemed to really like having their special job and participating. Introduce letter D
Next, we talked about what sound the letter "D" makes. We then discussed what words start with the letter "D". They had fun thinking of words. I was surprised with some of the answers I got. One of the boys came up with dolphin!
We then used the Letter Factory Fridge Magnet thing (I believe that is the official name of it ;)) and sang the Letter "D" song (“’D’ says d and ‘D’ says d every letter makes a sound ‘D’ says d.”). They liked that a lot. We passed the little toy around twice and they were each able to press the button each time and then we would sing the song.
After that my baby got hungry so I passed out the "D" coloring sheet and had them work on that while I got him some food. They finished that and we talked about their pictures again. They finished before I was done finding my little guys so we moved into the kitchen for some music time. We talked about how drumming starts with "D" and I had them drum on mixing bowls with mixing spoons while singing the Letter "D" song. They really liked that. After we sang the "D" song a few times we moved on to some other songs. We talked about fast and slow and loud and quiet. We sang Happy Birthday really loud and Lullaby and Goodnight really soft and slow. It was fun.
After I was done feeding my baby I went and put him in his crib. While I was doing that I had the boys sit on their rugs and look at library books. Then I came down and read "Officer Buckle and Gloria"- Peggy Rathmann which is about a policeman and his dog. We talked about how dog starts with "D" and we also talked about how they saw a police man last week.
Introduce theme
We then talked about trains for a while. We talked about how they go and carry things even in the dark. We talked about how darkness starts with "D". I got all the boys flash lights and we went on a quest to find darkness. We had our flash lights on and searched around the house to find darkness. We went up into our play room and found it there (it is a media room with out any windows). We all went in there and had our flash lights on. We then talked about dark and light. We sat down and I read "Green Eggs and Ham"- Dr. Suess to them while they all shined their flashlights at the book so I could see. It was lots of fun. They really enjoyed holding the flash lights :) Then we ran around in a circle taking turns holding this Leapfrog music wand thing that lights up and plays music.They seemed to enjoyed that :)
Story Time
We went down stairs and read some more books. We read "Good Morning Engines"- Thomas and Friends and "Ride Along with Thomas"- Thomas and Friends. Both of those books have the buttons that you press to make noise. I had each boy come up one at a time and take a turn pressing all the buttons for the page. They liked to do that. We also read "Go, Dog, Go!"- P. D. Eastman and "Watch Me Go"- Young/Glitschka
Activity
After that we did a craft. It was a black piece of paper that had a white capital and lower case "D" on it and it said "Dots in the Dark". I put drops of glitter glue on the "D"s and had the boys press down each dot with their fingers to spread it out.
Introduce number 4
We counted to the number four and then colored a paper that had the number 4 on it.
Free Play
By that point they were all very excited to go back up into the play room to play with the toys. They played for about 25 mins then we cleaned up.
Lunch
To finish it off they ate lunch. That was probably one of my favorite times. It was so fun to see them sit down and talk to each other and try to be funny. They are all so cute and fun to be with. I will sure miss not being able to do this with you guys. It has been a fun month! :)
