Eating Green!

We talked a lot about colors and rainbows during our St. Patrick's Day theme, especially green. A fun science activity is showing the kids how to make green by mixing yellow and blue, and a delicious way to do this it with food! It's a pretty similar activity we did with our squish bags, but much tastier!
This is an idea that I borrowed from a great blog called Little Fingers Big Dreams!

Targets
Vocabulary- Green
Pre-science experiments
Requesting
Basic concepts- full/empty, more/same

First, we gathered our tasty ingredients-vanilla frosting, food coloring, graham crackers, plus 2 clear bowls, a spoon.

We started by putting the white frosting into the clear bowls.

We talked about all the senses--how it looked and smelled (yummy!). It was also a time to do a quick look at the concepts full/empty and more as we put frosting in one bowl and not the other (empty), then just a little in the other so that one had more and finally having the same amount in each bowl.

Next, we made some yellow frosting by putting food coloring in (we even snuck in a quick counting task by counting out 5 drops!)

and the kids got a chance to stir (and practice saying "he is stirring").

Same with making the blue frosting.

Then the students requested a plate ("I want a plate") and a graham cracker ("I want a cracker"). [And, what shape is a graham cracker?--a rectangle! sneaky way to talk about shapes ;)].

More requesting--"I want blue" "I want yellow" "I want a spoon"

Then, we all got to mixing--yellow + blue = green!

The best part--eating the green!

.

Misc. St. Patrick's Day activities

Well, I was out for a couple of days, abiding by our health policy where "if you're not feeling well enough to participate, it's best to stay home," so I was not able to take many pictures of some of our St. Patrick's Day activities. But, here's a quick summary of what the students did when I was out!

Squish Bags
We used Ziplock bags, shaving cream, blue food coloring and yellow food coloring.
The students had to request each item as they went along ("I want a bag," "I want yellow" etc).
First, they requested their bags
Next, they requested their shaving cream to squirt into the bag. They got to squish around the shaving cream for a bit.
Then, they choose to put in one color and squished it around, then the other
Last, they continued to squish the yellow and blue around in their shaving cream until it turned green.

Tissue Paper Rainbows
This was an activity that even our Occupational Therapist liked because it really helps increase fine motor skills! We also got a chance to work on our vocabulary words: rainbow and pot of gold.
The students requested different colors of tissue paper and ripped it up into smaller pieces. Then, they dipped them into some glue and put the tissue paper onto their rainbow.

Green Gs
We focused on the letter G for our ongoing phonemic awareness activity where we address the sound/symbol relationships. In this theme, we talked about how G says the /g/ sound, like in "green."
The students requested their G and all the green things that they could fit onto their letter as they were reminded that G says /g/!
And our only photo...

.

Leprechaun Hats

The word "leprechaun" is a pretty hard word, whether you have difficulty with speech and language development or not! It's got a lot of syllables, it's not a word we encounter too often and it's got some harder sounds, like /l/ and /r/. So, we really made a point to bombard the students with this word during our St. Patrick's Day theme. I was really impressed with the students who got it!
One way we exposed the students to "leprechaun" was to make Leprechaun Hats!!

Targets
Vocabulary- leprechaun, green, shamrock, hat
Descriptive words
Requesting- for example "I want a hat"
Sequencing- First, Next, Last

We started out by talking about leprechauns--what they do, what they wear, what they look like, etc. We also talked about what we needed to make our leprechaun hats (a hat, a black band, a shamrock, a beard, a long black band, glue and a stapler---There is no pattern--we just drew until it looked right ;)).

First, we had students request the hat (they continued to request each piece at each step)

Next, they glued on the black band

Then, they glued on a shamrock

Next, they glued on the beard

Last, we measured their heads to staple on the long black band

When they were done, we reviewed the steps we did to make the hats and they got to look at themselves in the mirror.
I think they looked pretty cute!!

.

St. Patrick's Day Counting Book

Leprechauns love to have gold coins in their pots of gold, and preschoolers love to count, so, why not make a St. Patrick's Day Counting Book?

Targets
Vocabulary- leprechaun, pot of gold, gold coins
Counting to 5 with 1:1 correspondence
Number recognition

First, we gathered our materials- enough books for each student, lots of gold coins, glue, a  pot and a leprechaun.
We talked about each item, giving the students repeated practice with naming the vocabulary. They could hear the words over and over again and have a chance to say them.

Throughout the activity, the students needed to request items before they got them ("I want a book;" "I want a leprechaun"). The first thing we did was to decorate the cover with the leprechaun, pot and some gold coins. They could follow our pattern or put them anywhere they wanted.

Next, we went through the book, page by page to add the gold coins.

On each page, there was a number written (we use the Touch Math concept; that's why there are dots on the numbers) to work on number recognition and a circle drawn on to represent how many gold coins went on the page. This helped them with counting with 1:1 correspondence. Finally, there were written words to help encourage pre-reading skills.

As the students requested their gold coins, they had more and more practice with counting.
This activity is a nice example of how pre-academic concepts, such as math, can be incorporated into speech and language therapy! The students practiced counting as they practiced requesting and vocabulary!
.

St. Patrick's Day

We are getting ready for our St. Patrick's Day vocabulary theme.
Our vocabulary theme sheets are being sent out, which include the vocabulary words, pictures, some tips on talking about colors and a parent article about using all the senses to learn.

Our vocabulary bulletin board is up with our pictures. These are the same pictures sent home to families.

 Our library has several St. Patrick's Day books set aside for the students to read. Lots of green and lots of leprechauns!!

 Our kitchen table even has a St. Patrick's Day table cloth.

 We also have some fun hats for the students to play with set aside at our experiential table.

 The students have oodles of opportunities around the classroom to be bombarded with the vocabulary items. We even have bunches of shamrocks and rainbows around the room, too.

We'll be doing a lot of fun activities in the next week, including  making gold coin counting books,  leprechaun hats, squish bags and a rainbow. Enjoy your St. Patrick's Day and watch out for leprechauns!!