Ducks or Yellow Day

So . . . I thought I'd get on the band wagon and post one of the lessons that I did today. I figured if I started to do this that you guys would too so that I could get your fabulous ideas!! A little background-

I work at the local Rec Center Preschool. When they hired me they told me that my focus on was to get the kids ready for P.E., so I've tried to incorporate a lot of gross motor activities in my lesson, so don't be surprised when that is the majority of what we do in a lesson. Also we only do it for an hour and a half. So that is why you might need more activities for this day.

But if you need a Duck Activity or if you are talking about Yellow, this is what we did.

Circle Time
We talked about the different things in the world or room that are yellow. Then we sang the song: _____ is wearing yellow today
Yellow today, Yellow today
_____ is wearing yellow today
All day long!
We took a moment to talk about the sun and read the book "Our Friend the Sun". And then we talked about ducks. We read a book about ducks and then we got in a line and I was the Mama Duck and they were my baby ducks and we walked around the room waddling and quaking.

Art Time
For art I had found a picture of a baby duck that had no wings in the picture. So I copied it on yellow construction paper and made a copy for all the kids. We talked about what was wrong with the poor baby duck and how we needed to help him get some feathers. So then we took craft glue (regular glue does not work for this acitivity) and some craft feathers and glued them where ever they thought that their duck needed some feathers. They turned out super cute!

Snack Time
We ate banana's, twinkies, and yellow fruit loops, all washed down with some fabulous water!

Acitivity Time
We did three different activities.
1. I split them into two teams and we played "Quakers for Crackers". I put a chair at one end of the room with a muffin tin with a craker in each tin. Then they had to waddle like a duck up to the tin, quack like a duck, and then waddle back to their line and high-five the next one to go.

Then both groups seperated and we did the next two activities for five minutes and then switched.
2. Played "Duck, Duck, Goose" always a good time!
3. I brought a laundry basket and a whole bunch of different colored rubber duckies. I told them that the basket was our make-believe pond and we had to get the ducks back into it! So we put the basket in the middle and spread out. Then I'd call a color out and who ever had the color would throw it into the basket, if they missed they got another turn until that color was all in. Then I'd call out another color and so on and so forth.

Anyways that was our Yellow Day! It was a lot of fun and the kids seemed to have a good time. I hope this helps some one at some time!

Advice

Alright so this isn't really an idea for an activity or lesson but I need advice/help. As I've been struggling with this situation I realized this was the best place to ask it because so many great people would be able to! So please respond as quickly as you can and let me know what you think.

I am in the Primary. We have twin girls who just came into Sunbeams. They didn't regularly attend Nursery. They are developmentally delayed. Their parents haven't specified in what areas or what ways but it is obvious. They pretty much act like 18 month olds. Let me tell you about each girl.

Twin #1 is more advanced of the two. She loves to draw and play pretend. She, like her sister, can't seem to sit for a long time and can frequently be found at the microphone at the front of the Primary room. She talks in two word sentences and her speech is that of a two year old. She pronounces things well so she can be understood. But she wanders.

Twin #2 is very head strong and when she can't have her way it ends in yelling/crying fits. She too doesn't sit still but keeps moving to sit by different people. This wouldn't be a problem but she changes seats (varying sides of the room) every two minutes. Her speech is very limited and she doesn't form sentences.

Their mother is a stay at home mom who I think is burned out. Her husband says he doesn't quite know what to do any more. They are out of ideas in how to get them to stay in Primary. We would like to come up with a game plan and present it to their parents to make sure that we are on the same wave length. I would really like to get more points of view on this matter. It effects our whole Primary. I think that as of right now the main concern is how to get them to sit for an extended period of time.

ANyways, please let me know what you think. I would love to get some advice on how to approach the matter and ideas on how to get the girls sitting. Thanks you guys!!
Jenni Hogman

Welcome!!!

Hello Everyone! Sorry it has taken me SOOOOO long to follow through with this blog. There are so many ideas that I am excited to share with you and I am even more excited to hear from all of you and see what you have done or plan to do and any and all ideas! As excited as I am to share, life has thrown some things our way that is keeping me busy for the next little bit (all good just busy!), but I will add as soon as I can but I didn't want to prevent you from contributing until I can get on so add away! Thanks so much in advance for your ideas! Let me know if you have anyone else who would like to be added as an author to this blog and I also wanted to know what your opinions are of keeping this blog public or private. Happy learning/teaching everyone!