Ms. Brooke's Thoughts
November’s vocabulary:
Turkey
Scarecrow
Apples
Corn
Sweaters
Squirrel
Haystack
Leaves
Pour
Sweep/Rake
With Thanksgiving upon us this is a great holiday to really work on requesting and building vocabulary with your child. This holiday brings about lots of natural communication opportunities and practice conversing with different people your child may not see on a regular basis. Begin now asking your child, “How are you?” and cue them to say an appropriate response of “good” or give them a picture of “happy” that they can hold or have near to show their friends and family in response to the question.
Take your child grocery shopping for the dishes. While this may be challenging try to make a learning activity out of it and that may help ease some of the stress just trying to get in and out of the store. Let the child hold the various fruits and vegetables so they can feel how heavy potatoes are, how cold cool whip is, or how bright orange carrots can be. You can talk about the items seen in cans are the same as the ones they see displayed in piles with the other fruits and vegetables. It is a perfect scenario to get lots of repetition of the items they will see prepared on your table or that they have seen in ads in the newspaper or tv. Publix certainly capitalizes on this time of year making me hungry every five minutes with their ads of all that home cooked goodness.
Take advantage of those days leading up to Thanksgiving to have your child in the kitchen with you watching or “helping” prepare those yummy dishes. Some great action/describing words to emphasize are:
Pour, Stir, Chop, Cut, Mix, careful, slow, hot, cold, boil, Wash, Clean, Wipe, Eat, Serve
Requesting is easily worked on during this time as well. Don’t let your child just point to the food that is making their mouths water. Utilize those vocabulary items you practiced at the grocery store and prep time prior to the meal, or take pictures or cut out of magazines all those delicious items you may have on your table for your child to be cued on what to request. Have them ask, “I want ___” or touch the picture of the item to request it.
Thanksgiving is a perfect time to practice our manners as well. Thanks is even in the name! Don’t let your child start shoveling that turkey or stuffing without saying or signing a strong thank you! Enjoy this time of fun and being with the ones you love.
A recap from this week. Today (Friday) we painted pumpkins and talked about pumpkins and cornucopia. Wednesday was our fall fun day with Ms. Susan. First we walked around the school to specific destinations. At those places (the library, fish tank, cafeteria, front office, and Lynn Coleman's office) we found different fall symbols. Then we came down and did two different stations. One was a tactile and texture station where we touched cooked cold spaghetti with eye balls, sticky hands, and stuffed animals. At the other station we used tweezers to pick up little objects and practice sorting. Then we made our ghost in the graveyard snack. Chocolate pudding topped with whipped cream and graham crackers...Yum!
Also we have been reading various books about Thanksgiving. The anchor text I wanted us to read has not arrived yet, but we have been reading Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving to prepare us for our special treat!
If your child is in diapers please send in an extra pack of wipes!
Important Dates:
Wednesday, November 9- Picture retakes!
Friday, November 18 at 9:00am- Please join us for our Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
Tuesday, November 22nd- Grandparent's Tea
Wednesday, November 23- No School
Thursday, November 24- Thanksgiving
Friday, November 25- No School
Friday, December 16 at 9:00am- Winter Holiday Show and Party! Please come!
Wednesday, December 21- Polar Express/Pajamas Day
Friday, December 22 through January 4- No School for students (January 4th is a teacher workday)
