Saturday, April 2, 2011

Garbage

Opening Song: Welcome, Welcome Everyone
(Tune: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star)
Welcome welcome everyone,
Now you're here we'll have some fun.
First we'll clap our hands just so.
Then we'll bend and touch our toes.
Welcome, welcome everyone,
Now you're here we'll have some fun.

Literacy Skill: Letter Knowledge is knowing that letters are different from each other, have different names, and are related to sounds.

Book: Smash! Mash! Crash! There Goes the Trash! by Barbara Odanaka
Presents a rhyming imitation of all the sights and sounds of the neighborhood on trash day.

Action Rhyme: Ten Fingers
I have ten fingers.
They all belong to me.
I can make them do things.
Would you like to see?
I can shut them up tight.
I can open them wide.
I can put them on my head.
I can put them at my side.
I can raise them up high.
I can put them down low.
I can set them in my lap,
And fold them just so.

Book: Trashy Town by Andrea Zimmerman
Little by little, can by can, Mr. Gillie, the trash man, cleans up his town.

Literacy Aside: The words STOP and NO are highlighted in the story by color and font size.  See if they can find the S and N for each one.  This helps with letter recognition.

Action Song: If You're Happy and You Know It
v.1 Clap your hands
v.2 Stomp your feet
v.3 Turn around
v.4 Jump up and down
v.5 Shout hooray

DVD: I Stink! by Kate McMullan
A big city garbage truck makes its rounds, consuming everything from apple cores and banana peels to leftover ziti with zucchini.

Literacy Aside: While this is not an alphabet book, it contains a section covering all the letters of the alphabet and is a fun way to highlight them.  We're watching it as a movie because it better illustrates each letter.  The video also is a read along, showing kids that the story is made up of words.

Craft: I Spy Alphabet Bottles
Supplies: alphabet beads (one of each letter of the alphabet), empty water bottles, rice, laminated sheet listing the alphabet

Kids used their fine motor skills to place each bead in their bottle.  Then they came to me to have rice poured in and the lid taped on with duct tape.  The laminated sheet is a reusable checklist (use a water-based marker and wet paper towel to remove ink) for locating all the letters.  This craft ties into letter knowledge and the garbage theme, as we reused water bottles that would have been recycled or gone in the garbage.

Attendance: 16, 14 (ages 1-6 and adults)
Evaluation: This is a great program for all ages.  The theme and materials were well received and interactive enough to hold the kids attention.  Due to technical difficulties, the movie didn't work in the first session, but no one seemed to mind.  I should have gone ahead and read them the alphabet section of the book, but instead had them move onto the craft as time was running out.  While the craft was labor intensive to prepare for, it went very smoothly with the kids and the parents were very appreciative of it's educational nature.  This is definitely a program to do again.  I enjoyed the I Spy bottle craft and could see repeating it with shapes, colors, numbers, etc.