I have seen so much improvement in our class this term! A few of the kids who were quiet at the beginning of the term are now imitating animal sounds and repeating words from our class! They have learned that our opening song means time to settle down for class. They are so good at putting the instruments away at the end and are just now starting to develop inhibitory control which is the ability to stop or start as action, like playing an instrument, on command. Today I enjoyed watching them follow directions as well as come up with their own ideas for movement or for instrument exploration.
Today we listened to animal sounds and imitated them to work on verbal skills and phonemic awareness. We pretended to drive our tractors around the farm and waved the colorful scarves like butterfly wings to work on gross motor skills. Studies link movement to brain development so we want to include free movement in each class. We also incorporated gross motor movement with the instruments as we played our instruments up high, down low, and to the side with the Piggy Jig. This also emphasizes verbal skills as the children see and make the movements as the hear the directional words spoken.
They were so good at following directions today as we put the instruments away, acted out our book, _Flip Flap, Sugar Snap_ and as they worked on inhibitory control as we stopped and started playing instruments.
The children really enjoyed our guest farm animal today as well! Each child was able to pet our real live rabbit at the end of class and we all held our puppets and rocked them to our last song.
I hope everyone can join us for another term of Family Time. Our next session will be, "Movin and Groovin." We will also be beginning a session of Sign and Sing on April 14 as well.
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