Day 13 Opening Circle

This was a fun day because my niece and nephew were here.  We had a great Opening Circle.  Colton and Riley did the weather.  Lachlan put the calendar piece up.

Then we played the Circle Time song and sat down.  That wasn't good enough today though.  They wanted chairs.  So Lachlan, Colton and Riley went and got the little chairs from the table and brought them over.  I was sitting on the ground but it put the kids at eye level.

Colton, he just lost his first tooth.

Lachlan

Riley

We started with the tongue twisters.  I read the saying "Ned the newt never needed a nest."  Then I had them repeat after me.  I started with Lachlan and he halfway joined in.  When Colton showed interest, so did Lachlan.  Colton recited it, "That's like a tongue twister," he said.  Then we moved on to "Oscar the otter often ordered old oatmeal."  Eww, old oatmeal.  We repeated both of the tongue twisters quite a few times.  Towards the end they could recite them on their own with out queuing. 

Since we had just repeated the sounds over and over again in the tongue twisters I asked the Questions of the day.  What words do you recall that begin with the letter N and then asked about the letter O.  When I asked about N I kept making the sound /n/ /n/ /n/ Newt, /n/ /n/ /n/ Neil!  Whose Neil? "Grandpa!" /n/ /n/ /n/ . . . . long pause while continuing to sound it out.  We had a hard time thinking of more /n/ sounds.  But Colton said "bananas!"  I said you know, that starts with a /b/ sound but it has two /n/ /n/ sounds in the middle.  Ba/n/a/n/a I sounded out.

Next we moved on to O.  /o/ /o/ /o/, Otter! /o/ /o/ Oven.

I got out the pictures of the Newt and Otter and we really got into all the details about the pictures.  First we talked about the Newt.  Colton first pointed out the leaf in the background and then the wood.  I thought that was great, he honed in on the environment of the Newt.  I pointed out the moss on the wood and the fact that the Newt has to live in moist environments.  Then we talked about his color, his texture, his eyes and his toes.  He only has 4 on the front feet.  I asked, is his skin smooth or bumpy? Bumpy they all said.

Then we looked at the Otter picture.  Colton started telling me all about Otters.  That when they sleep they link hands so they don't float away from each other.  Then we talked about how they eat.  I asked about his fur and his ears.  Are his ears tiny or big?  They are tiny, look they are right there.  Then I asked about his eyes and nose.  Colton kept comparing his features to dogs.  His nose is like a dogs nose, his eyes are like a dogs eyes.  I joked that he looks like a dog named Frank.  Riley pipes in "we have a dog named Frank."  I know, don't you think he looks like him? No, they giggle.

Next, Riley went and got the new bells I just got at Goodwill.  She handed one to each of them and said if they have something to say, before they talk, they have to ring the bell.  I thought this was pretty funny and wasn't sure how well this would work out.  Turns out it didn't happen but they did start playing the bells together.  We sat in the circle for quite a while enjoying our conversation and making music.  It adds a whole new element when you have more kids.

 

 

Here is the whole group playing their bells.

Lucy joined us a little later in the day.  Here is the whole crew at lunch.  Peter was not going to stop to take a picture.

Had to share that last one just because they are all so cute.  What a fun group.

Can't wait until next Wednesday!