Sunday, November 24, 2013

Let's play with leaves! (by Misato)

紅葉シーズンがもうすぐ終わろうとしています。

この時期の葉っぱが一年で一番きれいだと思います。

そんなわけで、今回のテーマは、"leaves"

1.matching
    見せた葉っぱと同じものを見つけて遊びました。
 

 
まずは、いろいろな素材の葉っぱ(フェルト、紙、プラスチック製)を宙に放り投げ、
落ち方を比べたりして遊びました。ヒラヒラヒラヒラ・・・とってもきれいだね。

葉っぱをお友達が持ってきてくれました。同じ形かな?一緒に見てみよう!


2.What do they look ?  
フェルトを葉っぱを使って、いろいろなものを作りました。
何ができたかな?

フクロウやトンボ・・・次は何ができるかな?
葉っぱには、いろいろな形や色があるから、ぜひ紅葉の時期には、
親子でいろいろなものを作って遊ぶといいですね。


3.クラフト 
緑、黄色、茶色などを折り紙をびりびり破って、木を作りました。
一人ひとりみんな違うものができて、おもしろいですね。







4.ストーリー
 
MOUSE'S FIRST FALL

ネズミたちがたくさんの葉っぱの中で、かくれんぼをしたり、いろいろな形や色の葉っぱを見つけたりして遊ぶお話。


子どもたちは、セッションに参加するだけでなく、ちらばった葉っぱを拾ったり、小さくちぎった折り紙を拾ったりとお片付けも積極的に手伝ってくれました。
また、子どもたちの素敵な笑顔のため、楽しいセッションを考えたいと思います。
 
 

Sunday, October 27, 2013

KIC Halloween! (By Kayoko)

2013.10.27 今日のKICはHalloween session。
数年前に比べて街中でもハロウィンの飾り付けやイベントを見かけるようになってきました。
日本でもバレンタインデーのような定番になってきているということでしょうか?
今年は子供達だけでなく、ママ達も仮装してのセッションとなりました。
Thank you ,everyone!


1. One little pumpkin
Jack o lantern が泣いたり怒ったり。
Ten little Indiansのメロディに合わせて歌いました。

 

2  Boo who?
ハロウィンお馴染みのメンバーが次々と出てきます。
一ページごとにフラップがついていているので小さな子供にはめくる楽しさもあり、どのキャラクターも怖く描かれていないのでオススメの一冊です。



3 Halloween concentration
先ほどの絵本に出てきたキャラクターを使って神経衰弱ゲームをしました。
たくさんキャンディー、取れたかな?

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
4 Go away big green monster!
得体の知れないbig green monster。
みんなの大きな「Go away!」の声のおかげで見事、消え去りました。



KICオリジナルのbig green monster作り。
本よりscaryな物ができたかな。

 
最後はみんなで歌を歌いました。

5 mommy mummy
トイレットペーパーを使ってmummy を作りましょう!
中に入ってるのはmommyだから怖くないよー。



6 craft time 
Trick or treat bag作りです。
この後、お菓子を入れるためにはがんばって作らなきゃ!


 

7 Trick or treat 
小さなドアをノックノック。
たくさんたくさんお菓子をもらいました。
これまで怖がっていたお友達もやっと楽しい時間になったかな。



 

trick or treatはもちろんのこと、ハロウィンのキャラクターの名前も知っていたり、クラフトもママの手を借りずに1人で挑戦したり。
いろいろなことを自分でやろうとする姿を垣間見ることができました。
来年はどんなハロウィンになるのかな、今から楽しみです♫


Friday, September 13, 2013

My Body and Me (by Christine)

Today's lesson (September 8th) was the first after our summer vacation. I think it was hard for the kids (and moms!) to get back into the swing of things, but we pulled it off.

Our super kids learned the ABCs and about body parts today.

We always open up with a welcome song, which is different for each session leader, aka Mom.

Now that our kids are 2-going-on-3 and older, we thought it would be a good idea to start with their ABCs. Using a cloth kit, we sang the ABC song and each kid picked up a few animals to match letters. The older kids in the group took the lead (and took over a bit!) matching the letters to their sounds.

What letter comes next?

We followed up this exercise with a book called LMNO Peas (Keith Baker), which even those kids that don't normally listen to books, were enthralled with.

Peas, please!

The class then moved on to teaching the kids their body parts. Most kids are familiar with these, so it was more of a review for them. Using the ever-helpful Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head, the kids put together faces, hair, arms and legs, and then we had a few rounds of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and the Hokey Pokey.

Big sisters taking charge

Done!

Today's craft was a Monster Drawing Game, where each kid drew their own idea of what a monster should look like. Christine told the kids that they needed to draw 1 eye, 2 noses, 3 mouths, etc. Some of the drawings were really creative!

On your mark, get set, go!

How many eyes should my monster have?

Dinosaurs or drawing? Dinosaurs or drawing? I think the dinosaurs won this round.


Whoops! How did my picture get in here?

What should come next? Edible monster faces, of course! We found lots of different ideas online, but due to the lack of an oven, Christine decided to use sweetened yoghurt, chocolate chips, and grapes. It's hard to come up with things in a short time.

Attack of the chocolate monsters!

Clearly 2 eyes and four chocolates for a mouth. Good job!

Hmmmm....

Hmmmm...again.

Simple, and to the point!

Lastly, we ended the session with two books: Kindergarten Countdown (Anna Jane Hayes) and Just Big Enough (Mercer Mayer).

I hope the kids had a great time today (and didn't get too hyped up on the chocolate and sugar!)

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

The Five Senses by Christine

(Posting this VERY late!)

Seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling...These senses help our toddlers (and now bigger kids!) make sense of their worlds. Today's session turned our kids into little scientists as they experimented with the world around them.

We first started with a song to welcome everyone (Sung to, "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star):
Let's see who is here today.
Who has come to join our play?
Everyone sit close at hand.
Say your name, then you can stand.
Let's see who is here today.
Who has come to join our play?
Christine then gave a short explanation of each of the five senses using another song sung to the tune of "Where is Thumbkin?")
Five senses. Five senses.
We have them. We have them.
Seeing, hearing, touching,
Tasting and smelling.
There are five. There are five. 
Then Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head were brought out to let the kids get acquainted with their five senses. Some of the results were definitely creative!

Next, we looked at each of the five senses in detail, starting with the sense of touch.

  • Sense of Touch: We use our hands to feel things.
    We brought out cotton balls, beads, and a net. The kids touched each of these items so they could feel the difference in textures (soft/fluffy, hard/flat/bumpy, rough). After introducing these new words and sensations, the kids sorted each item by texture.

    We then read "Touch and Feel Farm" (An older version of this book)





  • Sense of Taste: We use our mouths to taste things.
    Next, we moved on to the sense of taste. We brought out samples of items that are salty (salt), sour (lemon juice) and sweet (sugar). As expected, the kids gravitated towards the sugar!


  • Sense of Smell: We use our noses to smell things.
    Using plastic bags with holes in them, the kids used their noses to try to decipher smells and guess what the items might taste like. We used vanilla extract (smells sweet), lemon juice (smells sharp/sour), and coffee grounds (smells bitter). We thought that the coffee grounds probably wouldn't be too good to eat.

  • Sense of Sight: We use our eyes to see things.
    Making up "I Spy" glasses, we used them to find plastic Easter eggs that were scattered around the room.






  • Sense of Hearing: We use our ears to hear things.
    After picking up the eggs we found with our "I Spy" glasses and our eyes, the kids used their sense of hearing to match up the sounds of the eggs (The eggs had either dried pieces of rice or small bells inside them). By shaking them and comparing them, the kids guessed what sounds matched each other.






The last book of the session was "The Very Lonely Firefly," which the kids liked because of the flashing firefly lights at the end of the book. We ended the session with a Goodbye Song (sung to "The Farmer in the Dell"):
Now our day is done.
We've had a lot of fun.
It's time to go,
So don't be slow.
Goodbye to everyone.
Put your things away.
It's time for us to say.
"Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye,"
Until another day.
Suggestions: For future classes on the five sessions, it would probably be a good idea to do one sense per session, rather than try to cram everything in at once.

I hope the kids enjoyed the session as much as I had preparing for it!