Sweet Smiles Preschool: Traffic Signs...

Our Mother Goose lesson on Wednesday and Thursday was all about traffic signs...

We started the morning on Wednesday working on these pages in our math and literacy workbooks...

During circle time we discussed what we already know about traffic signs and a few things we didn't know. Then we sang, "S-T-O-P" to the tune of "Frere Jacques."
(Parents: Make sure to point out traffic signs to your child. For example, the handicapped sign....Does your child know what this is and why it is used?)

Next we played a dancing game with these red, yellow, and green stickers Mother Goose provided. When I held up he red sticker the kids froze, they danced slowly for the yellow sticker, and fast for the green sticker.

Dancing is so much fun...

Mother Goose provided these fun supplies for a traffic light craft. The red, yellow, and green paper were actually big circle stickers. The kids LOVED them!

They cut their paper plate in half and then painted it yellow for the top and bottom of the traffic light...

This project dried overnight, so we played with them on Wednesday. The traffic lights will be saved at preschool for your child's memory book.

Mother Goose Time provides new toys/manipulatives each month. These signs and this yellow car were included in this month's curriculum...

The shape we are learning about this month is the triangle. I taped a large triangle on the floor and then placed the road signs along the tape path. We all sat around the outside of the triangle and I asked a few volunteers to look and gather a certain shape of road sign. This was a fun mini-group activity that reinforced our shape recognition skills.

This was our book for Tuesday. The kids LOVED it because the pages folded out to show HUGE illustrations!

Thursday's lesson:

Mother Goose provided us with this road construction sign...

This orange movement cube... (I loved that this encouraged reading on their own.)

...and these white paper cones. Mother Goose suggested I paint the cones orange to make construction cones, but I found it easier to cut and fold some construction cones from orange paper.

I asked the kids if they knew what an orange construction sign usually means. I explained that orange signs usually signal construction. Sometimes we may even have to follow them to take a different path to where we are doing (this is called a detour). I placed all the orange cones in a line on the floor. I taught the kids how to weave in and out of the cones. One volunteer at a time held the construction sign and rolled the movement cube. This person waived one person at a time through the cones and that person had to follow the movement rolled on the cube. The kids loved playing it! We kept it out the rest of the day and even the morning after and the kids loved played it again and again!

Hopping on one foot can be difficult for a preschooler. Hopping forward and weaving between cones on one foot can be even more difficult!

For our next activity we completed an investigation art station activity (idea given in Mother Goose Time's curriculum book.) I set out craft sticks and the road signs that Mother Goose provided us this month, along with a few more larger road signs we have in our block center (purchased from Lakeshore Learning).

I encouraged the kids to make traffic signs and be as creative as they wanted to. They LOVE doing free art activities like these, and I love seeing their ideas soar!

G.P. made a ship with signs that he was very proud of!

Next I set out paper strips that I cut to make look like roads, our traffic signs and car, and our traffic light crafts. I encouraged the kids to build roads using the strips of paper and road signs. We only had one car though so we talked about how we can share using our ooze tubes as timers. We also discussed how sharing shows we are thankful for our friends and want to show them kindness (thankful is the friendship word we are learning about this month). While some kids built roads, the other kids played with their traffic lights. They covered the lights and lifted one flap at a time to instruct their friends whether to move fast, slowly, or stop!

K built the number 4 with her roads strips...

The kids built a large road on top of the triangle tape we used the day before. When I pointed this out to them, they imagined the green tape was railroad tracks!