Migration...

On Thursday our Mother Goose lesson was all about migration...

 In introduced the kids to a new global friend from Zimbabwe.  Zimbabwe is a beautiful African country with many elephants.  They migrate across the country in search of food and water; however, the elephants are endangered.  They are being killed for their tusks.  Baby elephants are being captured and sold. 

 One volunteer pretended to be an animal protector as the other kids pretended to be elephants.  The animal protector guided the animals around the room...

 We sang, "Stomp Like an Elephant" to the tune of "Skip to My Lou."

 How many people are in your family?  How do you look similar to your family?  How do you look different?  I set out mirrors and the kids investigated how they look...

 Next, Mother Goose provided each child with this elephant matching game.  The kids sorted the elephants and then played Memory by matching the colors or the eyes...

 What sounds do you think you would hear if many wildebeests, zebras, and gazelles came running through the open grasslands?  We talked about what a stampede is.  Then we filled a container with rocks and shook it to replicate this sound!

 I explained that the greatest migration is when many wildebeests walk from Tanzania to Kenya.  They cross over dangerous rivers and plains.  I placed a blanket on the floor and pretended it was a river.  The kids stood on one side of the blanket and I put the letter flags that we are learning from this month on the other side.  The kids drew a phonic photo card, and then identified the letter and sound.  Then they rolled a ball (animal) across the imaginary river and tried to have it hit the letter's matching flag on the other side.

 Where do you think wild animals might find food?  Where do you find food?  I explained that animals keep walking until they find food...this is called migration.  Sometimes herds travel long distances for food and water.  We placed ten safari animals on our number 10 counting card (both of which were provided by Mother Goose Time).  I called out a number that was less than 10 and said those animals were ready to migrate.  The child who I was working with at the time, removed that same number of animals and determined how many animals were left over.  This was a great review of our subtraction skills!

 There was also an additional count 'n' clip counting challenge on the back of our counting card...

 This was our book for the day...

 Lastly, in the afternoon the kids worked on a few pages from their math and literacy workbooks...