Preposition review: next to, in, behind

We continued with the tall, tall grass theme today. We used the grass that was cut yesterday for the language lesson today. Prior to the kiddos coming in for the morning, I taped the grass strips that they cut  onto a large cardboard box, making rows across to form very tall grass. 

Language Goals

Expressive language: prepositions (next to, in, behind) pronoun everyone

Receptive Language: following simple one step directions, answering Who and where questions

I set up the grass and we took a minute to talk about it. How tall it is, what color, etc. Then I gave each student a bug from the story (we used picture cards, I did not have plastic bugs of all the animals. If you do that is great! If not, the picture cards worked just fine). 

Call each kiddo up one at a time.

T: Put the ant in the grass. Where is the ant?

S: The ant is in the grass. (for us, I accepted "in the grass." It's just where we are language wise!)

T: (ask another student) Who put the ant in the grass?
S: Andrew did!

You could also ask:

T: Where did Andrew put the ant?

 S: in the grass!

Once everyone has a had a few turns, I started using "everyone." We have been working on this pronoun a lot. We still have a long way to go!

T: Everyone put your bugs behind the grass.

(ask a student) Who put the bugs behind the grass?

S: Everyone did!

T: Where did everyone put the bugs?

S: Behind the grass.

Centers

Make tall, tall grass pictures. The kiddos had to cut more grass (gotta work those fine motor skills!). Then they added whatever bugs they wanted. I had pictures for them to pick from.

Math

I used this great book to start talking about tall and short. First, I had each kiddo go pick an item from the room and bring it back to the table. I divided the kiddos into 3 groups of 3 and put an aide with each group and I took a group (I know super lucky to have 2 aides in the afternoon!). The kiddos used unixcubes to measure the items and find the tallest item and shortest item. Repeat with new items if you have time. The kiddos had so much fun going around the classroom finding items to measure!

Day 2 of math. We sorted items into tall and short. Again, I let the kiddos go around and pick items from the room. Then they had to decided is it tall or short and put it in the correct hula hoop on the floor.