Lately I've been doing "alphabet stretches" with my kindergarteners. We stand up and try to stretch our bodies out to resemble different letters of the alphabet. The kids are really enthusiastic about it, and they come up with great and interesting variations. Sometimes I select one child to come up to the front of the room and choose a letter for the rest of us to imitate.
My most exuberant class, which also happens to be ESL, is particularly into it. Today I saw them just as they were returning from a field trip to the aquarium, so all I did was open up juice boxes and bananas as they ate their lunch and talked with their mouths full about the big turtles and purple fish.
Of course, as they finished eating, they got out of their seats and started to run around. And then my naughtiest troublemaker scurried up to me and, out of nowhere, blurted: "I can do a Y!"
And lo and behold, he did. And then the other kids jumped in: "X! B!" Before long, they were laying down on the carpet to bend their legs in all sorts of interesting ways, and a few of them -- this was the kicker -- actually worked together to form letters they couldn't make on their own.
It was great!
2 comments:
What a great idea. I plan to try it with my grandsons. Working together shows that they are really thinking about the letters.
I hope you don't mind, but I added you to my blog list. I really enjoy reading your posts. You have a post titled "Punctuation takes a Vacation"...did you know there is a book by that name? It's a cute book about the importance of punctuation.
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