PLAYDATE NOTES
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Because my son's preschool friends live at about 20-30 minutes from us, I knew
a daily or several times weekly playgroup was just not feasible. We have opted
instead to have alternating Fun Fridays. We have had 7 kids come to each of the
playgroups. Interestingly enough, the kids have been different each time except
for one girl who has come to both. My son did much better the second week. Here
are our lesson plans which I developed with our TA. We have kept our plans
pretty basic and so far it has been fine.
My biggest challenge has not been the kids, but the parents. The first week, I
invited one of my son's classmates who has a younger sibling, who is very
independent and knows my son well. Since the mother had just had her third, I
thought I would be doing a favor to let her drop off both children and let her
take a rest with the baby (I even suggested it). Well, she stayed in the
working room and literally shadowed her eldest for the entire time while
holding her infant in her arms. It was really awkward. Then yesterday, a very
sweet but lonely mother stayed and chatted with me the whole time. It wasn't
unpleasant, but I felt that it tied me down to her the whole time rather than
being available to assist if necessary in managing the group. Fortunately, I
had asked a baby-sitter who helps me out occasionally to come assist our TA or
it would have been very difficult. The other thing that has been difficult is
that each week people have not come on time for the start so that kids come in
for the first 15-25 minutes. I realized that I needed to work in a transition
for the kids to say goodbye to their parents and a plan to keep the mother with
the infant engaged downstairs if she came again.
Among the minor things we have worked on are lining up to go places (since we
move all over our house during the playgroup), staying in line, working
together as a group, raising hands to talk in circle, and being quiet when
someone else is talking.
Fun
Friday #1--Summer Time Fun
Greeting and Free Play (20 minutes) Working Room
Set up the room with choices of play. You decide what else you want out, but be
careful of having too much or too little.
Circle (15 minutes) Working Room
Use white board and write down what kids say.
"Let's talk about the summer. Tell me some things that you think about
summer." (Contingent Word drill)
Summer - pool- ocean- vacation- seashells- fish- swimming - suntan lotion -play
outside-sunglasses---sun- flowers-trees- mosquitoes- lightening
bugs--mosquitoes.
Music--3-4 songs (10-15 minutes)
Happy and you know it
Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes
Requests from the group
Snack
(10-15 minutes) Sun room
Art (15 minutes) Sun room
Used markers construction paper and foamy small shapes in which children drew a
summer scene--flowers, shells, trees, pool, etc. with markers and then glued
and decorated their pictures with foamy shapes (for petals of flowers or
whatever).
(Will need some games or puzzles in the den for kids to play with if they
finish--e.g. Arthur Puzzles, Don't Spill the Beans, Willie Go Boom, and Potato
Head Pals)
Change Clothes (boys in his
room/Girls in sister's Room)
Swimming (can play outside last
half hour, but at least 20 minutes)
Goodbye
Strawberry-Banana Sorbet
(Since my son is allergic to milk, I had to make a non-dairy ice cream. I have
to tell you that my approach to cooking is to read 3-4 cookbooks, close the
cookbooks and just make it rather than going by a particular recipe.)
1 qt. of strawberries (I used one large container of Driscoll strawberries)
1 1/2 banana (I just had that many bananas on hand)
1 t. Knox gelatin dissolved in 1 T. of cold water (optional)
1 6 oz container of pineapple juice
1 c. water
1 c. sugar
2 T. lemon juice
Put strawberries and banana in a blender until pureed. Strain and set aside.
Pour 1 T. cold water on the gelatin to dissolve. Put pineapple juice, water and
sugar in a saucepan and boil for 3-5 minutes. Add gelatin to this sugar syrup.
Cool the syrup and add to the berries-banana mixture. Pour this mixture into
ice cream freezer and freeze for about 25-30 minutes.
Helpful hints:
You want to have a proportion of about 3 cups of fruit mixture to 1 1/2 c.
sugar syrup mixture. The Sorbet won't freeze if you overdo the sugar. It tastes
better if you allow the Sorbet to "ripen" in the freezer, but our
kids wanted it as soon as possible so it wasn't frozen as hard as it might have
been.
If I were to do this again, I would like to try doing it with frozen lemonade
concentrate with minimal sugar and leave out the banana. This would perhaps
have eliminated the need for a sugar syrup.
Fun Friday # 2 --Ice Cream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream
Greeting (5 minutes)
Hang out in the den, kitchen and sun room while they give good-byes. May use
puzzles (Spell a Puzzle) as an ice breaker.
Begin by making Ice Cream/Sorbet
at little picnic table in the Sun room (10 minutes) Explain that this is an ice
cream churn, that we have to pour in ice cream mix, put in the dasher, and then
the top and lock it. Then we turn it on and it will start to turn. Ask them how
long it needs to churn? 20-30 minutes. Prepare ice cream churn per recipe
having the children take turns packing the salt and ice. Turn on ice cream
freezer and put on floor in the sun room.
Free
Play (20 minutes) Working Room
Set up the room with choices of play
Be careful of having too much or too little.
Circle (15 minutes) Working Room
Start out by asking each child to tell you his/her favorite ice cream. Model
either "I
like_____" OR "My favorite ice cream is ______." (from
Reciprocal Conversation Drill)
****Read Story-- Let's Find out about Ice Cream by Mary Ebeltoft Reid. Ask the
kids to think about all the jobs people have to do to make ice cream and all
the steps:
Farmer
to take care of the cows, grow the sugar, and eggs, a worker to mix it together
and put in the flavoring, a worker to take care of the machines that put the
ice cream in the containers, a worker to put the ice cream into the freezer
someone to clean up someone to taste it to make sure it is just right.
Ask kids to tell you what the steps are to making ice cream: - Use white board
and write down what kids say. It is okay if they don't get them in order, but
you can try to write them in order. Use the pictures in the book to prompt
answers, if necessary.
Music--3-4 songs (10-15 minutes)
use musical instruments--put in center of the circle and play to music then
when music stops, put instruments back in the middle of the circle, everyone
switches instruments.
hot potato game--play music passing Mr. Potato Head until music stops, then
that child gets in the middle of the circle. Pass again until music stops then
that person gets in the middle.
(Note: If for some reason ice cream isn't ready, then you will need to do art
activity first.)
Get kids to wash hands before snack. (Will give him practice waiting in line
and following directions)
Snack (10-15 minutes) Kool-aid,
Muffins and "Ice Cream" --Sun room
*****kids will decorate their ice cream cones with magic shell chocolate and
then sprinkles. Scoop out ice cream into cups.
Art (15 minutes)
Do as a group immediately after snack. - Give each child a marker to decorate a
triangle shaped piece of paper to make a cone.
Put chocolate, mint, sprinkles or whatever the want on their cones using
markers.
Top with a pompom of the flavor of their choice.
Short Circle--Played the Clifford the Dog game where children are given clues about an object,
animal, or person and they have to guess what it is. E.g. I am thinking about
an animal that is gray and it likes acorns (show card with gray and acorn on
it) on the bottom is a squirrel. Let each child say what they think it is and
see how many kids guessed correctly. Children must raise hands to be called on.
Change Clothes
Swimming in little pool with a
little slide put in it. (can play outside last half hour, but at least 20
minutes) Sara will get water ready in advance so that it can warm up before
they get into the pool. Bubbles, wands, wet pet, water gun, and buckets should
be out.
Goodbye--Please make sure that
child says goodbye to his friends.