As part of our morning greeting, we take a few short minutes to review the letters of the alphabet.

When we review the letters of the alphabet, we sometimes sing the traditional alphabet song. Using the alphabet song helps the children remember the order of the letters. As an adult, I still use the alphabet song to remember the order of the letters.

But most of the time we say the letters of the alphabet out loud together as the teacher points to each letter on the chart. For “saying the letters,” we slow the pace down a little bit and say each letter a bit more distinctly…

I also use both sets of eyes (yes I have two sets) when saying the letters with the children.  One set of eyes is on the chart so I can point to each letter and the other set is on the children so I can see if their eyes are on the chart too. I want the children to not only say each letter but I want them to see the symbols as we go along.

As we say the letters out loud together, I have a few tricks I switch out to keep the children’s attention. Some days…

• I will slow way down…
• I will speed up and go super zoom fast…
• I will whisper the letters…
• I will stop all together, turn my head around real fast and give everyone the “big goofy stare”, then we keep going…
• I will skip a letter and see if anyone notices…
• I will start to go backwards on the letter chart and see if anyone notices…
• I will say the name of the letter, the sound of the letter, and a word that starts with the letter – For example: “B sounds like “ba” for Bat!”  I don’t use this approach until later in the school year….
• I will sing the alphabet song “Greg and Steve” style like they do in “ABC Rock…

Ultimately, I want the children to look at the letters with me as we say them out loud. I never make this a long drawn out battle because we are going to do this everyday and those who I might not catch today, I will work on catching tomorrow.

One thing I noticed in some of my observations is that it is easy to focus on the children who speak up and look up and overlook the children who do not tend to look up and speak up.  That is what those other set of eyeballs are for. When leading students, use your “second set of eyeballs” to evaluate learning, participation, and responsiveness then make the adjustment to help keep the process fun and to help each child be a successful participant.

Order Deborah's Children's CD today!

www.teachpreschool.org

Copyright 2011 © Deborah J. Stewart

All Rights Reserved!

Contact Deborah for permission to sell, post, publish, or distribute all or any part of this article!

Part of the morning greeting routine in this two year old class includes a creative way to take attendance.

On the wall the teacher has two large laminated poster boards. One of the poster boards says “Our Class.” All the children’s names are on this board when they arrive to school each day.

The other poster board says “I Am Here Today.”

Both of the poster boards have Velcro dots on them and the children’s names are written on leaves with Velcro attached to the back of the leaves.

During morning circle, the teacher sings a little tune that goes something like this…

Tune: London Bridges

Who has come to school today?

(Tommy) (Tommy)

Who has come to school today?

(Tommy)

As the teacher sings each child’s name, the chosen child goes to the board, picks his or her name from the “Our Class” poster board and moves it to the “I Am Here Today” poster board.

As I watched the children participate in this morning greeting activity, I was amazed at how each child was able to select his or her own name without the teacher’s help. The children clearly participate in this routine every day!

The children loved having the teacher call their names and taking a turn to move their names so everyone would know who had come to school today!

Order Deborah's Children's CD today!

www.teachpreschool.org

Copyright 2011 © Deborah J. Stewart

All Rights Reserved!

Contact Deborah for permission to sell, post, publish, or distribute all or any part of this article!

I always start my day in preschool off with a morning greeting time which includes exploring the calendar, weather, seasons, and a brief review of basic concepts. Let me show you some of the ideas that can be included in a simple morning greeting time.

Sing the Hello Song!

I love to sing the Hello Song every morning. It lets the children know we are ready to begin the “learning” part of our day.

Who is here today!

Next I take “attendance” by letting the children move their name to the “I am here today” chart!

Attendance posters!

Calendar

Then we talk about the day, date, and year!  I break it down to very basic terms such as having the children say: ”Today is Monday”   and “The date is April 20, 2010”

I also have the children count the number of days that we have had so far in the month  and tell me what number will go next. If there is a special day coming up, such as a birthday or holiday, then that day is noted on the chart in advance and we count how many more days until it will be that special day.

Then we say (or sing) the days of the week in order.

Calendar and symbols

Weather

Next we choose a weather helper to look out the window and tell us what the weather is. We sing the song:

Weather, weather,

Weather, weather,

What will the weather be today?

(sunny and warm)

(sunny and warm)

That’s what the weather will be today.

I then have the weather helper draw a weather symbol on a square of paper and we place it up on the bulletin board. The older children print the word of the symbol on the square as well. Each day a new weather symbol square is added and we look for patterns in the weather.  We then count the number of rainy days in the month, sunny days, and so forth. For each new month we start a new set of weather symbol squares.

Seasons

We then sing the Four Seasons Song and identify each of the seasons on a chart. Sometimes we will spend more time on this by reading a book about seasons or talking about a particular season. For this month, we would talk about the signs of spring.

Simple weather and season chart

Helpers

I also choose our helpers during the morning greeting. I have used helpers that include:

• Weather helper
• Door holder
• Line Leader
• Caboose
• Snack Helper
• Lunch Helper
• Plant and Fish Helper

I have also just assigned one Helper of the Day. It all depends on the age of the children and what they can handle.

Review of basic concepts

We then review many of the basic concepts. I simply point to the letters or numbers or shapes on the chart and we all say them together. Not a lot of time is spent on this – just a quick daily review and over time the children get better and better at their recognition of each letter, color, or shape.  Since we use the numbers on the calendar, we do not repeat numbers again.

Morning Exercises

Finally we choose some music and movement activities for the children to stretch, run in place, and  so forth as our morning exercise routine.