It is important for kids to have self-confidence and realistic, positive perceptions of themselves. Children who lack confidence tend to avoid risks, become socially awkward, and participate less in class and extracurricular activities. Parents and teachers can help instill self-confidence in young children by posing challenges and then stepping back to allow the children to achieve or fail and support and encourage their efforts. To kick this week off, talk about "I Can" in circle time. Go around the circle and talk about something each child can do. Give them an example yourself first. Try to get them to come up with their own special answer, but offer assistance if needed. They should be very proud of their accomplishments! Just being able to put on their own shirt or brush their own teeth is a big deal at this age. Congratulate each other as you discuss each child's "I Can". LETTER: D d for "Do" Being able to "Do" things on their own is this week's theme! Trace the letter D and talk about words that begin with D http://bogglesworldesl.com/alphabet_worksheets/BigD.doc SITE WORDS - NAME The Name Game For this activity, you will need alphabet stickers and paper. I like to use the foam stickers so they are more substantial. Write the child's name on the paper. Place all the alphabet stickers in a big bowl. Make sure you have enough stickers so that each letter of each child's name is available. Give each child their paper with their name. One by one the kids will search through the bowl and find letters. Each turn lasts until they find 1 letter that belongs in their name. When they find one of their letters, have them stick it on the paper below where you wrote it. Continue this process for each child until everyone has fully spelled their name. This is all about letter recognition and spelling their name. Be very positive and give good praise when they are able to make correct matches. They CAN do it! As each child finishes their name, they should get a "prize" for completing the game! SCIENCE Ice Cube Painting In keeping with the "I Can" theme, I wanted to pick something they can totally do on their own. Prep for this by making a couple of ice cube trays full of colored water. Just add a few drops of food coloring to the water in the trays. Try to make several different colors. Give each child a piece of white paper or allow several children to color together on a piece of white butcher paper. This is a bit messy, but really fun! Use the ice to color the paper. You can provide napkins if they are having trouble holding the ice bare handed. If you feel comfortable, you could also freeze a toothpick in each ice cube (or maybe even a Q-tip) so they can use that to hold it. While they are coloring, discuss what is happening to the ice. When water gets really cold, it turns hard and becomes ice. When it gets warmer it melts and becomes water again! You can also discuss how the different colors are interacting with each other as they melt and mix together. Are they creating new colors? "I Can" ACTIVITY Following Directions  Completed Pyramid  Following directions is a very important concept for kids. Trying to follow directions and failing can be very frustrating, especially for kids. In order to empower them, we are going to do a special "I Can" activity. Use blocks, legos, or whatever other building material you wish. Give each child a specific direction to follow in the building of your item. It is best to have a definate end product you are trying to complete, so that they know when they have accomplished it. For example, build a basic building with Legos. Ask the first child to build a square base to start. Assist them, encourage them, but do not do it for them. Remember, they CAN! Then ask each child to take a turn and add to the building. Give them very specific directions. Once the building is complete, give great praise and talk about how great they did. Allow them to really feel proud of what they have accomplished. You could take a picture of it, print it out, and write on it that WE BUILT THIS! Post it in the room to remind them that they did it! It is also fun to knock down whatever they just built, so let them have at it. MATH Pom Pom Gripping, Sorting, Counting You can use the same painted egg cartons from a couple of weeks ago. Each child will need a set of tongs. Put a bunch of pom poms in different colors in a bowl. The kids will need to pick up each pom pom with tongs and place it in the corresponding colored egg carton section. (This is also a fine motor activity) Once all the pom poms have been sorted by color, they should count how many of each colored pom pom there are. Organize them by number. Put the largest pile of pom poms first, then the next largest, and so forth. Pom Pom Math Use a divided plate for this activity. The top 2 sections will be what you are adding and the answer will go in the big bottom section. Place 1 pom pom in a top section and 1 pom pom in the other top section. Discuss what you get when you add 1 pom pom to 1 pom pom. Physically take the pom poms from the top trays and place them together in the bottom tray and say "1 pom pom plus 1 pom pom equals 2 pom poms!" Try this with 2 in one section and 1 in the other. This is a great visual way to begin to understand adding items together. Do this with them several times this week and see if they can begin to do it on their own at some point! THEY CAN! MOTOR SKILLS Cutting Practice Print the worksheet HERE and allow the kids to practice cutting straight lines using preschool safety scissors. (you guessed it, they can!) CRAFT Beading Bracelets Provide colorful beads and pipe cleaners and direct them to create a beautiful bracelet! BOOKS Get it on Amazon! http://www.amazon.com/Can-Be-Anything-Jerry-Spinelli/dp/0316162264/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363802173&sr=1-1&keywords=i+can+be+anything# Just like the title suggests, this book talks about how kids can be anything they want to be!! Get it on Amazon! http://www.amazon.com/Incredible-Ways-greatness-shine-through/dp/1401907822/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363802321&sr=1-1&keywords=incredible+you A fantastic way to introduce the concept of being unique and powerful! ART Glue Painting Materials Needed: White school glue Food coloring Small paint brushes Paper Squirt some glue into a small bowl and add food coloring until it is the color you want. Create several different colors. Direct the kiddos to paint with this just as they normally would. The glue creates some really cool pictures that have texture! They CAN make cool art. Be sure to hang their masterpieces around the room. (if they have the manual dexterity to squeeze a glue bottle, they could paint that way also) MUSIC Create Homemade Instruments This is a fun project! This way they CAN make their own music! Castanets: make using poster board and buttons. Cut out rectangles of poster board (or cardboard), fold in half and glue a button to the inside edge of each side. Click them together for some great rhythm. (used bottle caps instead of buttons in the image) Tambourines: take 2 foam plates. Lay one down and place some beans, beads, rice, etc on the plate. Lay the other plate on top with the edges together and tape the edges down. Depending on what you put inside is how the instrument will sound. You could make a couple of different versions of this. Egg Shakers: fill Easter eggs will rice and glue or tape shut. Shake, shake, shake! Guitar: Take a shoe box, cereal box, or tissue box. If you are using a cereal box or shoe box you will need to cut a hole in the center of one of the big flat sides. A tissue box is fine as-is. Wrap large rubber bands around the box longways to create the strings. Tape a paper towel tube to the top to act as the "neck". Strum away! COOKING Fruit Pizzas They CAN do this all on their own! Ingredients: Sugar cookies or graham crackers Vanilla frosting Various fruit cut into small pieces Give each child a cookie or graham cracker. Allow them to spread theirs with the frosting. Then they can add whatever fruit they want. Voila! Yummy fruit pizza they totally made themselves. :)