Good Night Gorilla Unit Study

A current favorite book of Ant is Good Night Gorilla and I usually go with whatever book she likes as the central theme.  I've tried "forcing" other books to her but she would shove it back to the shelves and get her current favorite.  So again I remind myself, child-led learning is the way to go for these toddler years!  For this week here is our learning poster

At this time, Ant is 2Y1M and Ate is 3Y6M

Theme: The Baptism of Jesus; Gospel of Luke 3:15-16, 21-22 (we are following the liturgical calendar and Sunday gospels)

Bible Story / Verse: Luke 3:22 "You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased"

Poem: Itsy Bitsy Spider in Tagalog

Song: played our Kindermusik CDs

Book of the Week: Good Night Gorilla

Letter: B

Number: 1-5 emphasis on 1

Color: Blue Bughaw

Shape: Line Linya

Self-care & Manners: Sit quietly and wait

Information: her name - nickname and last name

Fine Motor: quite a lot

Gross Motor: imitating animal movements

Videos used: We have a DVD of Scholastic stories but we saw it online too - Good Night Gorilla

Let's see how our week went...

 Her wooden beads for sorting were all colored blue. There were six kinds in pairs. We were surprised she would sort them together and then to pack away she would put as much as she can in one holder. 

The cooking and table setting was her favorite.  She would last 30 minutes here which was the longest she paid attention to anything.  Later on I drew on yellow paper how she should set the table.  She would feed "Panzee" her toy Gorilla.

A dying and shriveled up yellow balloon on a stick still had some life to play with -- as long as I gave it a little help.  It became a wacky lion!  It was hilarious when Ant picked it up, shook it in the air and shouted "WOWRR"  or however she can roar.  Kids find it difficult to "rrr."  We went biking with her wacky lion and she dragged it around until he was limp and ready to meet the trash bin.  My next post shows how I did this and also the butterfly.

I wrote "ako si" followed with her nickname on her white board and prepared her magnetic letters in a box.  I would put up the magnets over the appropriate letter.  This I tried last week but she didn't seem interested.  I left it for this week and I caught her doing it by herself when I left her in the play room.  Eventually I changed it to her nickname and last name.

I drew cages in envelopes with different colored pens.  Zoo animals printed on board paper and mounted on popsicle sticks had drawings of keys (at the bottom of the sticks) using the same color of their cages.  I showed her how to match them, but she matched them based on the faded picture of the same animal inside the envelope.  I'll never know for sure if she gets the way I was trying to match it (using the key as the color reference for matching the cage), but she knew where to put them.  She often played these by herself.  And she would pretend to unlock the cage by twisting.  Perhaps I will try letting her use the keys to our room so she knows how it really goes.

Finally on the whiteboard for the week is zoo animals in small medium and large.  For her visual perception, I explained to her that although the drawings are the same, the matching picture is not the same size.  She knew where to put the small tiger, medium tiger and large tiger.  She also often did this by herself.  However, she crumpled the animal cut-outs.  They can still be used so it didn't upset me.  I gave her other paper to crumple and tear but she wasn't interested.

The wooden clothespin wasn't quite ready for her.  I did a few HOHA until she figured it out.  She has yet to strengthen her fingers to squeeze properly.

A mixture of megablocks and foam blocks all in blue didn't quite seem to interest her unless I played with her. 

Another favorite which I kept for weeks was an empty plastic bottle wrapped in blue paper.  Well, I left most part clear since she loved seeing the plastic beads fall in.  She would drop one in, shake it and giggle or smile before she dropped the others.  She also had fun pouring it out.  I showed her how to open the bottle and did a few HOHA with her.  In less than 3 days she was opening and closing the bottle herself!

Panzee is the name of her stuffed toy gorilla.  Her grandma named him.  And here Panzee wears a jacket with leopard print in the hood.  Ant with help zip up the jacket. 

Tried a few visual perception activities to see if she would show interest in the blocks.  Next weeks color is yellow so I started to introduce it with the megablocks.  With me, she just watched as I put the blocks together to copy the image.  When she was with her papa, she would do it when she wanted.

 

This particular block with images she liked setting up.

Hand painting is always a favorite! 

Ate loves it so much.  I don't care how much paint gets in her face!  She has a habit of putting her fingers in her mouth (without sucking it).  It's okay.  The paint is safe and non-toxic anyway. 

Introducing yellow and brown. 

The finished artwork!  Now I have to find it because I don't know where we left it when we did it in Lolo's house.

Mini tongs to pick up golden jackstones, blue wooden beads and yellow wooden beads. 

Her wooden bowling set became a hit too.  If she missed it, she would walk over to hit the bowling pin with the ball in her hand.

We also had a blue butterfly -- blue and red anyway.  I cut out butterfly pattern.  Then using her old pompoms made of Japanese paper, she tore them up and I guided her hands to place them on top of the white butterfly cut out.  I then sprayed it with water and folded at the center.  We went outside to let it dry which was quick.  When we opened it, the pattern was on bot sides of the wings!  I then made it into a butterfly that she can play around with.  Since blue was the color of the week we also read Olmo and the Blue Butterfly by Alma Flor Ada.

Last week we let Ate feel the letter A I made.  This is made of a DVD case cover, white paper and black sanding paper.  The original Montessori version is made of wood and a bit out of my budget for now.  The letter B I haven't photographed yet.

Her are B words in Tagalog this week were - Bughaw, Bata, Bote, Bibig.  She seems to be familiar with the shapes of the letter.  Last week's A words used her wooden letters which were thick and colorful.  This week I tried her glow in the dark letters and wrote the words with a blue marker.  It wasn't as interesting for her and she played with it a few times only.  She knew where to put the letters though.  And even if we have enough letters to do the words one by one only, she wanted to do all the words at the same time.  So when some B's were missing she would motion, "wala na" and then start packing away or look for another toy to play with.

Her favorite were the gross motor activities we did.  Every time she picked up a popsicle stick with the zoo animal, we did different actions.  For gorilla we rubbed our bellies while walking around; for mouse we took tiny steps in circles and tuck our elbows in (her favorite); for elephant we swung our arms held together and stomped our feet; for lion we roared and she laughed; for giraffe we put our hands behind our back, stretched our neck and took long strides around the house; for hyena we got on all fours and crawled and laughed; for armadillo we took tiny steps and pretended to suck our thumb.  She wanted to do this at least 3x a day so I had to make sure I had enough energy to do all these - in the play room, in the living room, in the dining room.  If I got tired, I just brought her outside and she did whatever movement she wanted without asking me to do it with her.