Hi Kristen! Thank you for posting even though you are exhausted! I am going into my third year teaching full day PreK and each year still feels like my first! Your videos help me to collect my activities and plans and add things that you are doing. You are a great resource, thank you for taking the time!
Mat man is a song. You can find it on internet. It is part of the handwriting without tears. Handwriting without tears has these wooden sticks that they use to teach kids how to form the capital letters. You don’t really need the wooden sticks you can find the pattern for the sticks on line on the internet and make them out of paper and laminate them to use over and over. You also need two eyes and a nose (I use plastic caps from a coke bottle) two hands (I just found hand shape on the internet. Then I cut and laminated them) an 8 1/2 by 11 piece of paper or piece of foam for the body and a small cut out heart. This is how to use them First time I play the song and make the mat man using the sticks and pieces. (Ie.. two large curves make round head, to curves for ears one curve for mouth, two long straights for arms two long straights for legs and two short lines for feet. The song tells you exactly what to put down. At the end it is a person with all the body parts. Second time I give each student a piece and we listen to the song again. The students one or two at a time listen for their part of mat man. When they hear their body part they add it. So the kids make mat man. As the song plays I also draw mat man on a piece of paper or a dry erase board. The third time we listen to the song. (Depending on the kids sometimes I just sing it because they need a slower pace) and the kids draw mat man on a piece of paper. Then write their name (or scribble, or make a linear line, or mock letters, or line of random letters) We hang them on a bulletin board in the hall as portraits) lakeshore has these cute clear pockets that a colorful picture frame around the edge. I do mat man three times a year. Beginning of the year, middle of the year, end of the year. In my program we get new students through out the year so in the middle of the year I do it again. It is amazing to compare the beginning middle and end of the year. Most of them have so much progress with their mat man. We also do journals but I only do one. This lady does multiple journals. Once a week they draw a picture and write (scribble, linear lines, mock letters, string of random letters, to letters they hear.) I couldn’t keep up with this many journals. This lady is amazing.
