Loud and Soft--patting the floor, circle time

For Kindergarten and 1st grade, the first unit is Loud and Soft. Think about it. What if all kindergarteners and first graders understood the concept of loud and soft?? Wow! What a difference it would make in our homes and in the classrooms! So this is an extremely important first concept for them to grasp.

To start the unit, we are going to do the Circle Floor Pat, (this is a glorified name for "simon says sit on the floor and pat the floor")  :)
Here's what we did:

Have students sit on the floor in a circle--criss cross applesauce. Lead them in patting the floor with different forcefulness levels: very soft like touching cotton candy (or petting a puppy), hard like squishing a bug, and in the middle--normal. Vary between these and use the words hard and softly to describe how much force they should use when patting the floor.

The girls loved the "petting-the-puppy" soft pats and the boys loved the "squishing-the-bugs" hard pat. It was a win-win situation!