This week Ms. Debbie and I thought we'd have a dogs and cats themed story time. There are so many awesome children's books that star our furry friends, the hard part was choosing which books to read! To make this day even more special, we had visitors from our local shelter join us - 2 cats and a dog, and all available for adoption!
Real furry friends is a wonderful start, but if you've been reading this blog, you know we like to offer a LOT of fun learning experiences. This week we also counted the letters in some popular dog names, and put the corresponding number of doggy bones into
doggy dishes.
We also counted buttons - groovy buttons - to put on
Pete The Cat's shirt. (I drew the Pete shape, made copies, and wrote numbers 3-9 on them.) Fine motor and counting skills anyone?
The library has some beautiful doggy counters, so we put those out with a suggestion to find ways to sort them.
Of course, some friends enjoyed pretend play with them (I think they are kissing!),
some friends lined them up (another common way for young children to explore materials),
and some sorted them. I feel so sorry for this little blue dog - it looks like the yellow dogs aren't playing very nicely!
Our final activity was another super messy one, but SO incredibly worth it. I know I've said before that something was my favorite, but.... this was really my favorite!
We reenacted the story of
Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes, by James Dean and Eric Litwin. If you haven't
heard it performed by
Eric Litwin,
you are missing something special! In the story, Pete steps in
strawberries, blueberries, mud and water, and his shoes change colors
each time. We chose to use paint instead of fruit and mud, but the
results were similar!
Between the trays of paint and bucket of water, I rolled out some paper for the kiddos to walk on and make their own little foot prints. They loved it so much, and repeated it so often, we saturated and tore up not only the first set of paper, but a second as well! There was much washing of feet, and a few families even came prepared with a change of clothes - and there were so many smiles! Even better, perhaps, was hearing our families talking about doing this again, at home! (To see how I did this activity in my home-based preschool,
check out this blog post.)
After the kiddos left, Ms. Debbie and I snuck out for a quick play in the paint too. I truly thought that would be the end of this particular story.
Post Script: When I got in the shower later that day, I discovered blue tempera paint under my toe nails. If that's not proof that I'm an early childhood teacher, I don't know what is! But like Pete says, "It's all good!"
No comments:
Post a Comment