Feeling Fabulous About Ff!

Are you feeling fabulous about Ff - and all the other letters so far?  Preschool learning (and teaching!) is so much fun!  Let's jump in and get started!

Make Friendship Fruit Salad

This is the easiest cooking activity EVER!  Each year for the letter Ff I would ask each family to send in 1 piece of fruit.  No need to assign apples here and bananas there - it truly doesn't matter which fruits you have, or what quantities!  This is friendship fruit salad after all - we get to share the making and the eating with our friends.

Since fruit salad also doesn't need any actual cooking, the children can do all the steps!  The first part of cooking is ALWAYS washing our hands.  The children also washed their fruit, and then used butter knives to cut it up into small pieces. (I do core the apples and pears, and quarter them).  Most fruit is soft enough that it is easy to cut with a butter knife, and this is a good time to teach children how to hold the fruit with one hand, and hold the knife with the other.  Have a look at these little hands - they all have their index fingers pointed along the knife to help apply pressure, and their fingers safely back from the knife.  This is a great early introduction to cutting, and lays the foundation for bigger cooking projects down the road.

Did I mention the eating part?  Fruit salad is a healthy snack, and if you and your friends made it together, you know they all want to try it!  There's seldom any left over either - this tasty treat gets gobbled right up!

Finding things that start with Ff in our feely box

I'm going to start with the classroom version of a feely box, but I also have a super easy at home version.  If you're going to be teaching the letter Ff to a big group of children year after year you might prefer something more sturdy and more educational than if you're teaching your own child only.

My feely box for Ff was a shoe box in a previous life... until I covered it with flower photos, and lined it with fake fur, and filled it with fences, fires, flies, frogs and everything else I could find that starts with Ff.

Here we are taking turns reaching in and finding things that start with Ff to put next to our letter F, all the while making the f sound.

The at home super easy version of the feely box is just that - super easy!

Field trips

I've said it innumerable times, but I'll keep on saying it: children learn best through hands on experiences.  If you can get out and explore the world, do.  Talk about everything you're seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, hearing and thinking!  Your child will learn the big words and big ideas you share with them, and you'll both have fun.  

For the letter F some of my favorite suggestions are to go to a farm, see flamingos at the zoo, look for fish and frogs (at an aquarium or zoo, or at the pond), find a fountain and flowers at the botanical gardens.  No botanical garden near you?  Find a flower shop or just a pretty park! What other field trip ideas can you think of? 

Fun on the farm from home

Even if you can't get to a real farm, you can bring out farm themed learning!  Do you have a toy farm, or toy farm animals?  Let your child sort them, or order them in height.  Count how many horses - and find out if there are more sheep or cows.  

I'm a huge fan of tangram puzzles, and have an adorable farm set that makes practicing shapes fun.

Make the letter F for your home-made alphabet.

Want to know a secret?  It's not SO secret... but I had no idea what I was doing on a lot of my letter crafts when I first decided to do it.  I'd seen a few ideas for some letters, and decided to go for the whole alphabet, but....  what to do?  That's why the lower case letter f looks like I got into my craft supplies and found everything I could that starts with f: flowers, flamingos and feathers.  The bits and bobs  you have on hand, left over from long ago craft projects are GOLD to your child.  Please don't feel like you have to reproduce someone else's ideas exactly, just do what works for you and your child.  :-)  

My upper case letter F started with a die cut frog years ago, and that was it - until I saw some plastic flies one Halloween, and bought up a teacher life time supply of them.  The frog tongue has been a strip of paper, or a piece of ribbon - either way, our froggy is catching a fly, and it works.  For more frog learning activities, hop over to my TeachersPayTeachers store here.
 

Sing songs

Have you caught on that this is an every week activity?  There are always songs to sing, you can do it anywhere, it's free, and it makes you feel good.  Let's sing!

That's enough to keep you and your little one super busy for about a month - but I have more letter Ff ideas, so come back on Wednesday for hand prints, a sensory bin, and some very silly fish hats!  Until then, enjoy, and remember to tag me if you post about doing any of these activities on social media! 

@paulabeckerman2399 on Instagram and Paula's Primary Classroom on FaceBook.

Dare to Dream

What do you remember about your earliest years of school?  Stop for a moment, close your eyes, and think, what do you remember?

I remember walking home from school with my friend Susan, and the jam sandwiches her Nana made us every day.  I still love jam sandwiches!  I remember Douglas A. singing along with the Winnie the Pooh song at school.  I remember the blocks, dress ups, boxes of junk for creating with, and lots of recess time.  I remember Mrs. Potts, my first and second grade teacher, reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and the pants and hat she wore.  I remember we had lots of windows, and a big carpet on the floor, and I remember the school library, and the books we took home to read.

All the things I remember about my early learning years are fun things.  School was a fun place to go, full of marvelous, child appropriate things to do and see.  We learned our letters and sounds by singing fun songs (my favorite was Rrrrrrrats are rrrrrrrunning, rrrr, rrr, rrr, because we were encouraged to roll the r, and it was fun!).  I learned to read with the Spot books by Eric Hill, and it was just a natural part of what we did.  I don't remember any flashcards or worksheets, although I do remember we had some mimeographs once in a while, and they smelled funny!  I loved everything about school, and knew even at 5 years old that I wanted to be a teacher.  (That was going to be my day job, until I could be a famous singer like Sally Boyden from the Johnny Young Talent Time show!)

When I graduated college I got my dream job, teaching first grade!

 What could be better?  I had ducks and fish and butterflies in my classroom (I do NOT recommend ducks by the way!), and we read and read, and I think we all had fun while we learned.  Sure, there were spelling tests, and timed math tests every week, and end of year tests, and May was always a whirlwind of end of year activities and deadlines and requirements, but I loved it.  Yes, over the six years I taught in the public school system we did add more requirements every year.  A few more forms, "the test" style questions for first graders - to prepare them for third grade testing, and yes, we did start using scripted math and language arts curriculum, but I could supplement them with my own ideas and activities.  It was still good, but, there was an edge to things, something that didn't feel right to me.
                                     
When my youngest was born, a couple of my teacher friends suggested I should stay home and teach my kids and theirs, and when I thought about it, I said yes.  The money and benefits didn't come close to comparing to a professional salary, but the value of being at home with my children, and of making their early childhood years amazing was well worth it. 

Friends told me stories of the continuing changes in the school system, and I was glad to be out.

I think the best thing about being at home with the children, was that I realized I could teach at home, and do it however I wanted.  I got to examine my core values and beliefs, and then live them.  We took long walks to the playground every day, collected dandelion flowers and stomped in puddles.

                                  

We watched the big trucks work on the road (from a safe distance), and started taking a lot of field trips.  We visited the museum and the zoo, the stock shows and the library, city parks and anywhere else that had child friendly venues where we could have real, hands on learning. 

My children learned to read, not with flashcards or worksheets, but with my friend Spot the dog, Eric Carle books, and marvelous books on tape, like The Dragons Are Singing Tonight by Jack Prelutsky.  I learned a tremendous amount about how children learn, and developed my program around that.  I'm pretty opinionated about early childhood, because I've spent the last 16 years deeply and passionately involved in it.

All of this is my backstory for this week's TpT seller's challenge:
                                      
When I saw this blog topic this morning, I thought, what?  Yes, I do dream big, but to say that I'd like to make a living doing TpT full time seems a bit... well... ordinary.

I'm very lucky right now to be able to TpT full time, and I really hope that I can build my business to the point that I feel justified with this as my only job, and that I can make a meaningful financial contribution to my family.  I'm living the dream, working toward that goal!

The thing is, not everyone is living the dream.  Many, many excellent and outstanding teachers are still working in our public school systems, doing the best that they can for their students, within the constraints that have continued to grow, sometimes to the point of choking out the fun.  My educator friends tell me they can no longer do many of the things that we know are best for children's learning: cook with them, do craft projects, read poetry, be kids!

My dream, what all my 22 years as an educator have prepared me for, is to make it easier for teachers and students to learn in playful, joyful, age appropriate ways.  I know time is short, and I'm so very sorry, I know the constraints are tight.  Finding fun learning activities that also meet the various standards, whether that's Common Core or state standards, is getting harder.  The joy of learning and of teaching is all too often being sucked right out of our schools, in the name of rigor and testing.  I hear of early childhood classroom where you can't find a toy kitchen, dress up bin, or sand and water table, but worksheets and flashcards are at hand.  I hear of elementary schools with little or no recess time, limited physical education and music time, and I wonder how our kiddos manage!

I've been so very blessed to spend the last 16 years playing on swings, digging in the garden, reading books aloud, and doing jigsaw puzzles with children, who have learned a love of nature, understanding of plant and animal life cycles, mathematical and logical skills, and to love reading and how to get along with each other.  Now I want to share that joy with as many teachers and children as possible, to help teachers put joy and playfulness back into their classrooms, without compromising learning goals or breaking the bank.  I want my teaching materials to help make teaching and learning a little easier, and a little more fun. I want to make a difference!

Thank you so much to Third in Hollywood, Teach Create Motivate, Sparkling in Second Grade, and Peppy Zesty Teacherista for hosting the TpT sellers challenge, and posing this thoughtful prompt!

Learning about insects

I don't know about where you live, but here in Texas, spring is just around the corner.  In the last 10 days our first daffodil has bloomed, and the trees are covered in leaf buds.  They aren't opening yet, but there is definitely a promise of spring in the garden.

Spring is best enjoyed outdoors, and it's a great time to learn about all the little critters that share our world with us. 

While some children are lucky enough to experience nature in a big way every day - I'm thinking farm or country life, or frequent nature walks - not everyone is. One kind of animal almost every child gets to see up close and personal is insects.  All those amazing things that creep, crawl, and all too often "bug" us!

I can't tell you how many times I've taken children to the zoo, only to have them all oo-ing and ah-ing over a beetle or a roly poly.  Sound familiar?  There's a couple of things that make all those little critters so appealing: they're tiny, and kids seem to love tiny things, they move, and that's pretty cool, and there are so many of them that you can almost always find one to check out!

Sometimes it's best not to touch.  I never could identify this particular caterpillar (if you know what it is, I'd love you to leave a comment!), but I try to have the children leave hairy, spiky caterpillars alone. 

I try to teach my kiddos to be safe, without being scared.  Bees are scary to a lot of children, whether because they've been stung, heard about stings, or because their family members are afraid.  Instead of teaching the children to fear them, I like to talk about how to be safe around them.  I teach the children that bees are attracted to bright colors - like flowers.  If our clothes are brightly colored, a bee may want to investigate us, even land on us.  But as soon as they realize we aren't sugary sweet like a flower, they'll fly off.

It's amazing to see the relief on children's faces when they realize that bees aren't out to get them!  We also talk about how a bee's stinger is part of her body, and that she dies if she stings something.  If we aren't a threat - batting at her or bothering her, then she most likely won't bother us either.

 If you have a garden area, even a small one, you probably get lots of insect visitors that you can observe.  Try giving children a pencil and a notepad and encouraging them to draw what they see. 

 Check out the aphids on our cabbage plants!  (Yes, it really is cabbage.  I let them go to flower, and then we watch the insects come, and we also like to nibble on the tasty cabbage flowers ourselves - although not if they're covered in aphids!)

It's no surprise to find ladybugs crawling on the cabbage, and we often find ladybug pupa too!

 We also learn about insects a lot of other places.  With books, of course, but also on field trips.  We saw "Critter Man" at one of our local libraries over the summer, and he had some SERIOUS insects to show us!

 This looks like a bee, but it isn't.  On a trip to the Botanic Gardens one of the children pointed out the "big bee" by the flowers.  I was able to snap a few shots, and upon closer inspection realized it was a moth.  Cool!

I've blogged before about seeing the butterfly exhibit at the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens, but I'll mention it again anyway.  If there is an opportunity for you to walk through a live butterfly exhibit, I hope you will - unless your children are scared of them.  Last year I took 3 different groups of children to the exhibit, and the first 2 groups LOVED it.  There were 2 kiddos in the last group who didn't like bugs getting too close to them, and it didn't matter that they were harmless and beautiful.  I should have prepared those kiddos better for our trip, or let them skip it.  20 years of teaching, and yes, there is definitely still more for me to learn!

 Can you see the butterfly on the left using its proboscis to suck up sweet juice from the fruit?  How cool is that?!

If you don't have a garden area, and you can't get to an exhibit, you might consider raising butterflies.  I've had a lot of luck with painted lady butterflies, which I've ordered from Insect Lore before.  There are other companies too, that's just the one I've used.  The first time I raised butterflies I had them in a cardboard box enclosure with plastic side windows.  Please, please, don't use that!  It wasn't big enough for the butterflies to fly in, so they'd launch from one side, crash into the windows, and unable to hold onto the slick plastic, slip to the floor.  They were able to climb up the corners, between plastic  sheets.  Sad!  After that I made a wire frame that fit inside a large plastic bin, and added a fine mesh cover.

 Our butterflies only stayed in it a few days before we released them, and it was a much better arrangement!

I've bragged about Bella's book club at the Botanical Research Institute of Texas before too.  Check out the fun insect learning activities we enjoyed at one of their story times.  If you are in or near Fort Worth, I highly recommend joining them!

Of course there are times when you need to take the learning inside, and if you are a teacher, there are times you need paper and pencil activities too.  

 If you are interested in insect themed arts and crafts, please check out my Insect board on Pinterest,

there are so many people with so many amazing ideas!

I've put many of my best insect photographs into a fun sentence-picture matching activity.  (It is $3.50 to buy from my TeachersPayTeachers store).

I used a lot of preprimer and primer words, and designed the activity for student success.  I tried it out with a former student, and as you can see from the look on her face, she was ecstatic  to discover she could really read all the sentences.  If you're working on early reading, or you have a junior entomologist on your hands, I hope you'll check it out!

If you'd like to see all my insect themed resources, just click here!

Have an awesome spring!

Lowes Miniature Farm - Field Trip!

Today we had an awesome field trip! We went to Lowes Farm, just 2 miles from our school.  We had 4 wonderful family volunteers drive their children, so there was room in my van for everyone else - so we ALL got to go.

 We got to meet a lot of farm animals, starting with the babies: ducks!

 This bunny was named Cookie...she is so soft!

 We met both Wilbur and Charlotte the pigs - this is Wilbur posing with some of our friends.

 This silky is a rooster - and we heard a lot of roosters crowing, as well as the donkey braying and goats bleating.

 Peter Pan, the miniature horse, let everyone pat him too.

 Doodles the Donkey looked a lot like Peter Pan, but he sure sounded different!

 Everyone had a chance to throw feed to the chickens, turkey and peacock.

 We also fed the ducks...

 ... and the goats.  We found out that you have to hold your hands flat to feed the goats, so they can get to the food without nibbling on your fingers!

 Everyone had turns putting straw into the scarecrow, but he wasn't very scarey.

 Here we all are, eleven kiddos plus Ms. Paula and Ms. Julie.

 We played some farm games, and then finished up our farm trip with a hayride.  One of the kiddos told me the hay was itchy to sit on.

 We waved to all the parents as we drove by - the teachers were brave and went on the hayride, but our families chose to watch and take pictures.

 It was a beautiful day for a trip to the farm!  Thank you so much to the parents who drove and made it possible for us to all go, and to Mrs. Lowes for an absolutely perfect farm trip!

If you are in the DFW area, and want to share farm fun with your kiddos (field trip, birthday party, scouts or other group), please call Kathy Lowes at (817) 366-1561.  My kiddos loved it again this year, as they have for the 15 years we've been visiting.  I hope you enjoy it as much as we have!