Activities That Will Make Your Kids Jump for Joy

Are your children ready to jump for joy for letter Jj?  Let's see if we can wear them out with lots of fun learning activities!

 

I try to make sure our letter Jj learning happens in late October - because this is prime jack-o-lantern time, and we all love Halloween fun!  Here are some of the ways I've used jack-o-lanterns over the years to keep my preschool and kindergarten kiddos learning:

-Make an event out of your jack-o-lantern experience - it doesn't have to be just a quick pumpkin carving activity.  I like to start a couple of weeks before Halloween with a trip to our favorite pumpkin patch to check out all the "gourd-geous" pumpkins during letter Gg week.

Did you know pumpkins aren't all orange?  Sure, that's what we traditionally see in the grocery store every fall, but the children are always fascinated by all the different sizes, shapes and colors (and later flavors) of pumpkins. I always get a lovely variety for a display, and once Halloween is over I cook them all up for pumpkin muffins and pies... read all about that here and here.

 

We bring math into our jack-o-lantern experience by having the children suggest shapes for Jack's features, then voting for each feature, and tallying their responses.  

I do the cutting, but everyone takes turns to come up and help pull out the "guts".  You can call it fibrous strands if you want, but my kiddos LOVE that I call it guts - ewwwww!

Of course we have to pose with Jack - and leave him on the doorstep.  (See how to keep the learning going through the spring in this post)!

 

We keep the talk about shapes going with a simple felt activity, and the children get to create and recreate jack-o-lanterns all week long.

 We work on patterns with pumpkins (not technically jack-o-lanterns, but while we're on the theme let's get in all the math we can!) with a math center I made. Here it's in a pocket chart, but it works on a desk top too.

 

These math activities include jack-o-lanterns, along with lots of other fun Halloween themes, and we LOVE using the mini erasers from the Target Dollar Spot to complete them!

We mix yellow and red paint to make our orange paintings, and get a fine motor workout cutting and pasting features on our creations.

 

One of our hand print options for J is actually more of a fist painting of jack-o-lanterns (the other choices are jellyfish and jaguars).

 

Are your littles jumping for joy yet?  No?  Try digging out all the jewellery you're willing to let them play with (Mardi Gras beads and plastic jewels are great for this), then turn on some jazz and jump for joy to jazz in your jewellery...

...or head to the zoo and look for animals that jump.

 

Since J is also for jelly, and learning to write our letters is on the agenda, I introduce writing J with a little jelly on a plate.  We start by using our pinky fingers - which is sign language for the letter Jj!  They'll practice a lot when it's a matter of writing the J then licking their fingers, then repeating the process.... yum!

We make our upper case J by adding an orange jack-o-lantern on a green letter J, and cover the lower case j with lots of jewels.

 

What are YOUR favorite activities for letter Jj?  Comment here, or tag me in your social media posts: @paulabeckerman2399 on Instagram, and Paula's Primary Classroom on FaceBook.  I can't wait to see all the fun things you do!

 

Can You Name This Children's Book (#3)

This is one of my absolute favorite Halloween stories!  I memorized this book by listening to the book on cassette tape (that gives you a clue to how old the book is!), and it has always been a huge hit with my first graders, then my own children, preschoolers and kindergarteners.  Do you know what it is?  Big Pumpkin, by Erica Silverman!  To see if you can name more children's books from clues like this one, click here! To hear Big Pumpkin on YouTube, click here.

Happy Halloween everyone!

More easy steps for amazing STEAM learning

Recently I began a blog post series about STEAM learning (STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) by looking at some ways to practice observing and recording data - 2 of the most basic science skills.  Today I want to continue with sorting, classifying, and labeling.

My students have always loved sorting / classifying.  Whether it's sorting building blocks by color, finding all the big buttons in my button box, or separating the mini erasers by shape, sorting seems to be a basic part of coming to understand their world.  Why not encourage it with fun materials, and add labels to those categories?!

It's easy to take sorting a step further with Venn Diagrams - which make us consider more than one sort-able attribute at a time. Do you see the red t-rex in this picture?  It isn't green, and doesn't walk on 4 legs, so the child asked me where it should go.  I helped him think it through - can it go in the green circle?  No.  Can it go in the 4 legs circle?  No. Is there a place on your sorting mat that isn't for green and isn't for 4 legs?  Children can do some amazing thinking!

Once children have begun categorizing things - not just sorting them, but also identifying how they've sorted them, it's a natural progression to count those things, and to compare what has more or less.  Graphs make it easy to compare several categories. (More on graphs next time!)

Children can also begin to label things they observe, from a single word for each item...

... to details as they develop vocabulary.

Don't you love teaching STEAM skills?!

How to make a pumpkin pie (and teach math, language arts and life skills)

You probably already know I love to cook with children.  Yes, it can be messy.  Yes, it's a challenge to manage everyone when your hands are in batter, or eggs, or... well, nothing at all.  Still, it's a fantastic experience for the kiddos, and can cover a LOT of academics while seeming to be only a prelude to eating.  Cooking is fun!

Cooking, by it's very nature, involves reading (the recipe),
measuring (ingredients),

counting (eggs, spoons of spice),

personal hygiene (hand washing, averting your sneezes),
environmentalism (recycle those empty cans, compost the peelings) 
and self help skills (clean up your messes).
Don't forget cool things like learning to use the can opener,
or watching how a bread machine works.

To take that learning just a little further, we often wrote class experience stories, such as our annual "How To Make a Pumpkin Pie" book.  As we enjoyed our cooking experiences, I would take pictures, and when all was said and done, we'd sit down together as a class and brainstorm all the things we had done.  Everyone would tell me the things they remembered, and I'd write them on a chart, then we'd put them in order from first to last.  I would type up the sequence of events the children had generated, and print photos of each activity along with the words.  Slipping everything into page protectors and then a bradded folder made for a quick and sturdy book.   I always put those books in our classroom library, because it's fun to go back and revisit the experience, and it's fun to look at pictures of you and your friends doing fun things - so the kiddos were motivated to read these class books over and over again.

Another perk to making our class experience books was looking back on previous years, seeing our big brothers and sisters doing the same activities when they were little, or seeing friends who had graduated to "big kid school".

In case you've never made a pumpkin pie before, here's how it's done:

Wash your hands.

 Crack two eggs into a bowl.

Add 3/4 cup sugar, 

 

1 teaspoon cinnamon, 

1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon ginger and 1/4 teaspoon cloves.

Stir it all up!

Add a can of evaporated milk,

...and stir up some more.

Add one can of pumpkin, or the equivalent of home made cooked pumpkin if you are an overachiever.

While one friend is stirring, other friends hold the bowl steady. We all get turns stirring!

When it is really well mixed, pour it into 2 uncooked pie crusts.  The canned pumpkin recipe says to use one deepdish pie crust, but we've always found there to be too much mix to fit.  While the filling is delicious baked in a pyrex bowl without any crust, I liked to use 2 pie shells, so each child had a pie of their own.

Bake at 425* for 15 minutes, then reduce temperature to 350* for 40-50 minutes.  Cool on a wire rack, then serve or refrigerate.

Each year at Thanksgiving, each child made their own pumpkin pie to take home to their family Thanksgiving feast.  Can you imagine the pride these children felt when their families served food they had made?

Yes, it can be messy.  Yes, it's a challenge to manage everyone when your hands are in batter, or eggs, or... well, nothing at all.

Wishing you a Thanksgiving full of pie, children and laughter!

Big Pumpkin

I have to share the neatest felt board that I think I've ever seen:

It's the whole crew from Erica Silverman's Big Pumpkin!  This fantastic story time prop was created by Ms. Sandra at my local library - brilliant!

This felt set would be amazing to me under any circumstances, but it's especially so since Big Pumpkin is one of my favorite Halloween books - and has been a hit with my students for about 20 years.  (It was published in 1992, and I believe I got the book and tape for it in about 1994.)  The very best part of it, to me, is the tape recording of the story.  While you may not ever find (or want!) a cassette recording of the story, you and your students can still enjoy the music by checking out the book on YouTube.


So how might you extend the story, and have some hands on fun with your children?  How about letting the children mix some red and yellow paint to make a big orange pumpkin?

I had my kiddos cut out a pumpkin shape and use black paper scraps to make their own jack-o-lanterns.

You could paint their knuckles orange, and help them make a fist print pumpkin....

We added torn tissue paper grass for our pumpkins to sit in, and when everything was dry the children drew on the faces with a black marker.

Of course, the very BEST thing to do with a big pumpkin, is just what the witch did in the story - make it into pumpkin pie!

I bet you know what to do with the pie!  Delicious!

I wrote a short poem and book about pumpkins for young readers, you can see it in my TeachersPayTeachers store.

Want even more pumpkin ideas?  I've blogged about our pumpkin adventures before, check those posts out here.

Wishing you a lovely fall, full of pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin scents, and great big pumpkins!