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.

Polar animals: beyond penguins and polar bears

Sure, we all love penguins and polar bears - they're adorable, exotic, kids love them, and they make it so easy to include science learning along with reading, writing and math.  So why doesn't every child learn about moose... mooses?... could that be the hold up right there?  What about lemmings and fur seals and narwhals, oh my?

This post contains affiliate links. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase using one of my links, which helps to support the blog.  All opinions are my own and I only promote brands and products that I have used myself and truly love.

I talked about Pebble books from Capstone Press a couple of weeks ago, and have to mention them again.  Life in a Polar Region is beautiful, with full size up close photos of many polar animals, and simple but meaningful text. If you're teaching about non-fiction books you'll appreciate that it includes a table of contents, index, glossary and even on-line resource recommendations, but even if you skip over those text features, you and your children will get a lot out of this book!

 

Where's Walrus and Penguin is a fun book for younger children who'll love looking closely at the illustrations (there aren't any words) to discover how walrus and penguin blend in.  I see a lot of opportunity to talk about the pictures, and a fun read together session!

To add a walrus and a few other fun polar animals to your math learning - because really, why wouldn't you - check out these Polar Animal Tangrams.

Every child ever has probably dealt with a sibling or friend copying them to be annoying, so Don't Copy Me!, with a puffin as lead character, will have wide appeal.  I wish this one had been around when my children were going through this stage - I would have enjoyed it even more than them!

 

 Then there's the moose books!  I don't know about you, but I had no idea how HUGE moose can be until I did some research for a moose themed story time!  They can be almost 7 feet tall at the shoulder, with antlers extending even further.  It's little wonder that Ernest the Moose Who Doesn't Fit  doesn't fit into this book!

So surely it must be easy to find a moose?  Not in Looking for a Moose ! There's evidence of moose on every page - if you know what to look for, but on a first read children seldom notice them.  This book invites a second reading, and maybe a third one too... so you know that makes my teacher heart happy!

 

While we're looking at moose books, we have to include Margie Palatini's Moosekito and Mooseltoe.  This slightly goofy moose.... okay, this very silly moose... runs into all kinds of problems, but with ingenuity and moose know-how he gets through it all.  I love Palatini's humorous style, and if your children can sit through a slightly longer story, they will too.

I read Mooseltoe to a group in December, and we all had a lot of fun making our own moose antlers covered in Christmas bits and bobs.  I raided my old Christmas decorations and wrapping supplies, added a few red, white and green craft supplies, and we went to town!  F. U. N!

Read the Book, Lemmings! is adorable!  First, it has lemmings.  Second, they jump off everything.  Even though lemmings don't really.  Which you'll learn, if you just read the book!  Trust me on this one, your students are going to laugh, say "Oh no!", and ask you to read it again.  What more could we ask of a book?!

Want more lemmings?  I created this Arctic Animal Measurement math center to practice non-standard units of measure during our polar animal unit - and what could be more non-standard to measure with than lemmings?!  It's available for download in my TeachersPayTeachers store, along with many other polar learning activities!

Mama, Do You Love Me? is an oldie, but a goodie.  Children will learn a little bit about many different Arctic animals in this book, along with native culture and Inuit words.  It's a beautiful book for mommies and little ones to snuggle up and read together, and the message is universal. 

Finally, I'm including Narwhal Unicorn of the Sea - even though it's a graphic novel better suited for early elementary rather than preschool / kindergarten - because it's so awesome to have books about narwhals! Children love the dynamic duo of Narwhal and Jellyfish, the graphic novel encourages children who might not otherwise read, and each book includes "sea worthy" facts.  Check one out at your library!

Books and Activities to make this the Best Chinese New Year

Happy New Year everyone!  While Chinese New Year doesn't begin until February 5th, we teachers like to start early to gather books and materials - so I thought I'd share some of my favorites!

This Next New Year, by Janet S. Wong:  (links for your convenience, I am not an amazon affiliate).

I like this book for several reasons.  First, it's told from the perspective of a young boy, and is simply told.  Many Chinese New Year preparations and traditions are explained by him, so young children will easily understand them.  I think it's also important that the narrator talks about people from different cultures celebrating lunar new year - this holiday isn't limited to China!

 Dragon Dancing, by Carole Lexa Schaefer:

 Dragon Dancing is also told from the perspective of a young child.  A beautifully diverse school group learns about dragons, then creates their own dragon in art class.  They work together to dance their dragon all over, imagining it's actions through various settings.  This book really sets the stage for imagining and mimicking dragon actions, and is likely to inspire children to cooperate to make their own dragon.  This book absolutely begs for participation from readers!

The Runaway Wok by Ying Chang Compestine

This story is longer than the other two, but the fast pace will keep children listening!  This one has elements of Jack and the Beanstalk and the Gingerbread Man, but is a very different story.  The emphasis is on sharing and being fair, something children usually have strong feelings about.  It talks about Chinese New Year foods and activities, and has a satisfying moral at the end.  If you are able to follow up by serving traditional foods and showing children a real wok, they'll be fascinated! 


My very favorite activity to do for Chinese New Year is tangrams, an ancient Chinese puzzle with unlimited possible answers.  Tangrams look deceptively easy: the puzzle is made up of only 7 simple shapes, but even adults often struggle to make a basic square with them!

Working on spacial awareness, and manipulating 2D shapes are important mathematical concepts, so I like to offer my students both the challenge, and an option to get clues, so they can choose the right level of difficulty for themselves.  Check out this short video explanation:

 If you'd like to use my tangram puzzles, you can find them in my TeachersPayTeachers store here.

There are a couple of lovely story books about tangrams: Grandfather Tang's Story, and The Tangram Magician are both great for introducing the puzzles, and using literature to bring math into your classroom!

I've written before about Chinese New Year sensory bins, painting, and the story of the Great Race, and about making a Chinese New Year dragon blower, today I'd also like to share how to make an egg carton dragon.


 Egg Carton Dragon
You'll need half of the bottom of an egg carton, red paint and a brush, scissors, pipe cleaners, wiggle eyes and glue, and a push pin:

 Paint the egg carton red:

 When it is dry, use the push pin to poke holes for the pipe cleaners to stick out of the dragon's head.  Glue on wiggle eyes.  If desired, use a marker to add facial features!  You can also use yellow, orange and red paper scraps to help your dragon breath fire, or add sequins to  make it sparkle.

Next time I'll talk about fun ideas that are specific to celebrating the Year of the Pig.  Please follow my blog to be notified when new posts are ready.  Until then, Happy New Year!

These Awesome Tangrams Will Make Your Students LOVE math!

You're probably familiar with tangrams, the Chinese puzzle made with 7 shapes that form a square - and any number of other things.  They're fun for all ages, simple enough for a child to use, and complex enough to challenge adults: truly a puzzle for children ages 3 - 103.

When I first introduce anything to my students, I like to allow them plenty of time to explore and discover on their own.  This is something I was urged to do way back in teacher training, and 25 years teaching has reinforced.  It's amazing what students will come up with when you let them explore and play!

Next I display a big tangram shape.  I ask students to tell me what they notice.  This is when I usually hear the names of the shapes, some words about size, and there's almost always someone who refers to the "diamond" shape, which is just the square turned onto a corner.  Being a tiny bit silly (who me?) I ask the children what my name is - Ms. Paula.  I then strike various silly poses and ask again - and each time my name is still the same.  It's the same with the square - turn it any which way you like, it's still a square!

Another great word and concept that comes up at this time is parallel.  For most of the children I've taught, that's a new word.  We look around the room for things that are parallel: the sides of our desks, the lines in the ceiling tiles, bookshelves, and more.  Although this is a brief mini lesson, only lasting a minute or so, I carry it over into the rest of the week by noticing or asking children to notice parallel lines around the school.  Pretty soon they have that concept firmly in place.

The next thing I like to do is to hide my tangram, and provide each child with their own tangram and ask then to make me a square.  I bet you can picture which child in your class will be a smarty and hold up the small square!

I challenge them to make a square, and it doesn't take long for someone to use 2 equal sized triangles to do it.  The tangram set includes 2 small triangles and 2 big triangles, so there's more than 1 way to do it - I love telling my students to keep trying and look for another way, it's just the sort of challenge they're eager to figure out!

It's very rare to have a student use all 7 pieces to make a square, in fact, most adults I've met can't figure it out.  I give the children a few minutes to try, and when I sense they're ready, I begin to give them clues.  I show them how to use the 2 big triangles to make half of the square - it's helpful to define the space where the rest of the pieces will go.

A few minutes later I add the square,

then the medium triangle. 

Eventually all the children get it.

That's my introduction to tangrams - next comes the part I like the best!  I show students pictures that can be made with tangrams, and challenge them to try to make them.  You can find hundreds of tangram puzzle shapes with a quick internet search, or for simplicity, I have a variety of these puzzles available in my TeachersPayTeachers store.

It's ideal to have both the puzzle and the answer key available, because many students will be challenged to simply rotate and match the shapes, while others will relish the challenge of figuring it all out.  I put them back to back in a page protector, so students can easily flip and check.

Don't have tangrams in your classroom yet, and don't have a budget for them?  No problem!  Download this free print

out, and either cut them ahead of time, or have students cut out their own.  It will save you a lot of confusion if you print them on different colored paper, so students don't mix up their pieces with a neighbor!  5-6 colors is enough - just use what you have available.

I hope you and your students enjoy exploring tangrams together! 

Celebrating Chinese New Year

Kung Hei Fat Choi  -  Wishing you all a prosperous new year!

We celebrated Chinese New Year at story time this week, and as usual, we had a blast!

I got to lead story time, which is sooooo much fun!  I love reading to the little ones, and singing and dancing, and did I mention all the fun things we get to do afterwards?  While I'm sure some people think I'm doing this as an act of volunteerism, I have to admit that getting to hang out and play with small people is an absolute treat for me.

I put together some props to use while retelling the story of the Great Race - the story of how the years of the Chinese Zodiac were named for 12 animals. 

We started with the animals lined up on one side of the felt board, and as I told the story I moved each animal across.  The children helped me figure out which number each animal was, and I put up the numbered cards across the top.  (This modeled the left to right progression of our writing, as well as numerical order - but all the children saw was a fun activity.)  Can you see the dragon puppets flying by the animals in the lower right hand corner?  One of our guests really loved the shiny dragons.

How about these for shiny dragons!?  One of our sensory bins had golden dragons, red tinsel, gold coins, red envelopes, and some other shiny shapes hidden in it. 

Here's our other sensory bin: pompons with jewels, tongs and clothes pins to work those fine motor skills.

Here it is in action:

Those little fingers are working hard, developing muscles that will later help these children to hold pencils as they learn to write.

Block play helps build hand muscles too, while also working on spacial skills, balancing, and learning about 3 dimensional shapes (with an occasional lesson in gravity thrown in for good measure!)

Painting our dragon scenes was very popular this week, as friends used sparkly paint to create a background, and added dragons on top. At least, that's what I thought was the plan, but as usual the children took the materials furthar and in different ways than we poor adults can hope to imagine: beautiful silhouettes!

I was surprised to see that the favorite center this week was actually the tangrams!  This set of 7 shapes can be formed into a square, or any number of other creations.  I read a wonderful book, The Tangram Magician by Lisa Campbell Ernst (no, I'm not affiliated with any book sellers, the link is just for your convenience).  In the story a magician transforms himself into different animals and objects, which are all represented with tangrams.  The kiddos LOVED it!  I put out tangram patterns of all 12 animals of the Zodiac that I made, plus enough paper tangrams for everyone to make their own creation - and they did!

Here's our graph that we made to show which activities each child liked best.  We looked at last week's graph, and introduced some great mathematical language: more, less, most, least.  Graphing their favorites is an easy way to introduce graphing, and all the math skills it entails - and it gives us great feedback that we can use as we plan future activities.

Each child went home with a red envelope with a nickel in it (red envelopes with money are a traditional New Year gift), and one of our families brought in delicious New Year cakes that she made for everyone.

 It looks like a very good new year indeed!

For more Chinese New Year activities, please see my Chinese New Year Pinterest board, and see this post from a previous celebration.