Don't Miss Out - Treasure the Time Talk Like a Pirate!

What's a pirate's favorite letter? RRRRR!

What has 8 arms, 8 legs, and 8 eyes?  8 pirates!

Yes, it's time for all things pirate, International Talk Like a Pirate Day is September 19th and anyone who doesn't want to join in the fun can walk the plank! So dust off your tricorn hat, slip on an eye patch, and ramp up that fake accent - let's have some fun!

Teach your children what some of those pirate phrases mean AND enjoy a brain break with my silly pirate song on YouTube.com and don't forget to watch Jack Hartman's Pirate Song too!

 

Have you read Pirates Love Underpants? If you haven't, prepare yourself for giggles and silliness - there's not much that's funnier to a group of 5 or 6 year olds than underwear! (This is not an affiliate link, just a helpful suggestion).

 

After reading the book I love to do underwear math because math should always be fun! We practice counting, sorting, patterns and adding with underpants and even feed underpants to a dinosaur read color words.

Another awesome thing about pirates is their mustaches and beards - pirates are scruffy, just like it says in Tough Boris by Mem Fox! Why not add a little face paint and turn your students into pirates? Don't miss out on the fun, you definitely need a mustache too!

Want lots more ideas about pirates, including some of my favorite books? I've blogged about it here, here, here and here!

If your students are ready to add and subtract within 20, I have a FREE pirate themed activity for you! Students solve addition and subtraction facts, then color by number to reveal this burly fellow!

If you want more pictures like him, and want to differentiate for adding, subtracting, and a mix of both, each within 5, 10 or 20, then you'll love these guys!

I hope you treasure these pirate activities! Just in case you haven't had enough pirate puns yet, click here for more pirate jokes from Fatherly.com!

Happy September!

Paula

Awesome Songs and Rhymes Your Children Will Love

I've always sung with and to my kiddos.  Sweet songs, silly songs, classroom management songs, things we make up as we go - they're all part of the sound track of childhood.  Recently I've started recording short videos of me singing some of my favorites, and posting them to social media.  If you have a little one (or two or three or twelve), I hope you'll check them out!

This one is "Down by the Banks of the Hanky Panky," a fun knee bounce rhyme for babies and toddlers.

Stop by my YouTube channel to see what else I've been up to, or follow me on Instagram and FaceBook!

I like learning i

I'll start by admitting that the phrase "I like learning i" comes from one of the songs we've been listening to this week on youtube.com.  It's a Storybots song, and it is sooooo catchy - in fact, I woke up in the middle of the night with it going through my head a couple of nights ago! 

The children LOVE using our youtube.com playlists each morning, and learn so much by singing and dancing about learning concepts.  In addition to Storybots, I like to use a lot of HarryKindergarten and The Learning Station music videos.  Here's a link to this weeks' playlist.  By far the favorite song this week was Jack Hartman's Silly Pirate Song , especially the phrase, "Hey Dude, surf's up!" 

There aren't as many fun ways to learn about the letter Ii as there are for some letters, but we found some ways to learn and play all at once.  I've created an "ice cream" sensory play bin for the children, and it had lots of use this week.  In a shallow tub I put all the pompons I could find, several clean and empty ice cream boxes with their lids, some toy food ice creams and cones, empty containers from sprinkles, spoons and bowls.  The children scooped, poured, sorted, pretended, and worked on social skills like sharing and turn taking.  Stuffing small pompons in the tiny jars (from sprinkles) was the hit of the week - and worked on fine motor development, strengthening finger muscles in preparation for writing.  The children will tell you it was a fun way to play.

Our upper case I craft was decorated as an ice cream.  The children cut out their letters (more finger strengthening work as well as hand-eye coordination), then glued on cones, "ice cream" and sprinkles. 

 They looked delicious hanging on the wall, along with our "inchworm" lower case i crafts.

You won't be surprised to know that our ice cream taste test was also a happy and fun event for the children.  I bought 3 flavors of ice cream; chocolate, strawberry, and mint chocolate chip.  We were scientists, and predicted which flavor we would like the best, and graphed it (math and reading our names).

 The best part was definitely the tasting!  (I'm not talking about what the children liked now, I'm talking about Ms. Paula and Ms. Julie!  Yum!)  It was interesting to revisit the graph after we tasted, because several children discovered a new favorite flavor!

We also enjoyed playing instruments for the letter i.  I have an outside carpet that we put down, and the children play the instruments on the carpet, or have a marching band on the driveway.  Some of the boys got very excited about drumming this week, and spent hours of our outside play time using plastic bowling pins to drum on the tree trunks, the playground, and some empty crates.  They made a very satisfying sound, and the boys involved got some big body play out of the experience.

Our final letter i activity was to make an Itsy Bitsy Spider craft, to read an Isty Bitsy Spider book by Iza Trapani, and of course to do the finger play.  Have you met "The Great Big Hairy Spider?"  It's just like the itsy bitsy spider, but of course much louder, and with much bigger hand motions.  It's a hoot to see the kiddos act it out, and use their big, deep voices to say it!

The children decorate their "house" cut out, and we add a spider ring to a drinking straw "water spout".  (I think this idea originally came from Mailbox magazine.)

See, just like the Storybots sing, "I is incredible, I like learning Ii!"

Going On a Bear Hunt... for International Mud Day

Chances are, if you work with or have young children, you know the story We're Going On a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen. 

 It's definitely a class favorite, and we love to watch the Youtube.com video of the author performing it.  Check it out Going On a Bear Hunt, performed by Michael Rosen.

Since the book involves mud, it fits with our mud theme for this week, so we read the book, and then went outside to act it out.

Long wavy grass - oh no!  "We can't go over it, we can't go under it, we've got to go through it!"

 "A river, a deep, cold river."

 "Uh-uh! Mud!  Thick oozy mud."

 "A swirling whirling snowstorm."

 Unfortunately I was so busy leading the bear hunt and photographing the kiddos, that I forgot to get a picture of them with the bear - a stuffed animal of course.

Here we are, going "back through the forest... stumble trip! Stumble trip!"

 Finally, safe at home, upstairs. 

In the book it says, "We're not going on a bear hunt again," but the kiddos replayed our hunt over and over again! 

Farm, puddles, bugs, BRIT, and zoo!

We're continuing our farm theme this week and next, as there is just SO much we want to learn about.  I made this sorting game board for our plastic farm animals this week, and the kiddos sorted animals and seeds on it.

 We did a lot of piggy activities this week, including Piggie Pie! by Margi Palatini at the listening center, and the Wee Little Piggies memory game.

 This was an exciting game, especially when someone remembered all five piggies in order to make the "This little piggy went to market" song play all the way through!

 We also practiced planting seeds like farmers, putting in hundreds of beans, chard, beets and kale seeds this week.  There's still more to go, and we'll keep working on it.  One of our youtube.com videos this week was a time lapse video of beans growing, so we're hoping that by Monday our plants will be sprouting, and we can watch them grow in real time!  I'm also hoping we'll have lots of yummy fresh veggies to eat this summer, there really isn't anything quite like picking vegetables fresh off the plant and popping them in our mouths - yum!

This week we had two different field trips.  The first group of kiddos went to Bella's Storytime at the Botanic Research Institute of Texas.  I've mentioned this story time before - it's the best story time I've ever been to!  This month we listened to the story The Great Fuzz Frenzy by Janet Stevens (see it on Amazon here), and did lots of fuzzy activities.

 We counted fuzzy pompons, sorted items by how fuzzy they were, painted with fuzzy things, and made fuzzy creations, as well as dancing with fluffy balls of fuzz.  We love Bella's Storytime!

 Another group of kiddos went to the zoo to see the giant animatronic insects.  Most of them loved it, but one kiddo isn't in any of these photos, because he was hiding behind me each time.  There's nothing quite like a 20 foot tall moving tarantula to make some of us nervous!

  I wasn't really expecting these insects to be very educational, just an extra thing to see between other animal exhibits at the zoo.  I was wrong!  Seeing the insects so much larger than life allowed the children to see some of the adaptations that make them great hunters or flyers.  On the dragonfly we could see the spikes on it's legs, and how it held its legs in a basket shape for catching mosquitoes.  We like them helping us with mosquitoes!

 When the ladybug opened it's wings, we could see that the red parts are stiff wing covers, there to protect the flimsy brown flying wings below.  It's very hard to see that on a real ladybug, but we had plenty of time to check it out on these.

I planned to take one more group of kiddos to the zoo, but we had a very rainy day, and it was not good zoo weather.  Luckily, there was a break in the rain, and we were able to go puddle stomping.  The children were so excited!  We took our shoes and socks off, rolled up our pants, and ventured out with bare feet.

 The children stomped and splashed in puddles....

...found bugs and snails in the soil....

 ... and ran around and around the circle planter in our cul-de-sac.

 Walking barefoot in the rain and stomping in puddles is one of those things that I believe every child needs to do sometimes, but it's often hard to find the right time for it.  As adults, we're so often rushing from place to place or chore to chore, that these moments can slip right by us.  Today we really did stop to smell the roses... covered in rain drops.

 Here we all are, damp but happy.  Yes, we did need a lot of baby wipes and towels afterwards.  And yes, we will definitely be ready to do this again!

Here are a few more pictures of the fun and learning we enjoyed this week:  painting...

 ...cleaning the table with shaving cream after we finished painting...

 ... learning on the ipad - I love how focused these children are, and that they are helping each other.  It's great to see the children working together to help each other learn!

... playing outside - of course!...

 ...checking out the cool caterpillar I found (but can't identify)...

 ...looking for roly pollies and other critters...

 ...and enjoying a picnic in the backyard.