Reviewing H - J

This week we are still reviewing letters, while also enjoying spring.  We did two hippo art activities one day, painting plaster hippos, and making paper ones too.  They are both very cute, and worked our fine motor skills.

 

I found the inspiration for the paper hippo here, and modified it to be made with construction paper instead of paper plates.  The children loved it.

There are plenty of good hippo books to read to introduce these crafts.  We really love The Hiccupotomus by Aaron Zenz, and Hiccup by Mercer Mayer.

For the letter I, I considered sampling ice cream again, but decided my friends were already excited enough by our ice cream pretend play.  I've saved a couple of empty ice cream containers, bowls and spoons, and put those out with colorful pompons, what a hit!  I really like that the pompons are easy to pick up once they're done playing, but must admit, they do seem to get spread about a lot!

We also improvised a snow cone shop for the letter i - I'm thinking icy snow.  The cash register was very popular, more than the foam balls, bowls, and empty snowcone syrup bottles we had out for our pretending.  It was interesting to observe the children using the cash register, and to see how they used numbers in their play.  They asked their "customers" for their phone numbers to enter on the register, as well as entering prices, swiping credit and debit cards, and using the scanner on bar codes.

For the letter J we reviewed a fun Spanish language song on youtube.com : Jugo de Naranja.  I made a book from the lyrics a long time ago, and we like to sing the song as we turn the pages.  It's a good review of some basic Spanish vocabulary: me gusta, no me gusta, and lots of food words.

After we sang along with the song, and read the book, I offered each child some orange juice.  "Te gusta jugo de naranja?" I asked each child in turn.  "Si, me gusta jugo de naranja," they answered, and then got some to drink.

We read a book that featured a jellyfish while we drank our jugo de naranja (o.j.) and then made a jelly fish art project, which I found here, and did a jelly fish finger play, which is from here.

This was a particularly busy morning, as we also got to practice our hand writing - on a plate of jelly!  Each child got a plate with a smear of strawberry jelly on it, and practiced forming the letter in the jelly.  Correctly made j's resulted in a tasty lick of their fingers.  Yes, we washed hands before as well as after!  This was literally a sticky proposition, and well loved. 

For any readers who have school aged kiddos, this is also a great way to get them to practice writing their spelling words.  When I taught first grade, I suggested that parents make one evening's spelling practice be writing words in something yummy: jelly, chocolate syrup, peanut butter... I'm sure your children would love to suggest other tasty treats.  No licking fingers until you can write the word or letter correctly - talk about motivating!  Yum!

Spring time in the garden

It really is spring time here.  Back in the fall, we put out our old jack-o-lantern pumpkins in the veggie garden, and observed them as they rotted over the winter.  The kiddos were very interested in seeing the whole process, and enjoyed poking sticks at the not-so-attractive remains.  This week we found baby pumpkins growing!  We're watching as the seed leaves give way to true leaves, and seeing how quickly they grow!

 The cabbages in the garden have gone to flower, and are full of activity too.  We've been watching ladybugs, butterflies, and bees come to the flowers for nectar and pollen.

 Look at the pollen sacks on this bee!  She has gathered a huge load of pollen to take back to her hive.

 The kiddos are enjoying playing outside too.  Here they are, "in the hot tub, playing their DSs."  They crack me up!

 This area of the garden has been named "Roly poly city", due to the number of critters hiding out underneath the leaves.  A couple of the children hardly leave this area, they are so fascinated with what they can find here. 

 Some of the growing things are good for us to eat.  We tasted fresh asparagus this week - yum!

 The children are watching the strawberry plants eagerly, observing the flowers as they change into tiny green strawberries, and waiting, just waiting, for them to ripen!

 This is another yummy plant, just starting out.  Malabar spinach is both ornamental and edible.  I overwintered one inside, and we planted some of its seeds a few weeks ago. 

 We've also had plenty of seed play outside in the sunshine lately.  I have several different materials for the children to use: feed corn and sunflower seeds, bird seeds, and some other grains.  I don't want to use food to play in most of the time, as food is a valuable resource, and while we are blessed with plenty, not all the world is.  The animal feed however doesn't get wasted - what the children drop, our squirrels, birds and even the ducks come to eat. 

 I think some of our ecological messages are getting through to the children too.  This kiddo told me the green crane is helping recycle the seeds, moving them into the truck to take to recycle.  

Another part of spring that the children look forward to is Easter, and our egg hunt.  We have been busy this week with stuffing small toys and candy into Easter eggs, prepping them for the real egg hunt we'll have in a couple of weeks.  The children LOVE helping to put the treasures in the eggs, and I am most happy to have their help.

 While we wait for the real egg hunt, we've been practicing in the back yard with empty eggs and baskets.  The children both hide them and seek - it's all good!

 I love the peaceful feeling of spring in the back yard!

Fortunately - a class book.

Friday was a beautiful spring day.  Lots of sunshine, temperature around 70*, just a little breeze.  We decided to have a picnic lunch outside.  I served milk, pb&j sandwiches, carrots and apple slices, and we sat around a large mat together, talking and eating.  One of the boys realized that he had two slices of apple on his plate, and a friend had 3, and wanted to know why.  I started mimicking a story we love, Fortunately, by Remy Charlip, and the children chimed in with additional fortunate and unfortunate suggestions.  Our story was born.

Fortunately, Ella got three pieces of apple at the picnic.
Unfortunately, Trevon did not.
Fortunately, there was more apple.
Unfortunately, my dog, Patriot, tried to get it.
Fortunately, we stopped him.
Unfortunately, a squirrel came to try and get it.
Fortunately, Patriot scared it away.
Unfortunately, ducks came while Patriot was chasing the squirrel.

Fortunately, his barking scared them.
Unfortunately, the ducks ate Connor's bread.
Fortunately, they didn't get it all.
Unfortunately, Nolan dropped his sandwich.
Fortunately, It fell on his plate.
Unfortunately, he didn't want it.
Fortunately, he did want his apples.
Unfortunately, Brielle also wanted his apples!
Fortunately, she knows not to take it.
Unfortunately, Emily started feeling bad.
Fortunately, Makenzie gave her a hug, and it helped.
Unfortunately, Jacob was jealous.
Fortunately, Reese spoke sweetly to him, and he felt better.
Unfortunately, Ms. Paula wouldn't let the kids get up to go play.
Fortunately, she did let them when they finished their lunch.
Unfortunately, there were only two swings for all the kids.

Fortunately, we can take turns!
Unfortunately, Luke hogged a swing.
Fortunately, Ms. Julie asked him to give Olivia a turn.
Unfortunately, she fell off!
Fortunately, she fell on the mulch, so she wasn't hurt.
Unfortunately, she also fell on a roly poly.
Fortunately, she didn't hurt the roly poly.
Unfortunately, it was a spiky roly poly!

Fortunately, the kids could look at it safely, and fortunately it crawled home to it's roly poly city,
and fortunately the kids followed it and found many roly pollies, because fortunately, we love roly pollies!

We'll make this into a class book this coming week, with the children illustrating it.  I can already tell, it is going to be a favorite!

Fish hats, fish hats, roly poly fish hats

 A couple of years ago I had a student who pronounced the letter f with a "b" sound.  One morning she came in singing a new song: "Bish eds, bish eds, oly oly bish eds.  Bish eds, bish eds, eat dem up yum!"  I had no idea what she was singing, but another parent recognized it as "Fish Heads" by Barnes and Barnes, so we all watched it, and it became a sort of class song.

I was tickled to find an idea for a fish hat recently, at www.abbythelibrarian.com, and had to use it for our letter f review day.  The original author even included a reference to "Fish Heads", so how could I resist?

Here is my modified version.  I used 12" x 18" construction paper to make our fish, as I had some on hand.  I drew out a fish shape, making sure the body of the fish was about 12 inches long - I wanted to be sure that two fish bodies would fit all the way around the children's heads.  From all the scraps my assistant and I cut lots of circles to represent scales.

Each child decorated two fish, one facing left, the other facing right.  They glued the scales on in an overlapping pattern.  We needed many more scales than I had anticipated - if you decide to do this project, expect each child to need about 40 - 50 large scales.  

 We stapled a sentence strip to fit each child's head, then stapled on their fish.  **When you staple, be sure to put the smooth side of the staple to the inside so the sharp ends are away from kids' heads.**

 When everyone was ready, we watched Fish Heads one more time, and sang along in our own fish heads.  Aren't they adorable?!

Exciting E

 It is still 3 full weeks until Easter, but  I can't think of anything better to review the letter E.  First of all, it is meaningful to the children.  Between "Easter" and "eggs" we have both the long and short vowel sounds.  There are many, many terrific books about it, and of course, any number of fun Easter things to play and learn with. 

I read the children Seven Eggs, by Meredith Hooper, to get us started.  In the story, one egg opens each day for a week, so as we read we predicted which day would be next, and what might hatch out of each egg.  The eggs all looked different, so the children thought different animals would hatch from each one, and they were right.  The hatchlings included reptiles and birds, but the children also predicted frogs, (okay, and hippos) so I was pleased to see they remembered many different kinds of animals that lay eggs.

After we read, I pulled out my bag of empty Easter eggs, and some treats to stuff them with.  Each year, the children's parents send in just the treats, and the children stuff the plastic eggs I've collected over many years.  I've included some of the things we put in the eggs this year, to show some of the non-candy options: necklaces, rings, jewels, bubbles, plastic animals, hair doodads, stamps... other possibilities include stickers, coins, tiny toy cars.  Please please, keep in mind the ages of the children you are catering to, and supervise closely for children that mouth small parts.

To stuff the eggs with a class full of kiddos, we sit in a circle, and I roll one or two empty eggs to each child, and then the treat(s) to put in the egg.  The children open their eggs, stuff them, and close them up again, then hold it straight up in the air for the other teacher to collect.  When they're ready for another egg, they hold their hands out in front of them, to show me they'd like another.  We train the children to do it this way so they understand that we don't want a dozen children yelling at us for help, for more, for ... well, really, for anything!  Each day from now until Easter, or until the eggs are all filled, we'll stuff a few eggs.  The children LOVE doing this, seeing the treats, and helping to prepare for our big Easter egg hunt.  Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of this in action - I was very busy handing out treats and eggs!

Some of my young artists wanted to draw and decorate eggs to follow up, so I offered a variety of stencils with ovals, hearts and star shapes to help them make their shapes.  We had a lot of egg pictures today, and the stencils will stay available in the art center for as long as the children are interested in them.

When we went outside, we took 50 empty plastic eggs and a bunch of baskets and containers with us.  The children all hid the eggs in the backyard, then came back together, counted down from ten to zero, and... ran!

They hid the eggs over and over and over again!  This game will also go on for weeks, they never get tired of it.  This will give us a lot of opportunities to think about how we can be fair to each other as we hunt eggs, to practice getting some, but not being too greedy, and to see that our youngest friends move a little slower than the biggest kiddos, and to understand why I'll let them start the real hunt before their older friends.

 Eventually the crazed rush of our first attempts calms down, and this becomes a much more peaceful less crazy experience.  The real egg hunt will still be super fun - that's when there will be surprises in our eggs - but instead of a having just a brief frenzy of egg snatching and strong emotions on a single day, this practice allows the children to satisfy their desire to do it over and again.  Isn't that what every child wants?

Happy Spring!

We really dig D!

We really dig D.  As in really, we got to dig in dirt for the letter D review day.  It was not disgusting, dangerous or delicious, just really really dirty.

 We had a second sensory table available with diggers and dumpers in corn and seeds, and the group that played at that table created a huge road block, and then destroyed it.

Some friends were more interested in the veggie garden, where our cabbages have gone to flower.  We tasted the flowers - they are edible - and they were deliciously sweet.  As one child said, "Not sweet like a strawberry," but still quite nice.

 We read several books - if you know me, you are not surprised! - including Changes by Marjorie N. Allen, and Bumblebee, Bumblebee, Do You Know Me? by Anne Rockwell.  Both books included daffodils, which we can see blooming in the neighborhood.  I found a fun craft about daffodils on http://www.rockabyebutterfly.com, which even included the picture to paint!  The kiddos enjoyed painting, and adding the 3D element to their pictures.  Delightful!

Letter C Review Day

For the letter C review, I thought we'd get a little crabby.  We read two books about hermit crabs looking for new homes, Is This a House For Hermit Crab?, by M. McDonald, and A House For Hermit Crab by Eric Carle.  As we read, the children took turns holding our crab finger puppet, and they acted out the Eric Carle version, joining in on the refrain.  We made a Venn Diagram telling how the books were similar, and how they were different.

 

To follow up, I offered a crab craft.   I found the idea for this craft at iheartcraftythings.com.  The children had to learn how to draw a spiral shape, and chose to decorate their shells with whatever was on our art shelf: markers, crayons, pompons, foam pieces, paper, etc.

I didn't take any pictures of our meals today, but C is an easy letter to find foods for!  At lunch time we had chicken, carrots, cauliflower and corn bread dressing, and at snack I served cucumbers and crackers.  At first, only a couple of children wanted any cucumber, but when I offered to pepper and salt the slices, a lot more friends tried it - and liked it.  They ended up eating every bite of two large english cucumbers!

It was cold and wet for a good portion of the day, and we couldn't get outside in the morning.  Ms. Julie organized flashlight games, searching for letters, numbers, and words around the room.  I have an alphabet posted on my ceiling, just for this purpose, and laying on the floor with flashlights is a big deal!  We LIKE flashlights!

Later in the day we did play dough with all kinds of cookie cutters - more good C review.  I got out my real cookie cutters as well as the play ones, and the kiddos worked their finger muscles as they kneaded, rolled, and shaped the dough, and cut out cookies. 

Cookie Monster is right, C IS for cookie!