An Easter Writing Basket

Happy Friday!  I can't believe that Easter is around the corner.  Here is a fun way to create a different kind of Easter basket for your children or students.  Instead of sweets, fill a basket with Easter story books, a bunny or flower headband, markers, pencils and some homemade napkin writing books.

Here is my Easter Writing Basket from my classroom last year.  

I made vocabulary picture cards so students could practice writing and drawing Easter vocabulary words. 

All you need to make a napkin book:  colorful napkins, paper cut into squares & a stapler.

The finished product! 

 So simple and children just love writing and drawing in them. 

Mid Month Must Read

It has been too long since I've written a blog post.  Here you will see the main reason I keep so busy.  My daughter, Emma Rebekah, is the joy of my life.   

She is now three months old.  It has been amazing to see how she has changed and developed during these first few months.  It's truly miraculous. 

 Thinking about moms and children led me to make  one of my favorite books 

Mama Cat Has Three Kittens by Denise Fleming my "Mid Month Must Read".

The story is ideal for young children because it has a simple plot and only a few words per page.  The pictures are fabulous and as children view the pictures and hear the story, they will learn new vocabulary. They will also find the pattern or the repetitive phrase on each page and will enjoy repeating it with you as you read the story aloud. 

I created  a simple story basket by ordering these adorable beanie baby cats on Amazon.  I was able to match the exact colors of the cats with those found in the book.  How fun!!  Your children or students will LOVE using the kittens to retell the story.  It's also a perfect story to act out with your children or students (without props).  

No matter how you use the book, it will soon be a favorite!

A Teaching Treasure

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend a training led by the mentors of the
 Rice School Literacy & Culture Project.  It was amazing!!  I'll be sharing more of what I learned in other posts.  We learned that children need to hear 1000 stories read aloud to be ready to read on their own and that reading aloud to children is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT ACTIVITY FOR BUILDING THE UNDERSTANDINGS AND SKILLS NECESSARY FOR CHILDREN TO SUCCEED AS READERS (Mem Fox). 

The training prompted me to share one of my TEACHING TREASURES. It's a teacher resource book called Book Cooks from Creative Teaching Press that uses children's literature and cooking in a very creative way. It gives 26 simple recipes--one for each letter of the alphabet--and other literacy and math activities to use with children after reading a story.  

Since its Go Texan Day here in Houston, here is a recipe called Cowboy Cookies inspired by the story A Campfire for Cowboy Billy by Wendy K. Ulmer. 

There are additional cowboy activities including this compound word game offered in the book as well.

Yee-Haw! Have fun with this teaching treasure y'all.

A Fantastic Find

Lakeshore is a store known for offering great educational resources to parents and teachers.  I did not know until recently that the website has a wealth of free resources. This hyperlink will take you immediately to FREE Projects & Activities, Printables and Lesson Plans for grades pre-k-5th.

Lakeshore Free Resources

Mid Month MUST Read

Children naturally learn about the concepts of friendship and kindness during the month of February.  Valentine's Day gives the opportunity to talk to children about how to be a good friend and how it feels to receive a valentine and/or hug.  

Heartprints by P.K. Hallinan explores how children can leave "heartprints" by doing something kind to the people around them.  

Reading aloud a story and asking questions based on what is happening in the text allows an adult to have a rich dialogue with a child.  

Here is an excerpt from the book Heartprints...

Here are a few examples of questions you can ask as you read the book:

• How do you feel when someone smiles at you?
• How can you help a friend?  How can you help mommy or daddy today?
• When has a friend helped you?  When has mommy or daddy helped you?
• How do you feel when you get a gift?
• How could you share with your friend at school?  How could you share with your brother or sister at home?
• How do you know someone is sad?
• How could you make someone happy who is feeling sad? 

Fine Motor with a Muffin Tin & More

This post is FULL of simple activities for your child or students to develop the muscles in their fingers and hands.   With fine motor control and strength, your child/student (among other things) will learn to grasp a pencil correctly and write legibly.

 A quick trip to the Dollar Store allowed me to find the materials I need to demonstrate a few fine motor activities.

This is a very simple activity that only costs a $2.00:)  Using beads and pipe cleaners, your children/students can develop their fine motor skills by making bracelets.  For an added challenge, ask your child/student to create a pattern with the colors.  Molding clay and/or play-dough is also beneficial in strengthening hand and finger muscles. I picked up a package of clay because it takes more strength to mold clay than regular play-dough. Have your child/student use his/her creativity to mold the clay into people, animals, letters, etc...

At Lakeshore I bought a package of Fine Motor Tweezer Tongs.  These are ideal for preschool age students. You can order this useful tool online by clicking here on Lakeshore.

When your child is able to utilize and manipulate objects with these tongs easily, he or she can use smaller tweezers which require greater strength and coordination. 

Fill up a container with pompoms or other objects.  Your child/student needs to use the tweezers to transfer the objects from one place or container to another.  

It may be fun for your child/students to fill up a muffin tin with the pom-poms or objects.

For an added challenge place dominoes in the muffin tin.  

Your child/student must count the number of dots on the domino and fill each section of the muffin tin with the correct number of pom-poms.

Have fun!!

Sing, Sing, Sing!

  

We've just had back to back visits from my mother and my mother-in-law.  It was delightful to watch them interact with my baby girl.  They were constantly talking and singing to her.  In the photo you see that I love singing to Emma Rebekah as well!!

In this blog I'll show you how to turn a song into an activity to use in either a bathtub or a preschool classroom.

I'm sure you've heard the song Five Little Ducks. It goes like this...

 Five little ducks went out one day. Over the hills and far away. Mama duck said, 

" Quack, quack, quack, quack," but only four little ducks came waddling back.

If you click here on the song Five Little Ducks you will be directed to an amazing website DLTK that has the lyrics and print-outs for a wonderful song to sing with your children. I created popsicle stick puppets from the print-outs I found on the website and created a story basket for my preschool students along with the books that contain various versions of the song.

I recently found both these rubber ducks and the plastic container in the dollar section at Target.  

Children can turn the plastic container over and it becomes a "story prop".  As children sing the song, they can move the ducks over the container or "the hill".   

Don't forget to SING, SING, SING with your children or students.  It will help them develop the concept of rhyme and is a very effective way to build vocabulary.