Snowballs and Mittens

We had so much fun at our last week of Tales for Twos! The theme was Snowballs & Mittens.

We read Hello Snow and One Mitten.














We did a fun guessing game on the flannel board:
I had 5 mittens of different colors and a white circle behind one.

Snowball, snowball
Cold and round
Behind which mitten
Can you be found?

From http://tonsoffunpreschoolactivities.blogspot.com/2011/01/tot-school-mittens.html

 Then I had pairs of mittens cut from scrapbooking paper and I gave one to each child and I kept the match. I put my mitten on the board and asked the little ones to come up if they had the match.

 

Then each parent was given an envelope with cards of the seasons and different clothing that you wear during each season and they had a little one-on-one time with their little one talking about the seasons.

 

From http://www.montessoriforeveryone.com/assets/PDF/Seasons_and_Clothing_Matching.pdf

 

 

We finished with a very fun indoor snowball fight using cottonballs!

 

The take-home craft was a mitten wreath...

 



Construction, Demolition & Garbage

Well, I actually did not do this theme. Tuesday, we didn't have a program because I was hosting a librarian's workshop and Wednesday, Miss Sarah filled in for me. BUT, this is what I had planned...

Books:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Construction Machine Song:(from KidsSoup):
(Farmer in the Dell)
The excavator scoops up dirt
The excavator scoops up dirt
Hey-ho, Look at it go!
The excavator scoops up dirt

 

The bulldozer moves the dirt...
The dump truck dumps the dirt...
The steamroller flattens the dirt...

 

 

She'' Be Driving a Bulldozer When She Comes (She'll be Comin' Round the Mountain)

By Rob Reid

 

http://www.rapnrob.com/pdf/shebulldozer.pdf

 

Take-home craft:

Great for talking about shapes!

 



New Books I Like

Great new ABC book! A through Z looking at street signs! Great book to take along in the car and play a game to see how many signs you come across! Environmental print fun!

 

It's words cre8ed with numbers! It reminds me of the old Concentration TV Game Show or trying to figure out license plates on the road! Great fun!

Bugs by the Numbers by Sharon Werner is the follow-up book to Alphabeasties. Both books create the image using numbers and letters. Very cool books!

Very nice new board books by Britta Teckentrup

 

If you have a little girl that likes to create things- a crafting, creative girl, this is a perfect book for her! I loved this book because Chloe is different, but she is creative and enjoys making unique gifts and other things. She also is kind and forgiving to a girl who wasn't kind to her which is a great example of being the better person! Liked this one a lot!

 

Miss Debbie's Resources

A lot of patrons ask me where I get my ideas. I decided to create a Pinterest Site for you with a lot of the online resources I use. There will be art & crafts, books, rhymes, early literacy and more. Anything I come across in my normal everyday work, I will pin here if there is a image or video to pin. Sometimes there isn't an image- for an example,  a list of the best preschool music cds without any images, and I can't pin it.

If you aren't familiar with Pinterest, don't worry! It's easy-peasy! You do not have to create a login to see the resources and you can follow simply by using your email address.

http://pinterest.com/missdebbieatfpl/

Hope this becomes a great resource for you!

Lemons & Limes, Apples & Oranges

We  read The Red Lemon by Bob Staake, An Orange In January by Dianna Hutts Aston and Apple by Nikki McClure.

We danced to Jim Gill's Silly Dance Contest. We sang a song to the tune of Peanut Butter & Jelly called Lemons, Lemonade:
First you take the lemons and you cut them, you cut them
Then you take the lemons and you squeeze them, you squeeze them
Then you add the sugar and the water, the water
Then you drop the ice cubes, and you stir it, you stir it
Pour yourself a glass and drink it, drink it
Lemon, lemonade- yeah! Lemon, lemonade-yeah! (Themes from A to Z by Education Center)

We used our lemon and lime props to work with positional words.

 

The limes are here, the lemons are there

The limes, the lemons are everywhere
The limes are up, the lemons are down
The limes, the lemons are all around
The limes are in, the lemons are out
The limes, the lemons are all about
The limes are low, the lemons are high
The limes, the lemons all say Good-bye!

 

We tasted lemons and limes. And then we did a short sequencing activity with a girl drinking lemonade.

 



I had these take-home activities: lime and lemon slices, apple and orange word sheets and a positional word game to use with the lemon and lime props. The A words worksheet was from Mailbox Magazine and the O-words sheet I made in Word. The Wacky Word games was from http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=16188

Color Your World

There are a ton of books about colors! Last week for Tales for Twos, our theme was colors.

We read Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd- too cute! I found a picture of the dog online and printed it and drew a larger version, so as I read the story I could add the colored spots to the dog. I also printed a dog for each child and provided the spots to take home!

We also read The Artist Who Painted a Horse Blue by Eric Carle. I love this book because it shows familiar objects that any child would recognize in different colors- as he sees them and as a child might see them. Here is a review of the book which speaks to the importance of it better than I could:

Every child has an artist inside them, and this vibrant picture book from Eric Carle will help let it out. The artist in this book paints the world as he sees it, just like a child. There's a red crocodile, an orange elephant, a purple fox and a polka-dotted donkey. More than anything, there's imagination. Filled with some of the most magnificently colorful animals of Eric Carle's career, this tribute to the creative life celebrates the power of art.

We did Hokey Pokey Colors with crepe paper streamers- you put blue in, you put blue out, you put blue in and shake it all about, etc.

We finished with Red Car, Red Bus by Susan Steggall. Great book for colors, patterns, sequencing and more. It would be great to print out the vehicles in the book and use them as manipulatives while you read the story and afterward use them to make up your own pattern. Perfect, simple, free activity! (Didn't have time to do it in our program)

I gave everyone materials to make a "color book".

Easy Peasy Halloween Picture Bingo!

There are a lot of free Bingo card generators online, but I like the dltk-kids.com one. You can do words and pictures or just pictures. You can choose the number of squares. You have lots of options.


I made these simple 3X3 Halloween Bingo cards with just pictures on the site and printed them. They also generate the call cards. I laminated the bingo cards and I printed the call cards on a transparency so I could use an overhead projector to show the little ones the picture.

Of course, we had to use candy corn and Halloween M&Ms for markers! Easy to do and lots of fun! Great for parties, classrooms and at home!

Step Backwards!

Did you know they celebrate Backwards Day on January 31st?

Well, I decided last week's Preschool Pretend & Play theme would be Step Backwards because I saw some cute picture books. One was the AlphaOops! The Day that Z Went First by Alethea Kontis and the other was Previously by Allan Ahlberg. Also, Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse by Marilyn Singer was very cool, but I did not use it for this program.

I used AlphaOops! last time for our Crazy Alphabets theme, so I didn't use that book either!

So, I started out by setting up the storytime room backwards. It was kind of funny because the parents and kids sat down on the carpet the normal way so their backs were towards me. Then I greeted everyone with "Good-bye! Thanks for coming! You did a great job today!" It took them a little while to catch on. One little boy starting walking out the door! It was funny!

We danced to Laurie Berkner's "I Really Love to Dance"- we walk backwards in that song. Then I read Tell Me the Day Backwards by Albert Lamb and part of Previously. We danced to our "Penguin Song" as usual.

Then we did some sequencing!
I passed out envelopes with 3 sequencing cards in them. These were printed from the book Make and Take Sequencing Fun. The adults and children talked about the sequence of the cards and what would happen if we went backwards! We had 3 different sequencing envelopes for them to try.

We read Silly Sally by Audrey Wood which the kids loved! And we ended with The Wiggles' "Monkey Dance" because we jump to the front and back!

The craft was silly animals made from different parts of animals!

Apples and Oranges - Harvest Time!

We read Pumpkin Harvest by Martha E. Rustad which is the perfect length and just the right amount of information about pumpkins for two- year-olds.

Then everyone got a pumpkin on a stick for our The Pumpkins Are Here song and activity from The Mailbox Magazine. It goes like this to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell:

The pumpkins are here, the pumpkins are there.
The pumpkins, the pumpkins are everywhere!
The pumpkins are up, the pumpkins are down
The pumpkins, the pumpkins are all around!
The pumpkins are in, the pumpkins are out
The pumpkins are all about!
The pumpkins are low, the pumpkins are high
Now all the pumpkins wave good-bye!

We read Apple Harvest by Martha E. Rustad as well!

We did a Apple Tree fingerplay:
Way up high in the apple tree (two hands in air)
Two little apples smiled at me
I shook that tree as hard as I could (shake)
Down came the apples (hands come down)
UMMMMMM!UMMMMM! Good! (rub tummy)

Crazy Alphabets

I usually get my ideas for storytimes from books as I catalog new books. That's exactly what happened with Crazy Alphabets. I saw two new books that were hilarious!

Z is for Moose by Kelly Bingham is adorable. Moose so much wants to be in the alphabet book and is a little impatient. The crew decides to use Mouse instead of Moose on the M page and Moose sort of loses it! There are tons of alphabet books, but this one stands out for me.

Wild about Animals

Our theme for Tales for Twos last week was 'Wild About Animals'. We read I Love Animals by Flora McDonnell, 1,2,3 What Do You See? by Susi Bohdal and You Are a Lion! And Other Fun Yoga Poses by Taeeun Yoo.

Of course, we did our 5 Song- this session it's One Elephant Went Out to Play! Our rhyme, This is Big, Big, Big and our Monkey Drum song! These are all regular repeating pieces this session. See the last post about Tales for Twos for that info!

We ended by pretending to be animals with Greg & Steve's Animal Action song!

We made animal collages that could be used as placemats, too!

Sunflowers

In Preschool Pretend & Play this week, we talked about sunflowers- big, round and yellow like the sun.


We started with our "10" action rhyme which we will do each program to concentrate on the number 10:
Apples Everywhere

Apples in the orchard (hold arms out like tree)
Apples on the ground (bend to ground)
Apples in my basket (hold one arm like holding a basket)
Apples all around (turn)

Apples in my cider (drink)
Apples in my pie (eat)
Apples everywhere
My, oh my, oh my!

Ten red apples grow on a tree
Five for you and five for me (show 5 and 5)
Help me shake the tree just so (shake body)
And count the apples as they grow
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10

(Apple cutouts and words to rhyme were sent home so parents could do at home)

Feelings

In Tales for Twos today, we talked about feelings. We began with our 5 song! This session, we are using "One Elephant Went Out to Play" as our 5 song.

We read Todd Parr's The Feeling Book and Glad Monster, Sad Monster by Ed Emberley.

We did our This is Big, Big, Big action rhyme. Great to learn new vocabulary and our big rhyme went well with the elephants having enormous fun!

(From http://melissa.depperfamily.net/blog/)

This is big big big
Hold arms out to side

This is small small small
Cup hands together
This is short short short
Hold hands with palms facing each other
This is tall tall tall
Reach one hand above head
This is fast fast fast
Circle fists quickly
This is slow slow slow
Circle fists slowly
This is yes yes yes
Nod

This is no no no
Shake head

We did our action song. This session we are using Monkey Drum. (not available on cd)
And ended with a rhyme about feelings. Using 'puppets' with different moods, we sang...

Where is happy
Where is happy
Here I am
Here I am
I am very happy
I am very happy
Yes, I am
Yes, I am

Here are the crafts that were available for take-home:

Take Some Love to School

Today, in our Back-to-School Program, I gave the grownups a heart box to hold some hugs and kisses that they could share with their little one when they went off to school. The idea came to me when I read this book...Take a Kiss to School by Angela McAllister.

Digby is excited about starting school, but he refuses to get out of bed the next morning. I want to stay here with you, he tells his mother. When they arrive at school, the youngster hangs back. His mom places 12 kisses that she has blown into her hands into Digby's pocket. There! If you're worried, you can take a kiss from your pocket and imagine I am with you she says.

With our die-cut machine, I made heart boxes and little hearts to put inside and moms and dads can kiss the hearts and give one to their child to put in their pocket when they go to school. If they feel lonely or they miss mom or home, if they are having a rough day, they can hold their heart full of love and be reassured that they are loved! :) Aww

Word Family Worms from Kizclub

The Kizclub is a great site for early literacy ideas! These are Word Family Worms that you can print and make. All you do is slide the window to form a word and the picture of that word shows in the other window!

Checkout the site http://www.kizclub.com/index.html

We're Going on a Picnic and We're Leaving Right Away

Picnic song...Raffi's We're Going on a Picnic from his The Corner Grocery Store cd. I printed pictures of all the food items and taped them to popsicle sticks. There were enough for everyone. So, as we marched along to our picnic, we raised whatever food item we had in response to Raffi's question "Did you bring the apples?" "Yes, we brought the apples!"

Books...We're Going on a Picnic by Pat Hutchins, The Most Perfect Spot by Diane Goode, The Picnic by Ruth Brown

Flannel Board...5 Hungry Ants...funnnnny! Achoo!

5 hungry ants,
marching in a line,
came upon a picnic
where they could dine.
They marched into the salad,
they marched into the cake,
they marched into the pepper….
Uh oh, that was a mistake!
AHHHH-CHOOO!
4 hungry ants….etc….


Fun Movement Song...Boom Chicka Boom on Peter Allard's Sing it! Say it! Stamp it! Swing it! cd

Then we had a picnic- take-home craft was a picnic basket (easy peasy with die-cut) and food clip art

Nature Books

We just talked about insects in our Terrific Tuesday class recently. There's a new book by Jim Arnosky, Creep and Flutter, that I just cataloged.

That got me thinking about authors that are well-known for nature books. Jim Arnosky is a prolific author of nature books.






Nic Bishop also comes to mind...

More New Books

If you have a little one with an attachment to a blankie, two new books are out that are very cute!

And if you have a little girl who likes to put together her own ensembles, this book is just for you!





New Books

There are a lot of new books coming in and I wanted to highlight a few that I found interesting as I was cataloging them.

Most people are cat people or dog people, but not both, because cats and dogs are so very different pets. Here are two new books with this idea in mind!

Dog is left in charge as his people go out, but what will he do with those cats to keep them out of trouble so he will get a treat?


Bobo is a good dog and volunteers to watch Bonkers when his owner needs a sitter, but Bonkers just doesn't behave!




Two new board books are beautifully and simply done to help teach letters and numbers. They are great interactive books that are tactile as well. Your little one can trace the letter and numbers.