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...

 



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".

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!

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: