Storytime Sunday: More Building Houses

Here are just some of the many books about houses that you can read with your preschoolers. We did The Three Little Pigs, This is the House that Jack Built, and Albert's Alphabet this week. I added Mother Goose because you could read The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. I will be checking out the ABC book from the library whenever it comes in. 

I love the Albert's Alphabet book because not only does it teach the alphabet, you can see all the different ways to build letters. Here is some of the houses we worked on using sticks this week:

The children had to describe what kind of house they built and we recorded what they said. We also build houses (more like towers) in block area:

And I had the children look at houses around the neighborhood when we went outside for outdoor play. We took some photos of them. I will print them and have the children talk about them and compare to some other houses from around the world.

The House that Jack Built is a great book for repetition. It is great to have the children say the words along with you on each page. Also, there is a lot of rhyming and new vocabulary you can introduce. Tattered and torn, forlorn. These are words that kids don't hear just every day. I think most kids will love this book. It is just silly enough to get them involved!

CLICK HERE TO SEE WHERE I LINK UP

Storytime Sunday: Homes Continued

Here are 2 of the very best books about houses that I know. 

"A web is a house for a spider. A bird builds its nest in a tree. There is nothing so snug as a bug in a rug and a house is a house for me!" Everything from a car to a teabag to ink has a house if you think about it long enough. I absolutely love how this book thinks outside the box for the meaning of a house. The illustrations are marvelous and I especially adore the very last 2 pages: "Each creature that's known has a house of its own and the earth is a house for us all." Think about the deeper meaning that could have!

This book is so great for younger ones. It is short and very to the point. The basics of building a house, step by step all the way to moving in. Children will love it and can easily sequence the steps or act out the story.

So some of the continuing activities we did this week about building houses include:

This is AM class's venn diagram comparing 2 different houses from different areas of the world. They were able to come up with some similarities and differences.

This, however is PM class's venn diagram. And I pretty much had to give them these answers. So, I decided  with the PM class being mostly 3s, they might not be ready for this activity just yet.

 So here is what I made for them instead. A much easier concept. We just talked about the parts of the house and the children were able to take apart and put together the house however they wanted it. Much better results with this. Although I think I will pull out the venn diagram again and give it another try.

We used mini marshmallows and pretzel sticks to build houses as well. They were a lot more difficult to stay together than I thought. Probably should have used regular sized marshmallows. But, as you can see, one little boy persisted and was able to build an entire house and get it to stand up!

Then, we sorted photos of different types of landscapes where your house could be located.

I also printed maps of countries where each of the children's family is from. We talked about the purpose of a map and some of the features of maps. In case you can't see, all the maps are different types. Some are just regular maps and some are topographical, etc. 

Where do you search for books for the studies you do in your classroom or at home with your children?

Link up your book search resources by clicking below!

CLICK HERE TO SEE WHERE I LINK UP

More Building Houses

Here are some more photos of the kids using tools to build a house in the sensory table. To see the original post, click here and scroll down.

They really enjoyed cutting the tape and taping things together.

She taped the roof to her house.

I never even realized how great a fine motor activity taping can be. To pull the tape, cut it and keep it from sticking together takes a lot of eye hand coordination, not to mention actually sticking it onto something the way you want it and to stick more than one thing together requires even more complex movements and steadiness.

Hammering, one child on each end. What a creative way to work together.

 One child actually cut all the way through the thick cardboard with our plastic saw!

The girls decided they needed to do a little bit of decorating, so they got out the markers and drew all over the tape. This is one little girl's "grouchy face." I love it!!!

CLICK HERE TO SEE WHERE I LINK UP

Fingers, Toes and Homes around the World

Today I read this book to my class. I have done a previous post about this book, but here are some more details about how we used it in class.

First we did a small group that consisted of using these felt board fingers and toes to count to 10.

Then we took off our socks and shoes to count our toes. Yep, we all had 10 :)

We have also started learning about homes around the world. Here is our sensory table filled with materials for building a house. We got into questions such as what are houses made of, what are the parts of a house, how do you build a house, why are houses different around the world, what is the purpose of a roof? The children had some good answers and seemed like they were becoming interested.

He said this was an apartment :)

Hammering the pieces together.

I introduced a lot of new vocabulary such as carpenter, hinges, plaster, door frame, etc. I am beginning to see that there is so many directions this study could go. We had planned to go into weather around the world next week, but we may stretch out homes for another week. Can't wait to do some more of the activities we have planned for this week. Stay tuned!

CLICK HERE TO SEE WHERE I LINK UP