The Very Lonely Firefly

For our study on "Investigating Light," one of the books we read was The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle. 

After reading the book, we made fingerprint fireflies. Using yellow paint, we made fingerprints on black construction paper. Then, after it dried, we drew in the details. Here is an example of the one I made.

We also took a piece of cardboard and poked holes in it. Then, we turned off the lights and shined a flashlight through the holes to make it look like fireflies lighting up.

The kids really enjoyed this unit, especially when we turned off the lights to make shadows and paint with glow in the dark paint!

Dollar Store Diva

Here are some of the new items I have bought or made for the classroom and how I will use them.

Dollar Tree: $1. Not sure if these will stay in the classroom or if I will be tempted to bring them home and use for scrapbooking ;) These would make excellent frames for children's work to hang in the hallway or border for a sign. Or just put them in the art area, so the children can use their own creativity with them.

Spinner! Dollar Tree: $1 (Is there anything that's NOT $1 in Dollar Tree?) Anyways, this can have many uses. I love how big it is with the big numbers and colorful sections. We will probably put this to use with some homemade board games.

Ok, so I did use materials from our resource room at work, these are all things that can be purchased from a dollar store. Caterpillars for use with the Eric Carle book The Very Hungry Caterpillar. More to come on The Very Hungry Caterpillar! So, stay tuned!!!

Children's Lit Corner

First of all I would like to start by saying to all my loyal followers, I have not desserted this blog. It is however for teachers, our off season :) I will be posting now and then during the Summer, but probably not as much as during the school year.

As you should well know by now, I am a huge Eric Carle fan. Special thanks to my sister for enlightening me about the fact that there are Youtube videos of people reading Eric Carle books. Some are just turning the pages while others are animated versions of his illustrations. There is even a video of "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" read aloud by Bill Martin, Jr. Please look these up and use them with your children, I know my baby LOVES them, especially "The Very Busy Spider." I think he likes hearing the animal noises.

Also, I would like to talk about a classic book that I would have never thought to read to my preschoolers, "The Poky Little Puppy." I have it on board book for my baby and as I was reading it to him tonight, I decided there are a lot of things for infants as well as toddlers and preschoolers to learn from this book. First of all, there is the obvious lesson about following directions with the underlying lesson about the Poky Little Puppy getting what he deserves in the end. But if you look more closely, there are direction/position words, life science, counting, the 5 senses, and some great vocabulary in this book also!

I would begin a lesson on this book with making signs. Have the children decide who they want to keep out of a certain area of the room or what instruction they want to give and help them write it on a sign and actually post in the classroom. Next, there is a wonderful opportunity to do some sensory experiments. Have the children act out the story the way it is in the book and then let them make their own version using their senses to hear, smell, feel, see, or taste something that the mama dog is making for dessert. Also, discuss what body part we use for each sense.  Use the positional words by giving them a puppet and having them guide it THROUGH the meadow, DOWN the road,OVER the bridge, etc.

There is some really descriptive vocabulary in the book as well. Ask the kids what "happy as a lark" means and why they was the puppy so happy? When was the last time you used the words roly-poly, pell-mell, tumble-bumble? Ask the children what they think it means and have them come up with more descriptive words. They can describe the animals the puppies see coming up the other side of the hill, use felt board pieces to retell the story or use cards to sequence the order that the puppies encountered each animal.

Overall, I feel this is a great book and should not be overlooked as an old book, but should be brought back to life and used to the fullest extent in the classroom.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear

This week we are continuing our study of animals. We are focusing on the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr./Eric Carle.

The first thing we did was read the book and put up the animals on the felt board. My class is really into the felt board right now as the librarian has been coming and doing felt board stories once a month. They like to use the pieces to retell the story or make up their own story to act out.

Here is the website that I printed my felt board pieces from because they are just the right size for the felt board, but if you want larger images, you can also use this site.

After we read the book, I used the felt board animals to ask the children questions about animals such as: How many legs does the horse have?, Are there really purple cats?, How many of the animals have tails?, etc. This can lead to the kids coming up with questions of their own and if they can't figure out the answers, this is a great opportunity to say, LET'S GOOGLE IT! Never be afraid to say you don't know the answer in front of the kids even if you do know the answer. It is always more beneficial to take advantage of a teachable moment and let the kids figure out how to find the answer on their own!

The next step in our plan is to make a class book imitating the format of Brown Bear, Brown Bear by using the children's photos and having them write their own name. So it would go something like this: Sam, Sam who do you see? I see Lisa looking at me, etc. We will laminate the book and place it in the library area of the classroom for children to look at and tell the story on their own.