Tutorial Tuesday

Well, I have no guest bloggers scheduled for today, so I thought I would share a couple of tutorials I have posted in the past.

DIY Feltboard

Texture Sequencing Sticks

Fuzzy Caterpillar

Enjoy and have fun creating!

Top 3 Blog Posts of 2011

Here are my top 3 blog posts of 2011. If 2012 continues the same way with followers, I should be doing great this time next year. Keep your fingers crossed!

#3- Spooktober

I did this as a guest post for the blog formerly known as Frogs, Bees & Under the Seas, now Playing with Pixie Dust. The post includes Halloween activities.

#2-Spring Bulletin Board

This was our Eric Carle- Very Hungry Caterpillar board.

#1-Texture Sequencing Sticks

This post won by a landslide with 637 pageviews!

I'm linking up to:

Storytime Sunday

Today's story, inspired by my son who attempted to swallow a bug today and a twitter friend ;), is There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. This classic book has a lot of appeal to preschoolers because well, let's face it, who doesn't think it's funny when an old lady eats a bunch of animals? Anyways, we can get so much out of this book, especially rhyming. Also, you can have the kids sequence the order of the animals she ate. Also, the repetition lends itself to the kids reading along with you.

Felt board pieces are a good visual and a way to get the children involved in the story. I couldn't find a photo of the one we used to have a center I worked at, but it was cool, there was a hole for her mouth and a pouch where you could put the animals in with a clear plastic window so you could see into her stomach. Here is a photo of another Old Lady prop with a hole in the mouth that you can put the animals in. 

And lastly, I found this fun video on Youtube that tells the story.

My 5 Senses

This week we are studying our 5 senses. Here is the post with the books we read and here is the Texture Sequencing Sticks activity that we worked on. We also had the kids do tree bark rubbings, a chart in our science observation notebook about how different items feel and each day we made a list for one of the senses. For example, Wednesday we named something you can hear with your ears. This was used also as a great transition tool as when the child names something, they can choose an area or go wash their hands. We also sang the Peanut Butter and Jelly song and the Make a Pizza song during which we discussed how each flavor tastes and what toppings we would put on our pizzas. During mealtimes we also discussed how different foods tasted. We will most likely be breaking down this topic into individual lessons on some of the senses, especially hearing as the children love to play musical instruments and sing!

And, if that's not enough content for you to begin your 5 senses unit, here is a great resource with TONS of ideas.

Texture Sequencing Sticks

We are going to be starting our lesson on the 5 senses next week. Here is an activity I made that teaches sequencing while adding a sensory aspect by using materials with different textures.

These are very easy to make with the jumbo craft sticks and make sure you use a hot glue gun! (The number 6 is the rough side of velcro) There are many materials with different textures that I'm sure you can find just laying around your classroom. I like having the kids write down or draw pictures of their observations in the class science journal. Have them describe in detail how each one feels, compare the materials and see if they can figure out what each is made from (metal, plastic, etc.). Have fun!