Hello all! Ok, you caught me, I didn't actually have anything to post about for Storytime Sunday this week because we are about to wrap up our study and go to spring break (yay!). So... I decided to see if there were any Amazon Widgets I haven't tried yet. And lo and behold, here is what I came up with.
DEALS! I don't know about you, but I love me some good deals. I just chose a random category of children's books, Farm Animals.
Enjoy! I hope you find a great deal you can't resist. I think I will be using this Widget quite a bit more in the future.
Here is my selection of books for our food study. I love the ones with the little veggie guys! The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza is a great book to show the steps in making a recipe. You can even have the children try to make the recipe on their own. The book The Doorbell Rang and another one I couldn't find on Amazon, How Many Ways Can You Cut a Pie? are really good for introducing division/fractions in a simple easy to understand way for young children.
Click HERE to see a past post I did about this book.
I have been seeing this book all over the blogosphere for Valentine's Day. I know it's a little late, but I have been playing catch-up. I decided to read this and have the children make their heart animals as I have seen others do. Here is how ours turned out:
Also, I did the colored heart ice cubes with L. Here are some photos. He liked it, but he kept wanting to eat them and I was afraid he would choke, so we didn't do it for too long.
I filled the ice tray with water and then used one drop of food coloring for each ice cube which I figured out was way too much. I should've made colored water and then used it to fill up the tray. Although when we were done, the cubes had only melted a little, so I recycled them by putting them back in the tray, adding a little water and refreezing them.
This week, since I am returning from being on "blog leave" LOL, I am going to talk about a few things my son has been really into recently. He loves the book "From Head To Toe" by Eric Carle, and of course, I am a huge fan of Eric Carle. Since I realize I haven't even mentioned his name on this blog for a while, I decided to go ahead and go with it. He loves more than anything I think, watching mommy and daddy be silly and do all the animal movements. Some of which he will imitate, but mostly he would rather laugh at us.
Also, though the doctor recommends no screen time under the age of 2, and we were pretty much following this rule up until a couple months ago if for no other reason than he wouldn't even look at the TV when we turned it on. But now, he is obsessed with Baby Einstein. He will even go to the TV stand, open the drawer and take out a video and bring it to one of us. Also, we have a long drive to and from his school/my work, so I have installed the portable DVD player in my car as well for him to watch.
Made out of an old pair of jeans :)
Anyways, one of the videos is Baby Da Vinci. It shows a hand drawing different body parts, kids displaying said body parts and them performing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes." My son has recently taken to doing it as well. It is so funny to watch him try and do it by himself. So in short, I highly recommend these 2 items for any baby/toddler!
Here he is totally fascinated by the baby on the screen!
Here are the books I chose for my son to go along with our Valentine's sensory tub since we are so busy at school working on our All Around the World study.
I mostly chose books about love or friendship that I had around the house. It was so cute tonight, after 2 days of playing with his sensory tub, he pointed to the picture of a heart in his bedtime prayer book tonight!
Here are some photos of how I put it together: (Keep in mind this is for a 1yo, so I tried to use larger items to cut down on choking hazard although the tinsel could be potentially harmful, but I am right there with him when he plays)
Plastic placemat in the bottom. (It doesn't really serve a purpose, I just decided to stick it in)
Tinsel next.
Then hearts, there are 3 different kinds each with a different texture: rough (glitter), smooth and shiny, and soft (velvet).
I added the heart-shaped measuring cups and spoons.
Silicone heart-shaped ice cube trays and cupcake tray (?)
Other random things I had: red boa, pink heart wire, a harmonica, silicone cupcake wrappers, and a frog.
Then the containers were added. He LOVES to put things in containers and the pour them out again. I used a mailbox and a lips-shaped plastic container.
Then added a heart-shaped box and a ruler.
Put a letter (made with Cricut) in the mailbox.
Next, to apply the scratch and sniff stickers for ultimate sensory experience. Chocolate flavor of course!
I wanted L to help me, but he wasn't too interested, so I did it myself.
Here is the final product.
I also purchased this small box (for .09!) because I know how much he loves opening and closing containers.
I painted that red and here's how it turned out. I also placed this into my sensory bin.
And, last but certainly not least, L's favorites: The Valentine's duckies! He can make the sound of a duck, so cute!!!
Oh, and I got most of the materials from Deals, Target, and Michael's.
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!
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!
