The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything

When I went to college, I knew I wanted to become a teacher. I grew up living next door to my grandmother and aunt, both of whom were high school teachers, and I loved to read and learn new things. What could be a better profession for me than instilling that love of learning to others? Tonight, as I read my son's book baggie homework with him, I was reminded of how amazing learning is. He brought home his first sight word ring and surprised me by reading many of the words without assistance. Young learners are like amazing little sponges. Eager, willing and full of life.

As I was thinking about what book to review for you tonight, I was thinking back to all of the groups of students I've taught in college and as a classroom teacher. I thought of all of the Fall and Halloween books that I own and use and I thought way back to a practicum in a first grade classroom during the Fall of my senior year. One of the first solo lessons I taught in that classroom was with the book The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams. Being the novice that I was at the time, I believe my cooperating teacher suggested the activity to go along with this book, but I've used it every year I've taught with all of my kindergarten through second grade classes and each class loved it.

In The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything a little old lady is out for a walk in the woods when she encounters some lively clothing. Instead of becoming scared of the boots clomping, pants wiggling, a shirt shaking, gloves clapping, a hat nodding, and a pumpkin head booing behind her the little old lady keeps on walking. When she reaches her house, she comes up with a great idea for the clothing that wants to scare.

When reading this story I always hand out clothing (a hat, a pair of gloves, pants, boots, etc.) students so that we can act out the story as we read. They have so much fun acting and retelling. This book is the perfect blend of scary and smart with a great surprise ending kids will love. What are you afraid of?

 

Firehouse!

I am a HUGE fan of Mark Teague, author and illustrator of several fabulous picture books including Pigsty, Funny Farm and Firehouse!. Firehouse! is a great choice for teaching about Fire Safety or Community Helpers (we just happen to be learning about both this week) and tells the tale of Edward and his cousin Judy as they visit the fire station. Edward and Judy take a tour of the fire station, help clean the truck, and even get to go out on a call and help save the day. Full of colorful illustrations and everything you need to know about a fire station, my five year old son gave this book two big thumbs up!

Magnificent M

In kindergarten, after B, we always teach M. M is for Me, mouse and monsters, which are all great things to talk about at the beginning of the school year. M is also a letter that most kids already know. Here are some fun ways to review or teach M to your little one.

1) Make A List of Words That Begin With M: Every Monday morning after calendar, I read an Alpha Tale book from a Scholastic series I bought the first year I started teaching. Then as a class we brainstorm a list of words that begin with the letter of the week. The M book is called Monkey's Miserable Monday by Valerie Garfield.

Here's my brainstorm list of words that begin with M:

·      macaroni                                    ·      mad                                  ·      magazine

·      magic                                         ·      magnet                             ·      magnificent

·      magnifying glass                       ·      mail                                   ·      mailbox

·      make                                          ·      man                                   ·      many

·      map                                            ·      marble                               ·      March

·      marker                                       ·      market                               ·     Mars

·      marshmallows                           ·      mask                                  ·      mat

·      maze                                          ·      me                                      ·      meal

·      melon                                        ·      meow                                  ·      Mercury

·      mermaid                                    ·      mess                                   ·      microscope

·      middle                                       ·      milk                                     ·      minute

·      mirror                                         ·      miserable                           ·      mitten

·      mix                                             ·      mockingbird                       ·      mole

·      Mom                                          ·      Monarch butterfly               ·     Monday

·      money                                      ·      monkey                                ·      monster

·      moon                                         ·      moose                                 ·      mop

·      more                                          ·      moth                                    ·      mother

·      motor                                         ·      motorcycle                         ·      mouse

·      mouth                                        ·      mug                                    ·      muffin

·      mum                                          ·      mummy                              ·      museum

·      mushroom                                ·      music                                  ·      my

·      M&Ms

2) Letter Detective for M: Look through a magazine and hunt for pictures of things that begin with B. (Parenting and home good magazines are great for this!) When you come across a baby or a basket, cut it out and glue it on a sheet of paper. You or your child can label the picture with a corresponding word to make your very own picture dictionary page.

3) Marshmallow M's: Each letter has a specific shape. Some have similar parts, while others are quite different. Many are mistaken for other letters such as lowercase b for lowercase d and believe it or not M for W. Sometimes it's tricky for kiddos to remember each letter, so studying the shape of the letter when learning it helps. One way to study the shape of the letter is by drawing large letters on construction paper and having your child  place small objects on top of the lines to form the letter themselves.

For this activity, I wrote a capital and lowercase M on a piece of paper for my daughter. I thought my son would want write his own however, he told me he was only "good at the little m's" so I wrote his uppercase M and he wrote his lowercase m.

Then I gave my children a large bowl of marshmallows and had them put marshmallows over the black line to make marshmallow M's. I thought about having them glue the marshmallows to the line with Elmer's glue, but decided against and thought we could pull them out and do this activity again at a later time. Although, I won't tell you how many marshmallows my children consumed while completing this activity, so you may want to opt for the glue so it's only a one time activity.

4) Make a M Bag: I love making the letter of the week bag for review at my house each week. It's really fun to walk around thinking of things that can go in the bag. Simply find a small gift bag, if you're like me you might have about 100 or so of these that you've been saving up after each gift giving time to reuse on others. I found a small little striped bag and perused the toys around my house for M items.

Here are the items I found:

milk, a magnifying glass, Minnie Mouse, mustard, a motorcycle, money, a microphone, a mushroom, and a mitten. As your child becomes more advanced in his/her letter knowledge you could also let him/her find their own things for the bag. I'm anticipating that my son will join me for item hunts later this year.

5) Make ME: One of my Open House projects at the beginning of the year, that we complete during M week is coloring 'mini-me's' to put in our chairs. Simply cut out the shape of a body on large chart paper and have your child decorate it.

Here is my son's 'me'. Do you notice the little red circle head and x on his shirt? That's the skull and crossbones from the pirate shirt he wore to school that day. I love to read 'Me' books when we complete this activity at school. Here are some of my favorites:

6) Shape Monster: Read and make your own Shape Monster book. Then make a Shape Monster and act out the story to review basic shapes. (Follow the link above for more directions on this activity).

7) Make M&M Cookies: In my professional opinion it's a great idea to connect yummy food to a letter. These chewy, delicious cookies are sure to help your little one remember M!

cookies.JPG

They are best served warm, with a tall glass of milk (which also starts with m).

8) Read a Book with Lots of M's: Here are links to some of my favorite 'M' books.

What are some fun things you do to teach the letter M?


An Apple A Day

The end of September has finally arrived, which means two things; my birthday month is coming to an end and everyone is going a little apple crazy. We are back into the swing of school, the weather is getting cooler, and apple trees are bursting with apples. We even have a special day in Kindergarten where we celebrate Johnny Appleseed's birthday (September 26th) and have an apple day complete with making applesauce and being apple scientists. This year his birthday fell perfectly on a Friday, trust me it's better to break the routine and have some fun on a Friday. (Halloween also luckily falls on a Friday this year)!

Sadly, last Thursday afternoon, my Kindergarten son started running a fever. So, I was more than a little bummed for my son to miss Johnny Appleseed Day. (He was pretty bummed too). Instead, I decided we would recreated all of our fun apple activities at home, so he wouldn't miss out. So between couch snuggles, a nap, and a few games of Candyland we managed to squeeze in some apple fun of our own.

We started with the Johnny Appleseed hat. Now, if you know anything about Mr. Appleseed, you probably know that he walked around wearing a pot on his head for a hat. So when we celebrate him it's only fitting that we should make hats. It's also super simple. All you need is a piece of black or gray construction paper long enough to fit around your child's head. I used 18x12 inch construction paper cut in half and stapled together. You also need an apple to glue on the front of the hat (I used a fancy die-cut apple, but you can just cut an apple shape out of construction paper). You also need a brown piece of paper cut to resemble the end of a handle to complete the pot-hat-look.

Simply measure and staple the black or gray construction paper to fit around your child's head, then use a gluestick to glue the apple on the front and a handle on the side of the pot. My son wore his around the house all day, except when he was resting on the couch.

Next we made some apple patterns. First we used mini-die cut apples to lay out patterns on a small strip of construction paper. Again, I had cutesy apples, but you can easily make your own apple cut outs or even use circles and call them apples. We have been learning about patterns in kindergarten so my so has become a little bit of an expert. He insisted on making an "AABB" pattern. He could even show me the pattern core (or unit). I also was not allowed to help him with this.

After using the apple cutouts to make a pattern, I cut an apple in half and we using apple prints to make a pattern as well. He did change up his apple colors by switching to red and green paint, but insisted on sticking with the "AABB" pattern.

After running his print pattern off the paper, my son asked me for another paper. So I got him a piece of easel paper and he created the most amazing picture using red and green paint, his fingers and an apple. As he drew his picture with his hands he made up a story about eating apples and visiting an apple orchard with his Renny. It reminded me of when Nina on the goodnight show draws her sand pictures and tells a story. It was so creative, unprompted and very interesting. Here is the top of his picture where he is eating an apple for lunch.

When his picture was complete, he had filled almost every bit of the chart paper with fingerpainted designs and apple prints.

After we finished with our apple art, I peeled and cut up the rest of the apples we had and made homemade apple sauce. I basically just threw them into a pot with 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and some cinnamon and simmered them until they were chunky mush. My son, who loves applesauce, said it was the best applesauce he had ever tasted.

Although I was a little sad that my son didn't get to spend apple day at school, it wound up being a great Mommy-Son day (minus the sickness of course). We got to spend some quality time together and I got to see the creative side of my son that's starting to emerge. Hopefully this weekend everyone will be healthy and we can make it out to an orchard for some apple picking!