Friday, February 28, 2014

Dr. Seuss Learning Adventures

We are having so much fun with our Dr. Seuss Learning Adventures.
Some of the fun Seuss activities we did this week in my classroom:
1. Created Dr. Seuss Characters using various art materials.  

I put animal print paper cut-out in various shapes along with feathers, googly eyes, and crayons on the table. I placed Dr. Seuss books nearby to inspire their creativity, but allow the children to choose to make whatever creation they desire.



 

 He made a "Do-Da-Ma-Dad"
 She made a "silly penguin"
 He made "A Dr. Seuss Water-Ma-Doodle"
 A "Silly Man"
"The Cat-in-the Hat"


My bulletin board with our finished characters

2. Rhyme Time Game
We love focusing on rhyming while doing our Dr. Seuss unit. We play a fun and super easy rhyming game from prekinders.com. Click here for prekinders printable rhyming games.

3. After reading "Put Me in the Zoo" we made our own "Put Me in the Zoo" characters and charted what our favorite color is:

4.  We created "The Cat in the Hat" and "The Lorax" Paper Plate Puppets.






5. Puppet Show: Our puppet creations were a big hit with the children. Some of them decided they wanted to put on a puppet show using their new puppets. It was their idea to then work together to create a special sign for their puppet show that we hung in the auditorium for their little performance. What a great idea! They all either performed or participated as audience members! Such a great preschool memory!


 Performing their "show":


Friday, February 21, 2014

My First Linky Party: 5 For Friday!

I'm excited to explore all the wonderful resources of fellow teacher bloggers out there with my first 5 for Friday Linky Party!

 I linked up with Doodle Bugs Teaching.


5 Things About Me & My Week:



I organized my new blog with a fun new blog template! I love it! Check it out and follow my blog and I will follow you! xo



Today I discovered that Dunkin Donuts has a reward card! Hello I'm Kimberly and I'm a coffee-olic and this is fabulous! Free coffee on your birthday too, where have you been all my adult life?! 



Tonight I discovered these gems at Francesca's! They were each on clearance for $6.98 each. I'm pumped to plan cute teaching outfits to go with them! 





I posted a link on my blog about this fun math game I found and put together for my kiddos from prekinders! They had a blast pretending to be mailmen/mailwomen!


I put together this care package for a fellow teacher's husband who just had surgery. Super easy but I think it's a great way to make someone recovering feel a little bit better.



Mailbox Math

Here's a super easy and fun shape matching activity I found on one of my favorite early education websites: Prekinders.






How to prepare the game:

  • Get or make little mailboxes. I found mine at the Target dollar spot. I bought 5. You could try making the mailboxes with little milk cartons too to save money.
  • Print out the envelopes and mailbox labels from prekinders. Link here.
  • I laminated them to make them more sturdy. 
  • Cut the envelopes as close to the little lines as possible to make sure they fit properly into the slots. Do not cut down the middle. 
  • Fold the envelopes in half and glue together to make it look like a real envelope. 
  • Glue shape label onto the little mailboxes.


How the game works:
The kiddos can work individually or in a small group. They take turns matching the little envelopes with the corresponding shape on the mailbox and then they put that envelope into the correct mailbox slot. 

On Prekinders there is also an option to play the game with numbers as well! 



Easy and fun way to practice shape recognition! 

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Get Well Gift Idea

For a fellow teacher's husband who just recently had hand surgery I organized this super easy and inexpensive get well/speedy recovery care package:



What's inside?:

  • little basket I got from the Dollar Tree
  • lots of candy
  • gum
  • tic-tacs
  • hand soap
  • pain reliever 
  • some magazines I purchased and some I "borrowed" from my husband's subscriptions 

Other items you could include in the care package:
  • tissues
  • Chap-stick
  • books
  • movies
  • I-Tunes or Netflix gift card
  • back scratcher
  • notepad/journal


Monday, February 10, 2014

Dr. Seuss Literacy Night

Fun Literacy Night Event

For a fun family event we have a Dr. Seuss Party in my classroom every year.

During the event we share how we promote reading readiness in our classroom, display our literacy activities, and hand out tips for building reading skills at home. But we have found the key to having a successful family event is to make it fun and interesting for the kids and families to enjoy. So we have a party too.

For this event we celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday!

To prepare for the event we do many fun Dr. Seuss activities leading up to the celebration that we later display proudly for the families on that night. 

Here are some of our Seuss Activities:
1) The kiddos vote: Do You Like Green Eggs and Ham?

2) Thing 1 and Thing 2 hand prints

3) Graph showing how we estimated, counted, and created patterns with  “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish” rainbow goldfish

4) Dr. Seuss characters using various art supplies
 
5) We also made shape creations after reading “The Shape of Me and Other Stuff” by Dr. Seuss 
The caption on each picture says: "A _____ is just a _____ until you add _____ then it becomes a ________."
6) We also discussed and created emotions artwork after reading Dr. Seuss’s “My Many Colored Days”. 
Caption says: "______(color) makes me feel ________."
7)After reading "If I Ran the Zoo" we created our own unique Seuss-like characters using animal print paper

For instance, one student created: "A Dinosaur, he has frog feet"





On the day of the party we set up some cute Dr. Seuss snacks for the families:

Hop on Pop Popcorn
 One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish Sandwiches
 Truffla Tree Fruits(Grapes) & 10 Apples Up on Top Apples

Another view of our sandwiches

The whole spread:

For the link to the food labels I used click here.

 The grande finale was a special reading of "The Cat in the Hat" by the famous cat himself (a wonderful Dad who was a good sport)!
  
The event was a big hit with the kids and families! Can't wait for this year's celebration!