Book Box- Valentines Day

Valentine's Day is all about love and hearts.

This one is my favorite.  It was a gift from one of my parents.  It could also be used during a Mother's Day theme or a farm theme since the puppy lives on a farm.  This cute puppy travels the farm to see what kisses from other animals are like just to find out his mother gives the best kisses.  Also comes in Spanish edition.

     This is another one of my favorites.  It encourages children to be creative while making valentines for friends.  We always made something with lots of heart cut outs after reading this one.

Aurthur's Valentine Countdown by Marc Brown
Bear Hugs by Karma Wilson & Suzanne Watts
The Best Thing about Valentines by Eleanor Hudson
I Love Hugs by Lara Jones
I Love you All Day Long by Francesca Rusackas
Love and Kisses by Sarah Wilson
Mouse's First Valentine by Lauren Thompson
The Night Before Valentine's Day by Natasha Wing
The Secret Valentine by Johanna Maron

The Mitten

I love Jan Brett and her books.  Here is her website that will give you all kinds activities and information about her and her books.  The Mitten is one of those books I love working with in the winter.  We don't get much cold weather down here, but it has been cold since we' ve come back from break.  So, why not use that weather to experiment and read some great winter books.

The kids I'm working with have never seen real snow, so we did a little writing about it.

If it snowed, I would   ("would" is the sight word we worked on)

We read The Mitten by jan brett and The Mitten by Alvin Tesselt an older version.


We used a story map to retell each story.

We used a compare and contrast graphic organizer with the two versions of the story.

If you have a-z leveled books available to you, there is another version of the story at level d.  it is a little low for my kids but we can practice fluency and keep them reading.

This website has lots of neat activities and printables that work with the story.

Here you could print out this neat activity.


Here is a cool experiment using thermometers and mittens.  Which is warmer the mitten or the mitten with your hand in it.  The original idea came from Jan Brett's website, but Corkboard connections gives you good information about experimenting.

If you are in the lower grades, you can put snow (I've used my snow cone maker ) or ice to your sensory table along with different mittens and gloves to see which is warmer.



what a cute numbers to sets activity.

Make, Take, and Teach has 4 mitten activities, rhyming, beginning sounds, number to set, and adding.  I love this website. She always has wonderful freebies.

Do you have a fun mitten activity?

We're going on a field trip!

Do you take your children on field trips?

 

We are taking our Pre-K kids on a walking field trip to the local museum just down the road.  Preparing your children for a field trip is important for safety and insuring your children have a successful learning experience.

 

Field trip kits

 

from DIY Classroom

 

 

It is important to talk about rules of walking or bus riding, bath rooming, staying with teacher, and whether this is a touching place or looking place.

 

 

It is equally important to talk about what you might see and what you want your children to learn from this trip.

 

I absolutely love this before and after graphic organizer.  It was made for 1st graders to do individually, but it can be done with little ones as a whole group. 

 

Get it from Fluttering Through First Grade.  She also has a zoo paper.  Our 1st graders go to the zoo, so I'll pass that on to those teachers.

 

After the field trip!

After visiting is a great shared writing opportunity.  Let children retell the trip in order and include any exciting parts.

 

Do you have a fun way to learn from a field trip?

Science center

Having a science center or multiple science centers is a great way to encourage creative thinking, process thinking, and questioning along with exploration.  I love science.  Kids love science.  The US doesn't even compare to other countries in the subject of science.  I am always disappointed when I don't see much science done with young children.  So, I'm glad to share some of these fun things you can do to encourage your children in the skills they need in science.  You don't always have to understand science to do experiments.  Check these out and try one in your classroom.

First, try teaching the scientific method.  Here are some free cards to help.  Then leave them in the science center to remind children what real scientists do.
Thank you Ginger Snaps



Materials needed:
magnifying glasses
lab coat (optional but cute)
notebooks or paper
writing utensils
little clipboards are fun
An Experiment (try these)

Sensory table- Made for exploring materials by using mainly your hands and by using your hands you can use other senses and explore (pouring) measuring, language, sharing.
This site does a good job explaining why sensory play is important.
You can learn how to make your own sensory table at Teach Preschool.
remember when making a sensory tub to have at least 2 inches of materials and enough extras to provide each child with one or more. Remember it takes time to explore these skills, sometimes a child will pour something 100 times before they are willing to give up the item, so this center is not recommended to use as one to teach sharing, it just happens when they want something new, they might trade but probably wont take turns. Children need to be reminded to keep the materials in the tub and to pic them off the floor when they do fall. if you find children taking something out to play with it somewhere else, you should provide another one to play with. don't confuse the sensory tub with a place to provide a game- such as fishing game in water. Children need to use their hands to explore.
beans, rice(slippery), pasta rocks, shells, water, fake snow I found these cute plastic bulldozer type car, real snow, Easter eggs, Easter grass, ice with salt, sand (slippery), fake leaves
Things to include: scoops, tongues, measuring cup (i also use laundry detergent lids), turkey baster, egg beater, toys magnifying glasses
Here is something called cloud dough. It looks like a good substitution for moon dough.
here are some cute ones to look at and each of these sites usually do a monthly sensory bin you can look at others they've made

space theme I love the shiny pasta.



rainbow garden its bright and uplifting



flower garden to this one you could add colored cups to encourage sorting



Another cute one.

Here are some other ideas for sensory tubs.

Here are some amazing and colorful sensory tubs.

Water table
     sink and float- try it with apples and pumpkins this fall

If you have one you would like to share please leave your site on the comments section. I love to see how creative people can be.

Discovery Bottles
This is the easies, cheapest and least messy way of allowing kids to explore and question.
Check out this previous post for how I store mine.


Great discovery bottle ideas


Light Table
make your own light table or less find directions at Teach Preschool and then look at how she made light table disks.

Here is another mini version light table which might be more appropriate in the older grades. If I could find one of these containers I would make one this size, maybe two.


ideas for light table including a cool Christmas tree



Experiments

See through planter



This looks like amazing fun. Neat version of salt and ice.


Baking soda and vinegar, the more scientific version

Lots of weather related stuff here


I love it when learning becomes 3D.  I am so sick of seeing the Water Cycle worksheet.

Steve Spangler science always has neat experiments


clouds in a jar from teach preschool

Color mixing using flashlights

ice in a bag, color mixing too

More color mixing, but also how to use a science journal

Literacy center- listening center

Listening center
     As a child I remember having a Mickey Mouse record player with hundreds of records tht came with books.  My sister and I would recreate the stories like we were putting on a great play.  Reading to children teaches kids to read.  That's why we tell parents it is so important to read with their children on a daily basis.  As a teacher, we do not have the time to read lots of books directly to children.  I believe a listening center is a great substitution.
     You could buy one of those listening centers set up with head phones, which can be quite expensive, or you can use multiple CD players like Kids Count 1234.  You'll find the link below.

     Scholastic is a great place to order books and the CD's to go with them.  I order multiple books when they are only $1, so the kids do not have to share a book while listening.  Many books are in a sing song rhythm, which makes for lots of fun watching to childre dance to the story while they are listening.

     You can also record your own voice reading a book.  This would also be a good way to get parents involved.  The kids love hearing familiar voices on the tape. 

     As children get older, they can express their thoughts about the story on a response sheet. 

Here you'll find a free response sheet.  Check out how she uses multiple CD players for multiple listening options.

Here is another response sheet

Here is another response sheet

Here you'll find another simple response sheet.

 Anything with a cute font makes an activity fun.  First with Franklin does that with this book review sheet.

Here is another cute freebie from Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten