Book Love: Bernice Gets Carried Away

I shared this book during our birthday theme, and the kids keep asking to read it during center choice time, so it's making it to the Book Love list. :)

I feel like kids and grown-ups alike can relate to this story, because at times we all feel like things aren't going our way and it's easy to get caught up in those emotions. I especially love the illustrations in this book, and how they become brighter along with the main character's mood.

Read-Aloud Tip: Some ideas in this story may not be as obvious to young children right away during the read-aloud. I like to take the time to point out what the characters are feeling and why they might be feeling that way, encouraging them to connect to the text. Sometimes there are clues in the illustrations that help us to understand, and other times we need to think of our own ideas.

Connecting Activities: There are a lot of fun balloon activities you could do alongside this book. We kept things pretty simple this year, but I was thinking it would be cool to explore helium balloons, and why more or less balloons would lift something off the ground for a STEM connection. Maybe if the interest in the book keeps up, we will try it! Anway, we painted with dot markers, played with balloons, and did some loose parts exploring this time around.

 This activity was one of our first for exploring loose parts this year. As I watched the students interact with the materials, I noticed a lot of one-to-one correspondence practice happening as they created the balloons. It's always fun to see what learning experiences the students create for themselves!

Birthday Traditions in Preschool

We celebrated 3 birthdays during our first weeks of preschool this year, 

so it was perfect to jump right into a birthday theme during our second week of school. 

Over the years, I've tried to develop ways to involve my students in little birthday traditions that can help to make celebrating birthdays in class extra special. 

We painted birthday stars that hang in our classroom. Whenever a student has a birthday, we take their star down and turn it into a necklace that they can wear and take home. 

 This leads to some fun conversations through the year about whose birthday is coming up next, how many stars are left, etc.

Each class also painted a birthday cake that we will pull out on birthdays as part of our celebration. 

In the past I've used different birthday cakes that we also use in dramatic play for birthday celebrations, but I thought it would be fun this year to have the students help make the cakes. I LOVE how bright and colorful they turned are, and I poked holes in the top so we can put in pipe cleaner candles.

Birthdays in Preschool

There is one day during the year that is extra special because it celebrates you! We spent some time thinking about birthdays last month, as part of exploring our similarities and differences. Birthdays can be a great learning topic because the children already have background knowledge for how their family celebrates birthdays, and there are a lot of ways to integrate math, literacy, sensory, and social learning into birthday celebrations!

Birthday Cake Playdough

I first knew the students would be interested in birthdays when multiple children made birthday cakes out of playdough and straws. I loved the child-led learning that took place with this activity: different kids pretending it was a birthday cake, using fine motor skills to cut the candles, and counting the candles.

Water Beads Sensory Bin
Water beads are so bright and colorful, they seemed like a great addition to some birthday play. I was excited to see how the children would interact with them, and their imaginations really took off.  There was a lot of scooping, and making ice cream, soup, snail eggs, and more! This sensory material is hard to resist.

Birthday Cake and Ice Cream Dramatic Play

I set out various materials to encourage some dramatic play, like gift bags, pretend cakes, birthday crowns, ice cream scoops + cones, pipe cleaners and colorful pom poms.

 

 Counting Birthday Candles

These birthday cakes are made out of cardboard with tiny holes big enough for a pipe cleaner candle to poke through. That makes this a fine motor challenge and math activity all in one!

Balloon Painting + Parachutes
We  also used balloons as a painting tool, which was fun and a little messy if they accidentally popped...

And the favorite balloon activity was bouncing balloons on the class parachute. :)

Months of the Year

We used the topic of birthdays to talk about the months of the year, and how they go in a cycle. Time and the calendar year is a pretty abstract concept for preschoolers, but we focused on how each child has a special month, there are special things that happen during the months, and the idea that the pattern of months repeats itself over and over again. One way we did that was to walk around the names of the month in a circle, singing a little song. (hard to get a clear picture...)

We also used our all about me posters and birthday stars to see when everyone's birthdays fall.

Birthday Stars
We are starting a new birthday tradition in our classroom in this year by painting birthday stars and hanging them in our room. On a child's birthday, or Star Day, we will take the star down and they can take it home as part of their special day.