Book Love: Bones

This year multiple kids have expressed an interest in learning a little more about bones, so I included that topic as we've been discussing how to take care of our bodies.

One of my favorite non-fiction authors/illustrators is Steve Jenkins, and his book Bones is a fun and fascinating way to look at different kinds of skeletons.

This is not a book that I read word-for-word outloud to a class of this age group, but the fantastic illustrations are great for exploring what different parts of the body look like as a skeleton. The kids get also get really caught up in guessing and comparing the different animal bones as well.

Read-Aloud Tip: As you move through the pages, invite the kids to try to find and explore the different bones in their body. This works especially well with all the different bones in your hand. This time around I had some kids get really excited when they discovered the bones in their head and face.

Bones Art Extension Activity:  We created our own bones art using glue and q-tips. Some kids also turned their name into bones.

Brush Your Teeth

We've been talking about things that we do with our families, and this week's focus has been learning to take care of our bodies. Here are some of the ways we've been exploring our teeth.

Toothbrush Painting

This art activity is always a hit. We brushed white paint onto yellow paper to make happy smiles.

Although I drew the outline for their first mouth to paint, one student wanted to create his own for a second go around. He kept count of how many teeth he had brushed and cleaned as he painted, which was a fun process to observe. 

Brushing and Flossing Dramatic Play

I painted plastic egg cartons and the bottoms of clear soda bottles to create "teeth" for us to work with this year. The kids could make cavities using play dough or dry erase markers, and then floss and brush the teeth.

Counting and Adding with "The Mouth Game"

I use this activity as both a free play game and a "teacher time" game- meaning I directed the play with small groups or individuals. I played this with individual students, and varied the objectives depending on their level and understanding. The simplest way to play is to roll the dice and add that number of teeth to the mouth. It's a great way to build number sense, and practice counting and creating sets with one-to-one correspondence

I added additional challenges for my pre-K students, such as determining the partners of 10 (each mouth has 10 spaces) or adding their previous number with their new number to determine the new total.

If you play this game like a race, where you take turns and see who can fill up their mouth first, then it lends itself to some great math talk about who has the most, who has the least, how many spaces are left, etc.

Felt Board Singing and Play

I also have some felt board pieces of a mouth and teeth that I use for songs and other activities. I often use this mouth with small black pieces to talk about cavities, and involve the kids in brushing them away as we talk about how to keep our teeth strong and healthy. 

Scissor Skills with Paper Strips

Snipping strips of paper is one way for kids to practice using scissors that is less frustrating or overwhelming than working with a whole piece of paper. Today we made a paper leaf pile by snipping colored strips of paper.

I use colored pom-poms on the top of my scissors to remind kids where to put their thumbs, and to keep their thumb up as they cut. Every time they snip, they are developing the fine motor skills that will enable them to eventually cut more challenging projects with ease and confidence. As their muscle strength and coordination increases, using scissors will become an automatic skill.

We used our snippings to create simple fall tree collages. Picking up the small pieces of paper, pressing them into the glue sponge, and placing them on the collage also requires the use of fine motor skills.

When I plan projects like this, I always try to think beyond my adult-like tendency to focus on the final product. Sure, I want my students to create something that they are proud of. But my learning objectives almost always have to do more with the process than the product. In this case, I saw an opportunity to encourage different kinds of fine motor development with the creation of what some might see as just a simple fall tree.

Halloween Popcorn Party

As a little girl, I loved this Halloween book called Popcorn by Frank Asch. When I went to look for it as a teacher, I couldn't even find it at the library because it had been out of print for a long time. I found out recently that it has been published again and bought my own copy- mostly out of nostalgia.

I'll be honest, after reading the story again with my adult eyes, I can't say it impressed me as much as it did when I was a little girl. But I do still think it's fun to imagine popping so much popcorn that it fills up a whole house. And the story can lend itself to some great discussions about choices, consequences, and problem solving- if you are looking for a way to make the read more meaningful. Sometimes though, I think it's also great to read silly stories that are just for fun. After we read it, we made popcorn for our own Halloween snack.

Popping popcorn is one of my favorite ways to introduce the five senses, and reading this book gave us a good excuse to do just that. So we focused on using our five senses as the popcorn cooked in the air popper. First we could hear it and smell it, and then we could see it popping out of the top. After it was finished, we touched it and tasted it as we ate it.

It was our own little Halloween popcorn party...but luckily we made just the right amount so that we didn't have to eat a whole house-full like in the book. :)

Spiders and Webs

Along with some Halloween activities this week, we've also been learning a little bit about spiders.

"Spider Eyes" Sensory Bin and Counting

The first part of this activity is scooping up the googly spider eyes from the bin.

Some students were engaged with that process alone, and spent their time just exploring the bin. 

Some students took it a step further, and brought their eyes to the spider building table. 

Earlier in class we talked a little bit about the number of legs and eyes that spiders can have. Many spiders have 8 eyes, but that number can vary depending on the species. It was fun to see the different ways that the students made their spiders.

Spider Web Marble Art

This is one of my favorite art processes. Just dip the marble in paint, and roll it around to create a unique web.

Later we added some spiders. 

Spider Web Lines

Spider webs have been another fun way to think about lines. We explored the straight and curvy lines in spider webs on the chalkboard table. I drew the outline of the web, and the students filled in the rest. 

This inspired one student to try making his own web with the chalk outside. 

Spider Web Yarn 

I had planned to make several different spider webs out of yarn in the classroom to use for a spider hunting/counting/sorting activity, but it was hard to find places that would work.

So I changed my mind, emptied out this shelf, and set out several different strings for the kids to explore on their own. They worked hard to create their own spider webs. 

Book: The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle

This is a simple and fun book that shows the process a spider might go through to spin their web. I love that the lines of the web are raised, so that students can explore the lines in a tactile way.

Field Trip to the Fire Station

As part of our fire safety week, we went on a field trip to our local fire station. It was such a great learning experience!

The firefighters did such a great job showing us around the station and talking to us about fire safety.
The kids were especially excited to see the fire trucks. They were even able to sit inside!

They also showed us all the equipment and tools that they keep inside the trucks to use in emergencies. It's amazing how much they carry! Then one of the firefighters showed us how fast they have to get dressed in all their gear before a fire.

He also showed us how they breathe with oxygen masks when they go into a burning building. I thought it was so great for the kids to see that so these helpers would hopefully appear less scary in an emergency situation.

Thanks to the fire station for a fun morning- and for all the work they do for our community!

Fire Safety in Preschool

This week we learned about fire safety and firefighters.

Sensory Bin: Spraying Fire

Our sensory bin was filled with spray bottles and foam "fires" to spray.

Building and Dramatic Play

We also had "fire blocks" in the block center, that led to some dramatic play with putting out the fire in a building like a firefighter.

(He's using a cardboard tube like a hose to put out the fire)

Fire Art

We mixed yellow and red finger paint to create orange fire art.

Fire Safety

We also talked about fire safety in the preschool and at home. We located our smoke detector and fire extinguisher, and practiced the things to do in case of a fire. One simple motto that we practiced was:

"Don't Hide, Go Outside!"

To top it all off, we took a field trip to the local fire station to learn more about the firefighters in our community.

Book Love: Lines that Wiggle

I am always looking for good literature to support the topics that we are exploring in our classroom. More often than not, I find myself adapting books slightly to meet the needs of my age group or to fit the specific focus that I am trying to emphasize. But every once in awhile, I find a book that is EXACTLY what I'm looking for.

Title: Lines that Wiggle

Author: Candace Whitman

Illustrator: Steve Wilson

Why I Love this Book: I came across Lines that Wiggle as I was searching for some new ways to teach about working with lines as an early literacy skill. The text in this book is simple, which allows the creative and whimsical illustrations to shine. The lines in the book are raised, offering an additional tactile experience for the reader. Some of the lines are a part of pictures that are more imaginative, while some point out lines on real-life objects, such as leaves, sprouts, and animals. I loved that this book drew attention to different kinds of lines in fun and yet meaningful ways. For my teaching purposes, it is a perfect book to introduce lines to my students and get them excited about noticing them before we focus more exclusively on how lines make up letters, numbers, and shapes.

Read-Aloud Tip: This book lends easily lends itself to incorporating movement as you read. I encouraged my students to try to make different lines with their hands, arms, and bodies throughout the book. I used prompts like "Show me a line that wiggles!" or "Use three fingers to make a line in threes." 

Connection Activities: After we read the book, we did a quick "line hunt" to find lines in the classroom. It only lasted a few minutes, but there was a lot of enthusiasm and excitement about realizing that lines are everywhere!

There are a lot of different ways you could turn lines into art, but we chose to do a line page in our writing journals. The students used lines to draw anything they wanted, and then told me about what they created.

Pumpkins, Pumpkins

Since we harvested our pumpkins last month, we've been using them in our classroom in many different ways- along with other fun pumpkin activities! These were some of our favorites:

Sensory Play: Pumpkin Washing

Sensory Bin: Pumpkin Patch

This sensory bin contained pumpkin seeds, small pumpkin jewels, pipe cleaners and pom-poms. I included the boxy container as an extra material, and the kids decided on their own to use it as a sorting tool to separate the seeds from the pumpkin jewels. 

Pumpkin Math Dice Games

We've used these mats for simple dice games, such as rolling the dice and adding/taking away seeds from the pumpkin or pumpkins from the patch. A great careful counting activity that also uses fine motor skills. 

Pumpkin Painting

Classic fun. :)

Pumpkin Seed Exploration and Counting

Inspired by this book, we opened up one of the Jack-Be-Littles, cleaned it out, and counted the seeds inside.  We counted the seeds together using ten frames, so everyone worked on their one-to-one correspondence while filling up ten or twenty squares at a time. We were amazed to discover that our small little pumpkin had 168 seeds!