Us Wee Leperchauns Love Making Mischief and Shenanigans

   

     This week has been a shamrocking, shennanigan having, rainbow chasing, Leperchaun hunting kind of week. The week before St. Patrick's day is so much fun for this Irish girl (my maiden name is McConnell). Catholic and Irish, this feast day is about as big for me to celebrate as Oktoberfest is for Germans. Ofcourse I had to share the magical fun exploring the different things that people associate with St. Patrick and Ireland with my kiddo.

     Along with St. Patrick's day we focused on my least favorite letter pf the alphabet to teach...the letter Xx. There are hardly any words that begin with the letter Xx, as you all know. I decided to also focus on words that end in Xx. I am just happy my least favorite letter to teach coincided with a really fun themed week.

     With it being St. Patrick's Day ofcourse there was no better color choice to focus on than green, green, oh and more green!

Lastly, we are in full fledged potty training mode. While at home it has been easiest to let my kid run around with a bare bottom so because of that I am choosing not to share in-action photos of these activities, and more of just the projects alone.

Monday: Intro Uppercase X/Intro St. Patrick
Books: My XYZ Soumd Box by Jane Belk Moncure (just the x word pages)
St.Patrick's Day by Gail Gibbons

Songs:
Xylophone Song (tune of If Your Happy and You Know It)
Oh I wish I were a xylophone
Oh I wish I were a xylophone
I'd make X-mas extra fun and be the life of the party
Oh I wish I were a xylophone

The St. Patrick song on youtube

Activities:
Intro Xx vocab words and Uppercase X coloring page

Play with the xylophone

Intro St. Patrick's Day. Who was St. Patrick. Activities that happen on St. Patrick's Day.

Tuesday: Intro Green/Shamrock Fun
Books: Take Time to Relax by Nancy Carlson
Green by Nancy Harris
St.Patrick and the Peddler by Margaret Hodges

Songs:
Xx Song on youtube
St. Patrick's day songs playlist on youtube

Activities:
Review Xx vocab words

Invisible Xx marker activity- take a white piece of paper and write x's on it withwhite crayons and use markers to color over the psge to find the x's.

Green paint fun -watch them enjoy mixing yellow and blue paint together to make green.

Intro Shamrock. Shamrocks are a symbol that is most popular with St. Patrick as he used it to help teach about the Holy Trinity to the pagan people of Ireland. painting activity-use the green paint your child made to paint a shamrock.

Wednesday: Intro Lower case x/Rainbows
Books: Xx by Kelly Doudna
Corduroy by
St.patrick's Day by Brenda Haugen

Songs:
Do You Know the X-Ray Man? (Tune of Do You Know the Muffin Man?)
Do you know the x-ray man? The X-ray man? The X-ray man?
Oh do you know the x-ray man?
He uses a special camera to take photos of bones.

Yes i know the x-ray man, the x-ray man, the x-ray man.
Yes, i know the x-ray man.
He helps doctors know if our bones are
healthy and strong

Youtube st. Patrick's day music playlist

Activities:
Review Xx vocab words. Lowercase x coloring page.

X-ray fun. Use black paper and white paint to make handprints/footprints/arm prints...etc that look like x-ray photos.

Play with green colored water in kitchen sink

Intro rainbows and their importance to Irish people. Use markets and heavyweight paper to color all over. If it is sprinlling outside you can go out and watch what happens to the rainbowcolors on the paper.

Thursday:Tracing/Scissor Skills Day/Leperchauns
Books: The Leperchaun's Story by Richard Kennedy
The Color Box by Dayle Ann Dodds
Small Green Snakeby Libba Moore Gray

Songs:
The X Song (tune of John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt)
Max X had an extra small xenops
Who played a xylophone
For words that start with x
The people hit the decks
Words like xenops plays xlophones for Max
Xxxxxxx

Youtube st patrick's day song playlist

Activities:
Review Xx vocab words

Make a colorful light box and then play with water beads on top

Green pom pom sorting. Afterwords make little pom pom snakes. Use st Patrick peg doll and roll play the legend of St. Patrick sending the snakes away from Ireland.

Intro leperchauns. Play hide-and-seek where the hider is a pretend Leperchaun.

Friday:Xx Vocab Review Day/Pot 'O Gold (intro money)
Books: Red Fox Running by Eve Bunting
Little Bear Marches In the St.Patrick's Day Parade by Janice

Songs:
What Does the Fox Say?

Youtube St. Patrick's Day song playlist

Activities:
Review Xx vocab and coloring work page

X marks the spot...make a treasure map of house and work together to follow the x's to a special treat.

Play with green playdough

Intro pot o'gold...sort through some change together and talk about what each different coin is called... work together to try make a dollar amount from each coin group. i would not do too much more than that  just yet unless your child really loves to count and yall have done sone more advanced counting skills... most 3 yr olds are not really there yet as far as counting bt 5's and 10's and what not.

I will say on the actual day of St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) I love doing a leperchaun (scavenger) hunt with pre-k aged kids. If you have older middle schoolers/high schoolers you can ask them to help write out clues and put them where they need to go while you keep the littles pre-occupied. It is a fun one to explore together as a family watching the little one's excitement. Do not forget to wear green so the leperchaun's cannot pinch ya!

What other fun ways do you think younger ones would enjoy for this theme? Please share!

Potty Training: Third Time's A Charm!

     Last week I took a break from posting for several reasons. One, I scheduled our Spring break for last week. No it was not spring, but after nine consrcutive weeks of lesson planning, I needed that break. Two, my parents were here visiting on a short stay with us from Florida. They arrived on Ash Wednesday so I knew the rest of the week would have been shot for focusing. Three, I figured it was time to see how my son would do with potty training since it had been over two months since our last unsuccessful attempt.

     Monday we woke up and with no high expectations (after two failed attempts the bar had been set pretty low...) I let my kid run around bare bottomed. Armed with my urine carpet cleaner and energy drinks and lots of his favorite salty snacks we began the tricky process. He had several accidents on Monday morning, BUT unlike last time, he was content on his potty listening to me read books or sing songs. The last time he would only sit down on his potty if he could watch elmo potty time while trying to go.

     I was thouroughly surprised Monday afternoon when he started to have an accident, because we got him to his potty in time to finish what he started.  My child finally got pee in his potty at almost 3 1/2 yrs. old for his first time. There was hugging, cheering, and doughnuts in celebration of this momentous occasion. That is pretty much all it took for him to finally go potty on his potty chair from start to finish. Yes, we have had some accidents, but the majority of them were when we attempted big boy underwear on him while he went out to play. After several days of those types of accidents he realized we only had so many pairs of shoes for him to change into before we had to keep him inside since it was too cold to let him run around barefoot. Yesterday it was actually HOT for us. He could have run barefoot if we had no more clean shoes, BUT he ended up keeping his big boy underwear dry the entire three hours we were out there. We had him come in to try going every half hour and he acted like a champ.

     Now, my kid still refuses to poop in the potty, and I am cool with that. Pooping can take kids a long time to figure out. I am just excited to see the beginning of the end of diapers for us. Also, pull-ups for nap and outings and overnight are still a must. Maybe in a few more weeks I will attempt a short outing in big boy underwear, but not just yet.

     What did I do differently this time around that I did not do the last time? Other than having him try every half hour for no more than five minutes is about it. Hobestlt, it has been all him. If he was not feeling ready, nothing I would have done would have made him anymore ready.

Patience and acting chill when accidents happen are key. Offereng favorite snacks to help pique your child's interest in just trying it out is a great thing. Some kids do netter with a different thing like a special toy they love, but you normally avoid for whatever reason. Anything you think your kid will react to best is what you should do.

What other potty training tips do you have to share???

Welcome to The Wonderful, Whimsical, Weird and Whacky World of Dr. Seuss

     I woke up to receive to heartbreaking news first thing Monday morning. The kind of news that is completely unexpected and leaves you confused, and in shock, and makes you cry, and kind of go through the motions and a mixture of emotions. It has been a rough week when my heart wants to be somewhere else to be of help. Yet, I know I have been where God has wanted me to be and I tried very hard to be present with my little guy as we adventured through another week of learning.
     What a distraction a Dr. Seuss themed week can be to help me keep focused. As you look through the activities you may quickly notice I skipped Green Eggs and Ham activities, mainly because my son is, allergic to eggs. It is a fun thing to watch kids experience green eggs, but for mine it would be dangerous so no green eggs for us.
    We also focused on the letter Ww and my kid's very favorite color, blue.


Monday:Intro Uppercase W/Fox In Socks and Hop on Pop
Books: My w Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure
Fox In Socks by Dr. Seuss
Hop On Pop by Dr. Seuss

Songs:
Working On the Railroad
Willoughby Walloughby by Raffi
Down by the Bay by Raffi

Activities:
Intro Letter Ww and and Ww vocab words from picture dictionary
Uppercase W coloring page

Play with water beads

Fun with rhymes and body movement

Tuesday:Intro Color Blue/The Foot Book
Books:Blue by Nancy Harris
My Wish For Youby Keely Chase (Read to him by his Aunt Crista)
The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss

Songs:
Walk Walk Walk by Raffi
My Wish by Rascal Flatts
Wocket In My Pocket song on youtube
Over the Deep Blue Sea from YouTube

Activities:
Review Ww vocab words from picture dictionary

Make homemade belgium waffles together

Intro Blue and make a blue paint collage with different shades of blue.

Make a family footprint collage with loys of different colored foot prints

Wednesday: Intro Lowercase w/The Cat In the Hat
Books: The Little Blue Truck by
Snow White by Brothers Grimm and the Clever Factory
The Cat In the Hat by Dr. Seuss

Songs:
Herman the worm song
The Cat In the Hat Song
Blue by Eiffel 65

Activities:
Review Ww vocab words from picture dictionary
Lowercase w coloring page

Play with cooked spaghetti noodles mixed with chocolate pudding for "worms"

Play with water in the sink dued blue with food coloring

Make Thing 1 and Thing 2 handprint people

Thursday: Tracing and Cutting Skills Day/ The Tooth Book
Books: Seeibg Blue All Around Us by Sarah L. Schuette
Busy Wheels by Peter Lippman
The Tooth Book by Dr. Seuss

Songs:
Wheels on the Bus
Veggie tales I'm So Blue Song
Oh The Places You'll Go song on youtube

Activities:
Review Ww vocab words with picture dictionary.

Play with hot wheels

Go for a ride in the wagon

Practice tracing and scissor skills work

Blue pom pom sorting

Work on practicing brushing our teeth

Friday: Ww Vocab Review/One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish
Books: Sneezy Wheezy Mr. Shark by Kate Thompson
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss

Songs:
Baby Beluga by Raffi
Green Eggs and Ham song on youtube

Activities:
Ww Vocab review and coloring page

Help wash windows togethe

Play with blue playdough

Make fish shape cut outs and pretend to go fishing together. Try to keep the colors of the fish seperated and count together the different numbers of each color group.

3-2-1! We're Blasting Into Outer Space!!!

     After a crazy weird week for us last week it was nice to be back to a normal routine. As you can guess, this week we learned all things that are part of outer space. Outer space can seem harder for little ones to understand mainly because other than the moon and the stars and the sun it is hard for them to comprehend. They cannot see it so it is not easy to understand. That is why I find some youtube videos and nasa videos much more helpful for them to begin wondering about what is all out there floating around that God created. Learning about outer space is important if only because it does help them open their imaginations up even more. Even for adults outer space is huge. Thinking about what it is like out there is somewhat daunting. As a teenager and college years I loved to get away with a small group of friends and l8e down on blankets or back of trucks or wherever and stare up at the stars on late Summer nights and wonder up at outer space, trying to figure out the meaning of life. My amazement of this started out younger by the fascination of the moon. I am sure most of you all can relate to the awesomness of outer space. Young kids enjoy learning about space, and planets, and the moon. My kid quickly said his favorite planet is Neptune because it is blue, his favorite color.
     Along with learning about outer space my kid and I also focused on the letter Vv and color yellow.

Monday:Intro Uppercase V/Intro Outer Space and Our Solar System
Books: My v Soundbox by Jane Belk Moncure
Eight Spinning Planets by Brian James
My First Dictionary
The Pre-schooler's Bible (Specifically the Creation Story)

Songs: It Takes A Village by Raffi
Veggie Tales Silly Songs With Larry youtube playlist
He's Got the Whole World In His Hands
The Solar System Song on youtube

Activities:
Intro upper-case V and Vv vocab words from picture dictionary. Work on uppercase V coloring page.

Play veteranarian

Intro outer space by using the Creation story. Now just because I am introducing this topic with the creation Bible story does not mean everyone has to. I chose to do it because I want my kid to know that no matter if it happened in a "big bang" or not, as Catholics we believe God was the one who was in charge. He said let there be light and there was.

Show my kid the solar system song video.

Using two paper bowls and green and blue paint we made our own planet Earth. Once it dried we taped the two bowls together.

Also we took turns pretending to be the sun and planet earth. The sun stands still while planet earch spins around the sun.

Tuesday:Intro Yellow/The Moon
Books:The Velvateen Rabbit by Margaret Williams Bianco
Moonstruck by Gennifere Choldenko
Yellow by Sharon Gordon

Songs:
I see the moon and the moon sees me.
God bless the moon and God bless me.
I'm A Little Vacuum (Tune of: I'm A Little Teapot)
I'm a little vacuum hear me vroom!
Over the floor and all across the room.
When I get all revved up see me work.
Cleaning up the carpet and sucking up the dirt!
The Yellow Submarine by the Beatles

Activities:
Review Vv vocab with picture dictionary

Pull out the vaccuum cleaner to let my kid explore how it works. My child has always been terrified of the vacuum so letting him be the one to get up close and figure out how it turns on and off with him in charge helped him be less afraid. He even helped push it while it was on which is a big deal dor him. He normally freaks out and has a bit of a melt down if it is turned on in the same room as him.

Intro color yellow. Use different shades of yellow paint for a yellow collage.

Intro the moon. Recall how the earth spins around the sun. Explain how the moon circkes around the earth. We go to the beach to visit my parents every year so i also explained how the moon helps keep the water on the beach from getting to high or too low. Since he has been to the ocean and remembers it clearly this was actually a fun fact for him.

Use playdough and toys to make craters like on the moon.

Wednesday:Intro Lowercase v/The Sun and Stars
Books: Energy From the Sun by Allan Fowler
A Visit to the Bakery by Sandra Ziegler
Stars by Don L Curry
Curious George Rides A Bike by H. A. Rey

Songs:
Oh Mister Sun by Raffi
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Vacation Song
(Tune:She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain When She Comes)

Oh we're going on vacation on a plane
VROOM!
Oh we're going on vacation on a plane
VROOM!
Oh we're going on vacation
Yes, we're going on vacation
Oh we're going on vacation on a plane
VROOM!
(You can insert bus, or car, or boat instead of plane if you want)

Yellow by Coldplay

Activities:
Review Vv vocab words. Intro lowercase v and coloring page

Play with play vegetables in corn kernals

Play with water in kitchen sink and use yellow food coloring for the color yellow

Intro stars, sun, constellations...use cut up stars or star stickers to let your child create his/her own constellations.

Thursday:Day Off for Health Check-up appointments...our school district took Monday off for President's Day...the beauty of being homeschooled we switched our dayoff this week for today.

Friday: Vv Vocab Review/Astronauts and Rockets
Books: Rockets and Astronauts by Karen Walace
Odd Velvet by Mary E. Whitcomb
Yellow All Around Us by Sarah L. Schuette

Song:
Violen song (Tune of Row Row Row Your Boat)
Play play play a tune
On your violen
Very loud and very soft
Play it once again

Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! We're Flying to the Moon on youtube

Activities:
Review Vv vocab words and work on Vv vocab coloring pages.

Play indoor volleyball...only with a soft ball and focus more on how the child interactively plays more than technique.

Yellow pom pom sorting. After the child picks out all the yellow pom poms have fun creating a pom  solar system.

Play with yellow playdough

Intro astronauts and rocket ships. Play dramatic play by pretending to go on a journey through outer space. Make a pretend rocket ship and if you go to the moon move and jump slowly (or if you are willing make your own "moon stepping stones for added balance), if you go to mars move around super fast because it is hot, or go to neptune and pretent to shiver because it is so cold, or go to jupiter and spin around and get dizzy because it is the fastest planet or crawl low to the ground meteor because it is not in an orbit per say... set up the play tents and pretend it is a space station... everytime you go to another journey remember it is a great time to practice counting backwards to blast-off!

These are just a few fun ideas to help introduce thw idea of outer space to younger kids. What crafts or other activities can you think of? Have fun exploring together!

Valentine Fun

   

     This post has taken WAY to long to be posted and there are several reasons why. The first big one is the fact that my kid came down with a fever Monday and then woke up Tuesday sick to his stomach. Wednesday a family emergency came up that kept me side tracked. Thursday we learned some confusing and sad news and then we had family visitors all week-end. Needless to say it was a very crazy week. We still learned things, but it was all haphazard. I will share with you the things we did get to do for this year's Vakentine's Day theme of the week, but to be honest I did not get many photos taken. We also focused on the letter Uu last week and the color red.

Books We Read
My u Soundbox by Jane Belk Moncure
The Story of Valentine's Day by Clude Robert Bulla (only the pages about St. Valentine)
Knuffle Bunny Free: An Unexpected Diversion by Mo Willems
A Special Friend For Valentine's Day by Patricia Stone Martib
Red by Sharon Gordon
The Ugly Duckling by Polina Lovsin
Our Valentine Book by Jane Belk Moncure
Llama Llama Red Pajama
Unlovable by Dan Yaccarino
Valentine by Carol Carrick
My First Valentine's Day Book by Marian Bennet
Sea Urchins by Lola M. Schaefer

Songs We Sang
Up, Up, and Away In My Beautiful Balloon (youtube)
A Tisket A Tasket
I youtubed Valentine's Day Song Playist for kids and used those songs for us this time to make it a bit easier on me during the wacky week last week.

Activities We Did
Colored our uppercase and lower case Uu coloring pages
Introduced Uu vocab words from our picture dictionary
Played keep it up with some balloons
Did a red painting using different shades of red and then finished with some red glitter
Threw plastic balls underhanded
Played with red playdough
Made a handprint valentine place mat
Used utensils to play with playdough and shaving cream
Played in the sink and used red food coloring in the water
Worked on some valentines.
Made Valentine cupcakes
Made a heart collage
Played indoors with the umbrella
Worked on the Uu vocab coloring page
Did some upside down fun learning how to do handstands...
Had a valentine's day dance party....
Played I spy Red

What fun activities did yall do with your littles for valentine's day? Can you think of other fun Uu activities or ways to make learning colors fun???

Learning With Aesop

 

  Happy Friday everybody! I hope you have had a pretty good and fun week with your family. This has been a pretty chill week for us since we have had rain everyday this past week. I am glad I scheduled this week to be an review week. I was able to use a,whole lot of our favorite sensory activities to go along with all the letters we have covered so far this year. I also thought it would be interesting to indroduce Aesop Fables to my child since we just completed a week of fairy tales and another one of nursury rhymes before that. I thought adding in a week of even newer stories would keep my son's interest. He learned lots of new vocabulary words since Aesop Fables have a more advanced use of language. Here is what our week was like.
Also you can check the menu options bittom on the top right of this to find the link for my archives. You can find photis of pretty much each activity throughout my blog post entries.

Monday:Uppercase A-T Review/ Vocab Review of Letters Aa-Dd/The Bear and the Bees
Books:Animal Orchestra by Ilo Orleans
The Bear and The Bees-Aesop Fable
Carribean Alphabetby Frane Lessoc
Pooh and The Dragon by Ann Braybrooks

Songs:
A-Apples and Bananas by Raffi
B-Baby Mine
C-Church Bells by Carrie Underwood (my kid loves this song. Pretty much the only reason I chose this one)
D-Hey Diddle Diddle

Activities:
Review Aa vocab words
A-made art with paint
Review Bb vocab words
B-build with blocks
Review Cc vocab words
C-play with corn kernals
Review D vocab words
Went to the zoo and played on the real drums there as well as looked for the animals that started with the letters A,B,C, and D.

Tuesday:Review Ee, Ff, Gg, and Hh vocabulary/The Heron
Books:Eeyore Be Happy by Don Ferguson
A Rain Forrest ABC by Amanda Doering
Berenstain Bears and The Gift of Courage by Jan and Mike Berenstain
The Heron-Aesop Fable

Songs:
E-Eagles Wings
F-Five Little Ducks by Raffi
G-The Corner Grocery Store-By Raffi
H-You Be In My Heart- Kenny Loggins

Activities:
Review Ee vocab
E-play in water for empty/full
Review Ff vocab
F-fingerpainting
Review Gg vocab
G-Glitter fun
Review Hh vocab
H-Play with hair gel packets

Wednesday:Lowercase a-t Review/Ii, Jj, Kk, and Ll Vocab review/The Vain Jackdaw
Books:I'll Never Let You Go by Smritu Prasadam-Halls
The Vain Jackdaw-Aesop Fable
Peek-a-boo Kisses by Bernie Saltzberg
Lucy and Tom's ABC by Shirley Hughes

Songs:
I-Inch Worm by Kenny Loggins
J-Jesus Loves Me This I know
K-Let's Go Fly A Kite from Mary Poppins
L-Jesus Loves the Little Children

Activities:
Review Ii vocab
I-Instrument Fun
Review Jj vocab
J-Play with people and jet airplane
Review Kk vocab
K-Play kitchen fun
Review Ll vocab
L-locomotiv fun

Thursday:Mm, Nn, Oo, and Pp Vocab Review/ The Ox and the Frog
Books:The Real Mother Goose ABC by Patty McCloskey Padgett
Clifford and The Grouchy Neighbors by Norman Bridwell
The Ox and The Frog -Aesop Fable
Eat Your Peas, Louise! by PaGeen Snow

Songs:
M-Do You Know the Muffin Man
N-All I Really Need by Raffi
O-This Old Man
P-I Am A Promise

Activities:
Review Mm vocab words
M-play with magnets
Review Nn vocab words
N-Play with dry noodles
Review Oo vocab words
O-play with dry oatmeal
Review Pp vocab words
P-Playdough

Friday:Qq, Rr, Ss, and Tt Vocab Review Day/The Hare and The Tortoise
Books: The Christmas Story From The Preschoolers Bible (Mary, Queen of Heaven)
Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney
S is for Snowman by Kathy Jo Wargin
The Hare and The Tortoise -Aesop Fable

Songs:
Q-Do You Know The Question Man  (from the Qq activities tab in the archives)
R-Somewhere Over the Rainbow
S-You Are My Sunshine
T-Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Activities:
Review Qq vocab words
Q-Play with dry quinoa
Review Rr vocab words
R-Play with dry rice
Review Ss vocab words
S-Play with Shaving Cream
Review Tt vocab words
T-Play with play hut tents

What Aesop Fables do you think your child might enjoy???

Once Upon A Time...

     Once upon a time there was a land that where there lived a little family in a little cottage. This cottage happened to be in a land that had been hit hard with a strong blast of winter arctic air.  The trees dripped in magnificent icycles that hung from the tips of the branches, the ground was covered in white snow that glistened in the sunlight so brightly it hurt their eyes to look out at it's shimmering beauty. The air was so cold that it took their breath away. Not even soft warm coats and thermal underwear seemed to keep the chill out for them to enjoy the bright sunlight for very long. It was the kind of cold that was great at keeping all the people in their homes and even the winter creatures cooped up in their burrows and nests.
     Now the family in the little cottage had a mom, dad, and very active little boy and they were very antsy for the day the neverending cold would end so they could enjoy running around to explore the beauty of the outdoors again. Since it was nearly impossible to do much of that the momma of the family decided it might be fun to spend these cold indoor days enjoying and exploring other worlds by reading a magical book filled with stories all about worlds that had a magical powers. Worlds where a gingerbread cookie comes to life, or a duckling goes on a journey in search of acceptance only to find it is a swan and not a duck at all, or a family of talking bears that comes upon an intruder sleeping in their home. In this book there were also stories of three brother pigs who end up scarring away a big bad wolf and of giants and magic beans. A place where the imagination knows no limits. The place I am speaking of is the world of fairytales ofcourse. Fairytales are magical abd because of that fact the family had so much fun exploring those worlds that they did not fully realize how fast the icy cold blast outside was finally subsiding and the snow had begun melting and the animals emerged from the warm homes until they were woken from the fairytale storybook spell by the sound of a robin singing it's song outside their window encouraging them to come out and play. The momma decided it was time to put that magic book safely away until the cold ever decided to come back again.
      Ok ok ok, so maybe I am not the most creative of children's story book authors, but I had fun thinking my silly little story up. That is a big part of what makes teaching with fairytales so much fun! The ones I ended up focusing on happened to be ones I already owned. Maybe you will be interested in some of the activities we did to help bring them alive for younger kids. We also focused on the letter Tt this week.

Monday:Intro Uppercase T/The Gingerbread Man
Books: My t Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure
The Tale of Peter Rabbitby Beatrix Potter
The Gingerbread Man by The Clever Factory
My First Dictionary

Songs:I'm A Little Teapot
Teddy Bear Teddy Bear
Gingerbread song on youtube...the five gingerbread men

Activities:
Intro Uppercase T/Intro Tt vocabulary from picture dictionary/Uppercase T coloring page

Play with train

Plash trash man (an activity I introduced in the vocations theme week last fall)

Work on dino puzzle because of the T-Rex part

Intro The Gingerbread Man. Make gingerbread men cookies together.
Play tag if you have enough room.

Tuesday:Intro Good vs Evil Opposite Concept/Intro The Ugly Duckling
Books: My Trip to the Zoo by Mercer Meyer
Scuffy the Tugboat by Gertrude Crampton
The Ugly Duckling by Polana Lovsin
My First Dictionary

Songs:Twist and Shout
The Ugly Duckling video on youtube by Walt Disney

Activities:
Review Tt vocab picture words from the picture dictionary

Play with tool set

Work on tool puzzle

Role play/dramatic play with the dr. set to use the thermometer. Show how the real thermometer works.

Intro The Ugly Duckling. Use plastic Easter eggs for sorting and matching. If child is interested you can also play a game where you have your child close their eyes. While they are closed hide one of the colored eghs and then see if they can guess which one is missing.

Wednesday: Intro Lower Case t/Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Books: Loose Tooth by Lola M. Schaefer
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Robert Southey
My First Dictionary

Songs:Twinkle Twinkle
Goldilocks and the Three Bears song on youtube

Activities:
Intro lowercase t/review Tt vocab words from picture dictionary/lowercase t coloring page

Play with the treehouse doll house

Play with dinosaurs, particularly the t-rex one

If there is enough room bring in trike from outside  (if too cold) to play with.

Intro Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Make oatmeal (or porridge if you want) together for lunch.

Thursday:Scissor Skills and Tracining Practice/The Three Little Pigs

Books:Trucks by Gail Saunders-Smith
The Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
The Three Little Pigs by Mei Matsuoka
My First Dictionary

Songs: Tomorrow from the Annie musical
Whose Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf song from Disney

Activities:
Review Tt vocabulary from picture dictionary

Practice tracing work page

Practice scissor skills

Play with trucks and salt and sugar. Watch the different tracks the trucks make in the salt and sugar or sand if that is ehat is preferred.

Work on truck puzzle together

Use triangles of different sizes, shapes, and colors. We used our foam shapes to do this. Seperate the shapes into sizes or colors. Count out the different numbers of each category you ended up choosing. We seoerated them into size then had my kid point out one from each color and counted how many of the color there were.

Intro The Three Little pigs. Use duplos to build a house of bricks and play the part of the story wherethe wolf tried to blow it down...

Find other objects in the house that are light enough that they can move when you blow at them. See which ones the child can blow the farthest.

Friday:Tt Vocab Review/Jack and the Beanstalk

Books: From Tadpole to Frog by Jan Kottle
Clifford's Tricks by Norman Bridwell
Jack and the Beanstalk by The Clever Factory
My First Dictionary

Songs:Thankfulness song from Veggie Tales
Jack and the Beanstalk song from YouTube

Activities:
Review Tt vocab picture words and work on vocab coloring page

Pull out our play tents and tunnel to play with

Play with race car track

Work on the Clifford puzzle together

Intro Jack and the Beanstalk. Play with the dry beans.

What fun fairytale themed avtivities do you love to do for young pre-schoolers?