One of the fun things I have done for my kids this summer to keep track of our summer fun was create a simple summer activity passport for her! It’s a way to keep track of the fun we’ve had this summer as well as encourage the kids to decide which activities we want to make sure to fit in this summer.
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When I think about summer, I think of the sudden increase is dirt and mud everywhere! Baths are a frequent necessity. Strawberry and Kitty love to dig, apparently only encouraged by their brother, who is on a new emphatic hunt for “rocks” hiding beneath our lawn and play set.
The only way to get by is to embrace it, I know! I knew the perfect picture book to go along with dirt: I’m a Dirty Dinosaur! by Janeen Brian and Ann James.
One thing I love about I’m a Dirty Dinosaur is that as the dinosaur gets progressively dirtier, he spends time relishing in the mess: first his messy feet, then his messy hands, and then his messy tummy, and so forth. Strawberry loves to act out the simple rhythmic pages for each messy part of the Dino.
The most clever part of the simple art in this book is that the dirty brown that covers this adorable dinosaur in each picture is actually mud! To extend the fun, we decided to make our own mud paintings.
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My daughter is so proud that she can read simple consonant-vowel-consonant words now. She still needs to sound them out sometimes, but it comes with ease now. Because she’s gotten to this point of fluency, she can read for understanding.
The best activity we’ve done lately is switched the right words to the wrong words. It makes for a funny sentence. I made up a center for her to practice sentences editing and correcting CVC words. In the simple sentences, which have a related image, just one letter is incorrect. The resulting sentence has a CVC word that makes no sense! Finding the errors is a hoot!
I printed the cards with sentences and laminated them so my daughter could circle the WRONG words using a dry erase marker. The lamination also preserves the task cards for future use!
I also created a recording sheet for others to record the incorrect words and write what the word should be. I knew that my daughter was not ready for the writing aspect of the activity, but some students will be. This could be a great handwriting practice activity as well.
Now that my girl has learned to sound out CVC words, the world of stories is opening. The best part of our Sentences Editing project was that she could find the humor in the incorrect words.
Check out some sample sentences:
Her bright wed sled is fast.
The tot can hit the pat.
The water gum is lots of fun!
The cop mops the web spot.
She understands it all! And she finds it hilarious.
Want to bring laughter into your reading practice? Let your early reader find the errors in this hilarious “editing” task card set!
You can get this product at my Shop or at my TPT store.
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Part of the hilarity of P.D. Eastman’s Are You My Mother? lives in the fact that the baby bird wonders if his mother is an airplane or a “Snort.” Even toddlers will be quick to giggle at the ridiculousness of that! Strawberry and I also enjoy reading this classic together because she loves to pretend to be my baby bird. Yes, she’s a big girl, ready to do everything herself! But sometimes, just sometimes, she comes to me for a cuddle. Mother-Baby Matching activities are just what my baby-loving big girl loves.
Are You My Mother? lends itself well, then for two different types of activities. First, we used the book as a starting point for a discussion on what things have mothers and which things do not. The book also suggest the activity of matching babies and mothers together. My daughter loves mother-baby matching activities! Mothers and babies just belong together.
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Ever since my son and I began studying the History of Science with Beautiful Feet Books last year, I’ve been on the lookout for something similar that will be a perfect match for my school-averse kindergartner.
Imagine my delight to find an early elementary curriculum that travels around the world: Around the World with Picture Books. My kindergartner has loved the chance to explore different countries, just by reading books and doing similar, related projects.
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I love the Spanish language, but just because I mostly know it myself does not mean that it’s been easy teaching it to my kids. I’ve been trying to speak to my son for five years and he’s fought me. It is so hard for him to develop confidence in a new language. Now he’s ten and my second child is 6. I’ve finally found something that gets them both excited about speaking and learning Spanish. It’s Foreign Languages for Kids by Kids®, which helps them gain confidence by showing other kids speaking Spanish at their level.
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There is stage each of my kids has enjoyed, between two and three, when they truly loved Pete the Cat’s I Love My White Shoes! Since it is so fun to sing the song and toddlers are just starting to recognize colors, it’s a perfect stage for beginning color recognition and color matching.
I was amazed by my daughter’s speaking one day when I overheard her singing to herself in the back seat of the car at a very young age.
“Shoes!” I caught. Then “White!” It was clear as a bell, but she was wearing Buster Browns. What was she talking about?
After a few moments, I recognized the song: it was Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes!
Do you know that song? It is this one:
She loves shoes, she loves Pete the Cat, and she loves singing that song! It’s a perfect picture book and story for a toddler-aged learner. It provides a story about shoes that change from white to red, to blue, to brown, to white again. It shows a character being positive, even when things happen (like walking in something!).
Now it’s my third child who is bursting in to song when she sees her shoes!
I thought I’d make up another fun game for my toddler: this time featuring all colors of cool shoes! Here is the Shoes Color Matching FREEBIE for you too.
The Shoes Color Matching game has ten pairs of shoes in ten colors. Put the shoe pairs pages on the two sides of a file folder and then cut out the individual shoes and laminate them. If you want, attach hook-and-loop tape (Velcro) to the bottom side of the shoes so you can attach them to the pairs page. My daughter loves the sound when she pulls them off!
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Free Color matching file folder game
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If you want to do more color matching, or if you want to sort colors in Spanish, check out the more extensive color matching centers set! In this, each color gets a half page. Kids can match the items to pages, or (if you prefer) print the color pages without the images on them and have the kids sort the items into the correct pages. It’s perfect for a center!
If you wanted the entire Color Matching File Folder Game and Center set, get it from the Line upon Line Learning Shop. You can also purchase it at TeachersPayTeachers.
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A few weeks ago, I overheard my kindergartner talking to his baby sister.
“Are you an i, u, v, or j?” he was saying in his sweetest voice. “Because if you are, you cannot come at the end of an English word!”
This he repeated a few times over the next few minutes as he played with her toys, talked to her, and otherwise engaged in his own world of play with his sister, who was just delighted that he was nearby.
Apparently, my son internalized one of the most recent spelling rules we learned far more than I had realized. We had reviewed the rule a few mornings before this event. The manual had suggested repeating the rule in a “silly” voice and then again in another voice. I thought that was ridiculous, but I did that with my son anyway. And then, days later, he was repeating the rule to his sister without even realizing he was rehearsing his English lesson.
My experiences and my son’s experiences with the Logic of English Foundations program have been truly fun.
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I’ve been creating units for kindergarten using picture books to introduce the poetic concepts of rhythm, rhyme, and metaphor. Today I thought I’d write about another picture book that would help in teaching older children about metaphors in poetry: Red Sings from Treetops by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski.
Storm Song is a rhythmic and rhyming book about three kids in the midst of a dark and long storm. Some pages feature onomatopoeia (boom, bang, rumble, rap) and other pages feature describing words (like flash and sparkle). When I introduce onomatopoeia in my Language Arts class, we use this book.
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