Tag Archives: picture book lessons

Top 10 Moon Picture Books and Educational Activities

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moon books1This week’s Thematic Thursday is all about space, and I’ve chosen to focus a bit more on the moon.
(Yes, I realize that it is no longer Thursday, but we do what we can, right?!)
We studied the moon and space about two years ago, when my son was starting his kindergarten year. His grandma sent him a solar system set that we painted, and we read a lot of books about space. We will be doing space again this year for our science at co-op and I look forward to revisiting the subject. (I love astronomy!)
Here are some of the best moon picture books and educational activities about the moon. (Note: Affiliate links are provided for your convenience.) Continue reading →

Are You My Mother? Mother-Baby Matching Activities

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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.
After reading Are You My Mother? we talked about farm mothers and babies and matched them.
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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A Picture Book Lesson to Teach Metaphors in Poetry

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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.

Red Sings from Treetops demonstrates metaphor in action throughout all the seasons! Here are some ideas for teaching with it.
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Onomatopoeia Picture Book Lesson: Tell a Story with Sounds

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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.

The picture book Storm Song provides ample opportunity to practice recognizing and understanding onomatopoeia. Lesson ideas and free printable provided. Continue reading →

Count to 100 with a Paper Clip 100 Train Activity

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When Strawberry was more consistent at getting to the number 10 when counting on her own, and yet numbers even higher than that seem incomprehensible to her, we decided to grasp the concept of 100, a high number, by making a paper clip counting 100 train together.
To better understand the concept of 100, we read Crossing and then made our own paper clip 100 train.
In the simple train book Crossing by Philip Booth, the gates go down at a small town railroad crossing in the earlier part of the century. Kids jump and cheer as it passes. They peek at each other underneath the cars and name the brands they see on the train cars. They count the cars (although not every number is shown in the book), and at the last car they yell “caboose!” I love the rhythmic rhyme in Crossing, and I also love that the illustrations are so rich. One two-page spread even shows the entire 100-car train! Continue reading →

Playing Preschool: Gross Motor Skills Preschool Prepositions Game

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My daughter has always loved to play games for learning prepositions when we read The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree. In the past, we played a “Do you dare?” preposition game years ago!  When we then also read Inside, Outside, Upside Down by the same authors, I just had to add on to our “Great Sleeping Bear” game! We called our preschool prepositions game the “Inside, Outside,  Great Sleeping Bear” game, and we practice some additional prepositions. We have found great learning lessons in the most basic of picture books!Prepositions are so much fun! Just like the bears in some favorite books, we like to go inside, outside, over, through and around! Continue reading →

Easy Skeleton Hiccups Activity with a Q-Tip Skeleton Craft

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My little preschooler loved hands-on activities, and it if included glue, it was even better. After reading the very silly Skeleton Hiccups by Margery Cuyler, we learned a little about the skeletal system and then did a q-tip swab skeleton craft. What a perfect learning activity for the Halloween season!The silly skeleton in Skeleton Hiccups was our model for our cotton-tip swab skeleton. Continue reading →

Dusty Rhyming: A Picture Book-Inspired Game

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Playing with rhymes and thinking of rhymes is a fun pre-reading and early reading skill. In this rhyming game, we try to think of rhymes for the cards we draw before we draw a broom or vacuum to clean up our pile of dust!Before a child is ready to jump into learning to read, it’s important to review basic phonemic principles, such as hearing the parts of words. Rhyming is a fun activity that is ideal for kids preparing to read or just starting out. After reading a favorite picture book, we played a “Dusty” Rhyming Game to practice making our own rhymes. Continue reading →

Picture Book-Inspired Scratch Board Art Project

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After making our own scratch boards, we used the textures in the picture book as inspiration for our own etchings.

The Caldecott Award-winning book The House in the Night is illustrated with scratch art as it tells a story with the feel of “This is the House That Jack Built.” As we poured over the textured images, we were impressed with the ways that lines created texture to look like birds’ wings or tree leaves. After being inspired by this picture book, we decided to try our own hand at in a scratch board art project. Continue reading →