Stack-a-Hat

  
     Today’s snack inspired by the Cat in the Hat.
 
 Mini pancakes are the foundation of our hat stacks. 

                    We mixed regular pancake mix.
 
Then in a separate bowl we tinted some of it with red food colouring.
  
While the pancakes were cooking we talked about how to build the hats.
   
As I was  showing a hat similar to the Cat in the Hat’s one of the
children said, “it’s a pattern”.  Wonderful.
   
   I think we made about hundred mini pancakes this morning. 
                There are a few left over for tomorrow.

Thing 1 & 2

   Oh the things we can do as Thing 1 and Thing 2.
     
Who doesn’t love those two little fun mischief makers
from the Cat in the Hat?
      
That’s why today we made Thing hats. 
Bright blue paper strips and scissors to go snip, snip, snip.
 
The children have been experimenting with scissors a lot lately. 
Snipping little pieces of paper whenever they can. 
This was a great activity to encourage more practice.
     
I always appreciate the grown ups adding or modifying
an activity.  Today a grandfather drew short lines on the
paper so his granddaughter would know where to cut
and where to stop.
    
It added another opportunity to practice printing and
I started encouraging new families, that approached
the art table, to do the same.
  
We also made ‘Thing’ badges.  The children could decide
what number they wanted to be.  Many chose their age
although some chose the first letter of their name.
   
      
Meet Thing 1, Thing Q, Thing A, Thing 3 and then there is Thing L
and Thing P Cat too.
     
           It was another fun Seuss day.

Seuss lets us see…

    
     A new book “I Can Read with my Eyes Shut!”
         inspired this craft to decorate glasses.
          
    A fun way to read; “I can read in red, I can
    read in blue, I can read in pickle colour too'”.
 
  Ways to decorate with feathers, pom poms and stickers. 
 
      Colour; some chose blue, some chose yellow,
           
  and new colours;  some blended to make pickle colour.

   For those that weren’t interested in making their own glasses,
              I brought out our collection of glasses.
 
 
                I saw moments of wonderful play happen. 
                  Children trying on glasses themselves. 
      Discovering how they feel resting on the ears and nose. 
                     And how they look in the mirror.
 
       Others were happy to try them on their grown up and
                 play with the big nose - honk, honk! 
                       “Grandpa’s nose” she said.
      
            Exploring a mirror -  How does it work? 
What fun can we have with it?  What if I hold it this way or that way?
     
     This morning Seuss opened our eyes to more learning
                        and more possibilities.

Yertle the Turtle

    
Today’s Dr Seuss book is new for me.
It was a Christmas present this year and this
week is a perfect opportunity to use it.
     
Most of Dr. Seuss’ books are long and it’s
easy to lose the interest of the little ones.
So I tried to think of a way to make the book
more interactive.
  
Meet my story props – 30 blue egg carton turtles.
 
    It was great to have help to tell the story
   (thank you Nicole, our ECE student).  As I started
   to read the story Nicole gave each child a turtle.
   Then when King Yertle called for nine turtles
   the children came up to help stack the turtles.
 
   As the story continued and the king demanded more
   turtles the rest of children added theirs to the stack.
   
 Tomorrow the children can continue reading and
  playing with Yertle and Mack and build a stack.

 
  Meanwhile over at the art table the children painted
  their own egg carton turtle.
 
  Discussion arose about how younger children (3 and under)
  tend to paint in one spot. Do they only paint what they see
  Or is it because their coordination of using two hands
  hasn`t fully developed
       
  This very young one drew a lot of attention this morning
  with her knowledge of painting.  She knew how to handle
  the brush and to apply the paint to the carton.  The mother
  was a great model for others showing that even the littlest
  participants in our program can enjoy the art table.
   
        Meet Myrtle the Turtle and Sara the Turtle.