Pete the Cat and Button Play

After our picnic last week where we acted out the story of

Pete the Cat and his Groovy buttons

I set up an invitation for the families to play with buttons

and re-tell the story.

There was a bit of button sorting but the interest was more

about Pete and his buttons.

Re-telling of a story is an important skill for our young pre-readers.

Learning the story by heart and beginning to recognize some repetitive words

was a bit of the work I witnessed this week.

This child was pulling the buttons off and saying "POP! OH NO!"

She didn't attend the picnic but I posted the video on our Facebook page

and her dad showed it to her and her older sister.

Her mom shared with me that after her oldest daughter, who is in grade 1,

saw the video she made buttons and stuck them to her chest with tape and retold

the story for her little sister.

I couldn't ask for a better outcome from acting out and sharing

the story.

One other thing that I noticed is that children are noticing buttons more.

Playing Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons

This morning was our annual Picnic in the Gardens

and each year the facilitators act out a story

for all the families.

We chose Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.

Pete showed up to help tell the story.

Each of us took a part.

Colleen read the story, I was Pete, Phylis showed the word "POP".

Meghan showed the phrase "OH NO!" and Carlene showed the

numbers.

"Literacy in Action"

It was a great story to act out and share with the families.

I'm already thinking of button activities to follow up at school.

Maybe make our own button shirts, sort buttons...

What would you suggest?

Playing and Painting with Pete the Cat

The children love Pete the Cat.

I love Pete the Cat and the message it holds.

Most of the children have read the book so I gathered

props for them to retell the story.

I printed pictures of strawberries, blueberries, mud and a tub of water.

Coloured shoes matched each picture.

The children had fun trying to put the different shoes on Pete.

Some were successful others were not.

One day I moved the story book to the art table

where I had plastic shoes and paint for the children to explore.

There was also a small tub of water.
Can you see the print that was made from the water?

Pete the Cat's Belly Button

Well our Pete the Cat, who has been going on many adventures with the families all year,

had an adventure himself 

last weekend,

He had minor plastic surgery.

This story started when we got Eric Litwin's new book,

Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.

It's a wonderful book, which I mentioned in a previous post.

I have heard parents use Pete's philosophy with their children

when they are upset about losing something.

"Would Pete cry?"

And amazingly their child calms and moves on.

Or a parent told me a story of overhearing her daughter searching for something

at home in her room.

When she couldn't find it she said, "things come and things go".

Wow, what power a few words can have.

Back at school, 

I found this yellow shirt that fits Pete and used velcro

to attach the buttons to the shirt.

So as we read the story the buttons can be removed.

Well when we got to the part in the story where we see Pete's belly button,

the children commented that our Pete didn't have a 

belly button.

After a little brainstorming, it was decided that someone would sew a button

on Pete.

Van and his mom Karen volunteered to be the doctors.

Van searched through our button box till he found a button.

After a full recovery, Pete was back at school showing off

his brand new belly button.

Ready to share his story with our big buddy class,

the grade 3s.

Pete the Cat's New Book

I have been waiting excitedly for Eric Litwin's new 

Pete the Cat book.

I picked up my copy last Thursday and read it to the children.

It's a hit.

So I got busy and made a felt version for the children to play with.

 Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.

Things come and things go

and it's all good.

Love the moral in these books.

Pete the Cat Literacy Event

Friday was Family Literacy Day 

but all week our school district and local community 

have been offering literacy events.

Our school offered an afternoon event for families

to join in the StrongStart and Kindergarten classes

to have fun with Pete the Cat.  

This book is very popular in our school.  

If you've read previous posts then you know we have been 

having adventures with Pete.

But this event brought in a real live Pete to act out his 

"I Love My White Shoes" story.

Thanks to Beyond the Book Storytimes for the idea.

Here's little Pete and big Pete.

One of the teachers read the story while big Pete acted it out.

 Ready to start the story.

 Boxes represented the coloured piles,

example; red strawberries, blue blueberries, brown mud

 and in the boxes were slippers to match the colour.

 Started with white slippers, then red, then blue, brown

and back to white shoes.

Big Pete didn't cry once.

Because no matter what you step in, it's all good.

If you want to watch the video visit

Untitled from Maureen Wagner on Vimeo.

Here are the activities we did after the story.

Some of them were found at MakingLearningFun.

 Build a word. A coloured card has the word written on it.

Coloured snap blocks have letters written on each.

The children sort and build the word to match the card.

 Roll and colour page.

Roll the die, count the dots or recognize the numeral then colour that spot on the page.

An emergent reader for Pete the Cat that can be coloured according 

to what is happening on each page.

Listening centre.

 Making patterns using potato stamps.

Explaining which pattern he chose - ababab.

We think Pete is great!

Pete the Cat On Tour

I've had to close a few days early this December because of our school closing and relocating.
So I planned a field trip to our local library.
I mentioned to the librarian that Pete the Cat would be with us and would like a tour of the library.
This is how our morning went.

Pete met the families and had them sign in.

While we waited for everyone to arrive there was gingerbread to decorate and books to read.

This is Mary, the librarian, talking to the families about what the library has to offer (check out the Lit Kits - they're great) and how to get a library card.

 When we turned to get Pete to start the tour, he had disappeared.

But we found this note where he was sitting.

 Ahh, a clue.

 We searched by the music CDs but didn't find Pete only another clue.

 Then he sent us over by the children's cookbooks but we found cat kibbles.
Pete must have been hungry.
One more clue led us to one of Pete's favourite authors, Mo Wilhems. 

 We searched all the shelves till we found the 'w'.

 And there he was beside the book "Don't let the Pidgeon Drive the Bus"

The children were happy to have him back.

We had one more stop on our field trip.

That was to see the gingerbread displays.

Our Candy Castle won first place in the children's category.

But this was Pete's favourite - the Three Little Pigs.

The children liked it too.

It caused a discussion of what on it we could eat and what we couldn't.

They used toy pigs and a wolf 

but everything else was edible.