Shadows

We're leading up to Groundhog Day and it's a great time 

to play with light and shadows.

 I took a few of our toy animals and made silhouettes on a transparency sheet.

Cut them out and placed both toy and silhouette on the light table.

Over the weekend I was browsing Pinterest and saw this 

Shadow Book and inspiration hit.

This morning I asked children to pose or caught them in

unique poses and made silhouettes of them.

I copied the original picture on transparency sheet too so they could match them.

We talked about how a shadow would lay if a light was shining on the person.

Wouldn't it be neat if there was a material to make the silhouettes that would stretch

like a shadow does, depending on where the sun is in the sky.

Hmmm, any ideas?

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!

Tray Play Week #4

This week's trays:

 Pom poms, tray with indents and tongs.

 You have to squeeze the handle to make the tongs open.

Then match one pom pom to one indent.

For a younger child that didn't quite have the grasping hold,

matching the pom poms to the indents was still great pleasure.

 Moon sand and tools.

The children love the feel of the moon sand,

and that it will pack together.

Marbles and what I call a 'marble tree'. 

I found it a thrift store and there are no markings on it 

of where or who made it.

But the children love it.

 You can drop a marble into any hole and listen to it drop,

watching for it to come out.

 It sounds like a rain stick.

From a drip with one marble to a shower with many marbles

dropping.

Some children prefer starting at the very top 

while others tried in the middle.

The tray sitting on the table was too high for some of the little ones

so we placed it on a stool for easier access.

Sorting cats and dogs into their baskets.

Not as popular as the other three trays.

Therapy Dog Visits

We've been talking and playing with animals at StrongStart.

Today we invited a Therapy Dog, Samara, into visit.

We learned a lot about how Therapy Dogs help people;

seniors, people in hospitals and children who have difficulty reading.

We learned how to approach a dog.

First by letting her smell our hand before petting her.

 And she got lots of pats,

 and strokes.

 She felt very soft.

We had a chance to ask questions too.

And Samara sat patiently the whole time.

She can count to 5 and 10.

Samara also loves to give hugs.

Children who have never had an opportunity to pet a dog did today.

Their parents were quite happy to see that their reactions were very

positive.

Painted Toast

Interesting reactions at the snack table this morning.

We painted bread before toasting it.

 The children were very willing to paint the bread,

pop it in the toaster, 

even to cut it with a cookie cutter.

By what I saw in the garbage can, many didn't like the taste.

 Or maybe it was just to soggy in texture.

Next time I'll provide smaller, thinner paint brushes

What Started as This Ended Like That

This morning the art table was set with paint, paper, crumpled tin foil, waxed paper and plastic wrap.

A few children had fun experimenting with this method of painting.

But as the morning progressed a child was interested 

in making Chinese Lanterns.

A grandmother and her little one, who had already visited the table, 

decided to use their painting to make their lantern.

What a great idea!

So others started to make theirs that way.

That's how I imagine the art table working everyday.