Playing with the Green

Green for St. Patrick's Day that is.

An invitation to imagine and make up stories with 

leprechauns and fairies.

 This little Irish gentleman is inviting you to cross his bridge 

and find his gold.

 The fairies are ready for a dip in the pond.

In another part of the room awaited a gnome family.

I had fun creating this 'wee' family over the weekend.

One of my favourite parts of my job is letting my

creativity flow.

Signs of the Week - I Can Sing a Rainbow

This week we are focusing on colours and rainbows.
Here is a song that includes both, "I Can Sing a Rainbow"
Only one problem with the accuracy of this song is that the colour pink is not in a rainbow.

I Can Sing a Rainbow
Red and yellow and pink and green
Purple and orange and blue.
I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow too.

Listen with your eyes
Listen with your ears
And sing everything you see
I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow
sing along with me.
 
Red and yellow and pink and green
Purple and orange and blue.
I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow too.

Note: I'm not a singer but do the best I can.
If you would like to hear a better version of the song you can find it here.

One Fish Two Fish

Our final day of Dr Seuss book fun and it was with One Fish Two Fish.

 All week the children have had the opportunity to write which is their favourite Dr Seuss book.

Cat in the Hat was the most often quoted.

 This morning the children could make a paper plate fish if they wished.

 

 

Go fishing.

 

 And try a little bit of ocean (blue jello) and fish for snack.

Thank you Dr Seuss for such wonderful books

to inspire many play, art and snack ideas.

Wacky Wednesday/Thursday

Today we got a little wacky with Dr. Seuss' Wacky Wednesday book.

It was written by Theo. LeSieg.

Cool that Theodore Geisel (Dr Seuss) wrote his name backwards as author of this book.

 The children were greeted with all their pictures upside down.

It made it much more difficult to find our picture that way.

Even the sign in question was upside down.

Some of us dressed a little wacky.

 The house area was all mixed up.

Some liked it.

Some didn't.

But I found that the toddlers really enjoyed it.

 The art project was not a success today.

 I thought they would love crawling under the table to paint.

But only a few tried it.

Couldn't even entice them to paint with the opposite end of the paint brush.

 

And finally at the snack table the flowers didn't quite look right.

It was definitely a Wacky Wednesday for a Thursday.

Cat in the Hat Felt Game

I don't do a lot of felt board stories or games.

I prefer to tell stories or act them out.

But I've been so inspired by a group called Flannel Friday

that I had to give it a try.

I made this game for our Dr Seuss week.

I made the hats of different colours, then printed and laminated them.

Mounted them on felt and made a Cat in the Hat to fit behind the hats.

They close their eyes while I hide the cat.

We say this little rhyme (not the most creative but it works)

Cat in the Hat

All white and black

Behind which coloured hat

Are you at?

The children take turns picking a coloured hat to find the cat.

 They love it.

I'll see children at different times of the morning

hiding the cat and then finding him.

Cat in the Hat

We have been having a lot of fun with Dr Seuss and his popular book

The Cat in the Hat.

Families have been posing for pictures dressed as the Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 or 2.

We created a bulletin board of our pictures for everyone to enjoy.

This is my favourite picture of Thing 1.

 Even Pete got in out the fun.

 We made hats but not to wear.

 The children grated red chalk to glue on to the paper hat cutouts.

 Some parents helped glue the lines.

While others were free to design their own patterns.

 When they sprinkled the chalk dust on to the glue, it stuck.

But using those little graters was the main focus for the kids.

Here are a few of our hats.

How To Rhyme

How do you encourage rhyming with your children?

Focusing on Dr. Seuss books this week and all his wonderful rhyming has made me realize that the children I see do not do a lot of rhyming.

They hear it, in the books we read and the songs we sing.

But when asked what rhymes or sounds like eg. cat, they draw a blank.

Yes there are a few that know but I wonder is it how I'm asking?
Or am I expecting too much at an early age?

The following is our sign-in language prompt for the week.

 I placed four pictures; shoe, fish, hat and car, on the board

with the instructions to pick a picture and think of a word that rhymes.

This was difficult for most.

When someone thought of a rhyme I would write it down so

other grown ups could encourage their children.

 But this rarely happened.

Did I jump in too quick and do it for them or is having rhyming

fun something that is not happening in families.

I would appreciate hearing ideas from you on how to make rhyming 

more of a daily activity.