June 2009 - Always Learning

Always Learning

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"All this has happened before, and it will all happen again. But this time it happened in London. It happened on a quiet street in Bloomsbury. That corner house over there is the home of the Darling family. And Peter Pan chose this particular house because there were people here who believed in him."

Well it seems my daughter believes in him because this week is Peter Pan Week so we are off to Neverland. There is no shortage of colouring in pictures to be found for Peter Pan and all characters can be found from The Darlings through to Peter Pan, Tinkerbell and the Pirates. We also discovered some fun pinwheels and puppets to make.

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Books, Craft, DVDs, Reading

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Trains

June 20th 2009 05:24

My daughter loves trains and it is interesting to know that the subject is as equally fascinating for her as it is with little boys. When the mood arises she can often be found setting up her duplo train track and building trains and cities to go with and around the track.

This week is train week if you haven't already guessed thanks to The Little Engine That Could - the classic tale retold by Watty Piper. Trains feature in a number of other tales we hold including Tootle and Thomas The Tank Engine - both on dvd and book form in our household.

Teacher Vision had a number of activities and printables that related directly to The Little Engine That Could but as we are not located in the States we were unfortunately able to only access three as part of their free giveaway.

About.com assisted with a variety of printouts including a train based version of tic tac toe and a fun train visor for us to make.

Random House had some Thomas related colouring pages and for those fans of Thomas and James, DLTK came to the aid in the way of an easy paper craft.

We are going to attempt to make our own train although my favourite activity for the week is this easy animal train. It gives us some variety on our discussions and we can look at some of our favourite animals while making our train.

For younger readers, we also stumbled upon a number train worksheet.

And our song of the week - I've Been Working On The Railroad of course. Toot Toot!

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Books, Craft, DVDs, Reading, Toys

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Little Bunny Foo Foo

June 19th 2009 10:19

Little Bunny Foo Foo has become a favourite in our house this week and for those who love the song, look out for the book of the same name which is narrated by the Good Fairy. The book offers a twist on the original version as Foo Foo tosses mud pies instead of head bops (or kisses as in the song linked above) but he is just as mischievous.

Michael Rosen (of We're Going On A Bear Hunt fame) also has a version called Little Rabbit Foo Foo.

For a fun visual online version, check out this animated song sung by Hannah Heller.

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Books, Computer Based, Reading

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Fairy Week

June 15th 2009 01:48

Alice The Fairy is a little girl who is practicing to be a fairy. She can fly really fast (almost) and she can make herself disappear (by turning off the lights). But she hasn't learned the hardest lessons like how to make clothes get up off the floor and line up in the closet. She is, after all, a "temporary" fairy who understands that the hard stuff is reserved for "permanent" fairies.

Alice The Fairy by David Shannon is an absolutely adorable book and provides the basis for this week's activities for Fairy Week. The book Creative Activities for Gifted Readers, Grades K-2 by Anthony Fredericks has some great starting points including talking about secret powers you could possess as a fairy as well as a creating a list of skills, abilities or activities which all fairies need to know.

Going from Garden Week to Fairy Week may sound a little unrelated although crafts like this twig fairy craft and fairy houses make great fairy-type actiivities.

My daughter enjoyed the floral coffee filter craft we created last week and so this week we are going to try the coffee filter earth fairy.

We are going to do some fairy face painting and create our very own magic wand.

Little Bunny Foo Foo is our song of the week.

We have fairy mazes and dot to dots to complete, fabulous fairies to colour as well as these sparkling clothespeg fairies to create.

What a week!

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Books, Craft, Reading

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Certificates and Awards

June 11th 2009 06:03

Giving children acknowledgement and praise for their hard work and achievement is all part and parcel of their learning process. If you are not skilled in graphics or even know where to start in creating an award then School Express can come to your aid.

They have an easy seven step award making process which even I cannot get wrong. The awards offered cover such topics as Achievement Awards, Acting Awards, Character Awards, Reading Awards and Sports and Fitness Awards just to name a few. The site will ask you to select the graphic and border as well as the specific text and name of your child.

My daughter has a certificate on her wall for her online reading program and her goal - which I just love - was to reach bronze as she liked the sound of it. Never mind silver or gold - she wanted to get bronze! And get it she did and to this day is very ecstatic about her certicificate.

It may not be much to you but to your children it might just be the encouragement they need to help them get over the hump if they are struggling or just be a reward for efforts already achieved.

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Age 9-11

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Garden Week

June 5th 2009 04:20

Spring is here in the form of Garden Week this week inspired by her Little Golden Book entitled Dorothy's Garden. Dorothy is the dinosaur from Wiggles and while she has outgrown the television program, she still enjoys catching clips of them and dancing along from time to time. My guess is this is where the Wiggles website will come in handy.

Handprint flowers seem to be the common theme on children's craft websites. We are also going to try our hand at pressing and drying flowers as well as doing leaf rubbings
[ Click here to read more ]

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Computer Based, Craft

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Speakaboos

June 2nd 2009 02:38

The Speakaboo website served a great purpose this week as it gave us an online version of The Ugly Duckling to read and view as well as a follow on activity, but the site itself holds an interesting premise.

Coming soon, as the site announces, is a record your own story section which will allow kids and parents to record their own voices reading (or singing!) their favorite story, song, or nursery rhyme. Anything that aids in the improvement and creation of kids wanting to read or listen to stories is a great idea.

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Age 6-8, Age 9-11, Books, Computer Based, Reading

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