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Age 3-4 Age 4-6 Books Craft - Always Learning

Caps For Sale

February 25th 2010 17:42
Caps For Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina is such a wonderful and timeless tale which I can recall reading when I was a young child. I have passed on this fun tale to my daughter however we have purchased the updated book and CD version which also includes some fun tunes to go along with the story.

To get into a monkey mood we are going to bake some banana bread cookies and read some other monkey stories including Five Little Monkeys Sitting On A Bed and Curious George.


And as my daughter loves hat we are going to decorate a paper bag to turn it into a gorgeous paper hat creation.

If you are after some more ideas, check out these links:

Hubbards Cupboard
Teaching Heart
Teachers.Net

For those with very young children, I must confess that my favourite Monkey book has to be the gorgeous Usborne title - That's Not My Monkey.


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


Play With Me

January 25th 2010 18:34
Following on from our animal theme we have been reading the charming book, Play With Me written by Marie Hall Ets. It features a little girl who ventures outside to play with the wild animals only to discover that at first they are too frightened to go near her. The text and pictures are charming in this book and is one of my daughter's favourites.

Homeschool Share provided us with some book related suggestions, the favourite one of my daughter being the Guess Who Animal game.

We stumbled upon a fun birdcage craft and my partner and daughter even built a birdhouse and feeder from a $5 craft pack we discovered in a supermarket.

For the younger children we found a dot painting frog as well as an alphabet dot to dot.

For those that like fingerpainting here were a couple of animal fingerpainting ideas which gave us some inspiration.

For turtle lovers, here is a fun turtle craft as well as an easy turtle to colour.

And let's not forget the paper chain snake.

A book like this provides lots of opportunities for animal spotting, although as it is winter at the moment, our animal spotting is diminished slighly with only some squirrels and a few birds - however better than nothing.

Springtime is a great time of year to visit this story however any time of the year is great to read inspirational stories to your children.
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Katy No Pocket

December 26th 2009 19:37
We are going to have some fun with Katy No Pocket over the next week or so. Katy is a kangaroo, born without a pocket and is struggling to carry her baby like all the other animals in the countryside. Katy, desperate for a pocket, goes to the city in search of one and meets up with a kindly construction worker who helps her out.



We are going to make an easy pocket apron for my daughter to wear as featured in the story and based on the Fold and Learn ideas provided by Five In A Row. As my daughter and I are originally from Australia, we are going to enjoy this one in particular. We have seen many kangaroos in real life so while we are not going in search of any (a bit difficult in Canada), we are going to attempt painting them in aboriginal dot art style. To carry on the aboriginal theme, we are also going to make our own didgeridoo craft.

A kangaroo can jump at least 9-10 metres so we are also going to attempt to measure our own kangaroo jumps. And we are going to discuss the other animals featured in the book and the habitats in which they live.

We are also going to improve our tool knowledge with the help of these cards as well as this easy but fun pocket sorting activity.

For extra assistance, here is a link which shows some animal classification cards for Katy No Pocket as well as other Five In A Row stories.
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The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything

October 19th 2009 00:30
Once upon a time there was a little old lady who was not afraid of anything until one windy autumn night, while walking in the woods, she hears CLOMP CLOMP.

This is such a fun tale and suitable for scary retellings around Halloween.

The lesson plan written by Nancy Polette has some great story ideas on which to develop.

The Making Learning Fun website has a myriad of fun activities centred around the story including a scarecrow emergent reader, felt board pieces and some scissor practice fun.

A To Z Teacher Stuff had some interesting ideas on the subject and Kindergarten 2 featured some great Halloween related crafts and songs.

Easy Fun School features a pumpkin unit for studying and Music Bulletin Board features a ready to run Powerpoint Display for your enjoyment and use.
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Halloween Lesson Plans

October 1st 2009 13:50
October already and that means only one thing for children (particularly in North America) - Halloween. This is a fun time for children to let their imagination run wild and it is great to incorporate monsters, goblins, ghouls and witches into the curriculum to inspire their creativity and imagination.

For history buffs it is interesting to go over the facts behind the tradition and if you are unfamiliar with the history then drop over to TIme For Kids to give you the lowdown.

It is certainly not Halloween without a pumpkin and Youth Online gives an amazing 101 Things To Do With A Pumpkin. DLTK also provides an easy pumpkin template to use with the younger students as well as Halloween printables and colouring pages.

Math Drills gets into the action with their Halloween themed spider maths page and ABC Teach have a whole page dedicated to Halloween fun.
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Feline Frenzy

July 5th 2009 04:11
Feline fever has struck our house this week as we are doing lots of cat related crafts and activities. Many of our books feature a cat in some form or another although our favourites are Sam The Firehouse Cat, The Curious Little Kitten Around The House and The Shy Little Kitten.

We found some puppet like characters for the nursery rhyme - Pussycat Pussycat Where Have You Been and will create a little reader entitled A Cat With A Hat
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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Age 3-4, Age 4-6, Books, Craft
   


Peter Pan

June 28th 2009 05:11
"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
   


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


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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


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


Ugly Duckling Week

May 31st 2009 07:02
This may sound like some poor joke but it is the book to which my daughter has chosen to base all of her crafts and activities this week. Again being a popular story like The Three Liltte Pigs, there is no shortage for either crafts or activities we can do together.

We have various Ugly Duckling and Swan pictures to cut out and glue together, although my favourite is this 3D duck. We are unable to source the plastic eggs although are going to amend it slightly by using small paper cups which should do the trick just nicely


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Send In The Clowns

May 24th 2009 02:59
Admittedly I am not a fan of clowns, preferring to see them at children's parties rather than adorned all over my wall. So the inclusion of Clown Week into our schedule took me a little by surprise to say the least.

Loonette and Molly from the Canadian Series, The Big Comfy Couch, are a particular favourite in our house so at least I had a starting point on which to base our activities. And in particular I love the concept of a 10-second tidy which we are going to incorporate with a clown based cleaning chart
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The Three Little Pigs

May 12th 2009 04:39
From one classic fairytale to another, this week's activities surround the ever popular children's tale, The Three Little Pigs.

Being such a popular story, it seems that there is no shortage for inspiration on the web covering all kinds of activities, colouring pages and ideas to complement the story


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Jack And The Beanstalk

May 3rd 2009 10:22
My daughter was very excited that today marked the first day of Giant Week aka Jack And The Beanstalk Week. Having changed her mind at the last minute from her original choice of The Ugly Duckling, she had me do some last minute website searching in order to come up with some creative ideas.

Thankfully the BBC had an online adapted story about Jack and The Beanstalk which she enjoyed watching which led us into a discussion about Real or Make Believe. Tina's fun little online game came to our aid just to refamiliarise her with our discussion


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The Golden Egg Book

April 24th 2009 09:21
Whilst we may be a little late for Easter, next week's topic is "bunny week" as my daughter now constantly refers. We are basing our activities on or around The Golden Egg Book originally published in 1947, written by Margaret Wise Brown.

The story tells of a little bunny who stumbles upon an egg. The bunny becomes curious as he can hear something moving inside the egg. His imagination runs wild and the impatient bunny tries to shake, push, and even jump on the egg in his attempts to break it. But all his efforts go in vain as the stubborn egg refuses to budge. The mystery unravels when the egg begins to hatch and much to the bunny's surprise, a little duck comes out. The bunny and the duck then become friends


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