Cookie's Week

Cookie's Week is a nice, short, low text book with one of the most captivating first lines ever:

"On Monday, Cookie fell in the toilet".

I have yet to see a straight face after that! Below is a link to a Google doc I made (hope it works!). It contains scans of parts of each page of the book (just for reference) and some of the 'wh' questions I use for each page. I made 2 sets of days of the week so we could do some matching. The kids can order the days, then move the Cookie portrait along as they try to recall the book. I also made a word document with "On Monday..." etc, so the students can make their OWN week with what they do, did, or would LIKE to do. I don't have a file for that, but it is easy to make.

Transportation and Cookie Sheets

Once again, I have to say that a unit study of "Transportation" is rich with ideas - both online, in your own toy box, and in the library. I just wanted to share one nifty idea pinched from Darci, one of our preK teachers. What I have here is a cookie sheet from the thrift store (with a background drawn with Sharpie markers), pictures of various vehicles, cut and laminated, double-faced tape, and a sheet of magnet. A great sorting activity!

Pizza!

Back to school and back to blogging! It always takes me a few weeks to 're-calibrate' as I leave summer vacation behind.

Everyone loves pizza and there are loads of activities to do with a pizza unit. Pictured above are 2 of my favorites. One is a math pizza puzzle - the kids assemble it as they make responses. It is such a simple thing, but kids love it! The other activity, Pizza Plate, works well for language or artic responses. I cut out rough - very rough, one might even say abstract - representations of pizza toppings from construction paper. Then I have the kids use red and brown crayons to put "sauce" and "crust" on the "dough". Then they request and glue various toppings. I also have a rolling pin they use to flatten the paper plate (roll the dough) before coloring.

I always like to have some literature tie-in and depending on the age of my group, I use one of the following books:


Pete's a Pizza by William Steig This is especially good for preK because they love to be 'rolled' like Pete.

The Little Red Hen (Makes a Pizza)by
Philemon Sturges

Curious George and the Pizza

Finally, I love to make little English muffin pizzas with my special ed preK class. We have a toaster oven in the class and I just use English muffins, sauce and preshredded mozzarella cheese. I have a Tech Talk set up for requesting ingredients.

If you have any other great pizza ideas, please leave a comment!

One Cut Books

Many thanks to Judy Kuster (who has a wealth of links on her site) for this link to One Cut Books. Kids love having little books they can hold and take home and these are a nice break from the cut-n-paste worksheets.

It would be so easy to make a word doc template for these and just go crazy!

Everybody Loves Animals - Part 1

I suppose we all have tons of activities about animals. Please feel free to post your favorites in the comments. I'm hoping to post several of my very best over the next month.



This was a simple lesson I did with my special ed prek. First, we put all the puzzles together and talked a bit/asked questions about each one. Then I pulled the battery-operated yipping dog from my bag (very high interest as you can imagine!). The kids each practiced saying/touching the words on the sentence strip.

Valentine's Day!

Like most holidays, Valentimz (haha) has a wealth of activities. Here are 2 of my favorites!

Please contact me if you would like these files in PDF instead of images!

First, a little Dinosaur - see the upside-down hearts? Cute, eh?


I originally got this idea from Mailbox magazine. Here are scans of the blanks for the dinosaur and the hearts, both of which I copy onto construction paper.


And here is a bingo game, which I love for both language and artic. I printed out one board to make the cards. I have the kids pick a card and describe it and the other players have to guess which one it is. I always use Chipper Chat chips and wands - magnets are just so exciting!



I've uploaded 4 different board layouts, if you'd like to download and print them.
Board 1
Board 2
Board 3
Board 4

Groundhog Day

This is my favorite book for Groundhog Day! There are so many great 'wh' questions and prediction questions.

After reading, there a are a few groundhog crafts and cut-n-pastes you could do. Or, doing a sequence activity (holiday or months) would tie in nicely with this book.

Here are the questions I ask through the book:

1. First I make sure they are somewhat familiar with what GH Day is all about. Then we talk about hibernating.

2. Why is GH reading "How to hibernate?". Sometimes we come back and review if that book helped him or not.

3. When is Columbus Day? Why is he brushing his teeth? What will he do next?

4. He set his clock for Feb 2nd. Is that how our clocks work?

5. Half past October - what will he see on the next page (I ask this preceeding every holiday shown).

6. It is Halloween- how do you know? (I ask this for each holiday).

7. After we've established that he gets a ride home, I ask for predictions about 'who' will give him a ride at each holiday.

8.Other questions - what season is it? how do you know?

9. What does "make yourself scarce" mean and why does the turkey want to do that?

10. Also after each line noting that "GH had never seen this before", I ask why not? We discuss how, for every winter before, the GH had slept through all the holidays pictured.

11. Why is he reading a book about gardening?