What Was I Scared Of?

What Was I Scared Of?

by: Dr. Seuss

One of my favorite Dr. Seuss stories. After reading it we discussed things that scare us. 

 

We then made puppets of what we are most scared of to act out with our puppet theater to try and conquer our fears or at least be able to talk about them freely and openly.

 

Some children can be very hesitant to talk about their fears and their own feelings in general so it is important to encourage them to do so in a non judgmental way. By having them use the puppets they can talk with the other children or even act it out on their own to help them feel more comfortable and in control of their own fear.

Click here for some of my Yertle the Turtle ideas.

Yertle The Turtle

Yertle The Turtle

 

After reading the story we decided to try some stacking of our own. 

 

We had each child choose something around the room to try and stack. 



 

Each child had to first predict how many items they thought they would be able to stack without their tower falling over. Then they had to count their items to see if their prediction was accurate or not.



 

This year we also made some egg carton turtles! We used these for stacking and also to retell the story.

 

 

We discussed how many turtles make a dozen. We then made the connection to an egg carton and each child was able to make a set of egg carton turtles.

 

They were then able to try their hand at stacking them, one of the children said we needed the rock to stack them on so he set up the blocks in the "pond."  When we were done each child was able to bring their set of turtles home to continue the learning fun.

 

Thank you to strongstart.BlogSpot where I found this wonderful egg carton turtle idea.

Fox in Socks

Fox in Socks

 

 

*After reading the story we sorted socks by color, texture, size and pattern. 

 

*We then practiced folding them together, which really is a great fine motor workout for little hands.

 

*I hid a few mystery items in some of the socks and the children had to feel the item through the sock and try to guess what was inside based just on feel alone.

 

*We added all the socks into our sensory table when we were done and added the clothesline for the children to hang up the matches.



 

*I had the children compare their shoes and socks and encouraged them to remember who was wearing what. I then had the children cover their eyes while I had one come up and stand behind our mystery wall. The other children then had to open their eyes and guess which child it was based on their feet! The children could choose if they wanted to show their shoes or their socks. Such a fun game!

 

 

*We designed our own socks for the fox

 using water colors.

 

The sign reads: We made these socks to put on fox after reading, Fox In Socks. These socks aren't plain and blue, sir. They are new and fun to view, sir!



Green Eggs and Ham

Green Eggs and Ham

 

We conducted our own green eggs and ham taste test and graphed the results. In past years, I have simply scrambled up the eggs but I saw these green hard boiled eggs on pinterest and just had to try it! It combined the egg yolks with an avocado, salt, pepper and just a little bit of mayo. A healthier but still very yummy option and they just look so cute! I encouraged the children to try them and we discussed the importance of trying new things and not judging foods by their appearance.
 

 

I then asked the children to describe what the egg felt or tasted like in one word.

 

 

 We then made marble painted eggs and wrote about various places where we would or would not eat them.

 

 

We played a green eggs matching game using capital and lower case letters.

 

 

 We set up our own Green Eggs and Ham café in our dramatic play area and I even made some felt food to go along.

 



Pollution

Earth day with The Lorax!

 "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." ~The Lorax

 



 

Pollution Jar!

We discussed what happens when people pollute the water. First, each child had a chance to put a piece of trash into the bottle. We then observed the results over the course of a week. The children discovered that it got dirtier and dirtier everyday and it began to smell really bad when we opened it up. The next week we had an oil spill (black paint). We discussed how and why oil spills occur and how hard and time consuming it is for people to clean it up after. We continued to observe the results for a few days and then we discussed ways to clean it up. The children decided that if we put some soap in, that would clean it right up, so we tried it. The children were very concerned when it did not seem to do very much to clean it up. We then discussed how important it is to take preventative measures and to educate people about how harmful polluting is.

 

3-D Truffula trees!

 Since we are discussing ways to take care of the Earth, it only seems right that we use recycled paper towel tubes to make the truffula trees!

 

 

More truffula trees! I put a small amount of powder paint in a bag with some fiber fill and had the children shake and squish them with their fingers to mix the color in! They then cut out their tree trunks, illustrated the background of the picture and glued on their tree top. So cute!

 



Click here for some of my other Earth Day ideas.

Dr. Seuss!!!

March 2nd. Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Here are a few of our Dr. Seuss inspired activities!

 The Cat in the Hat

Painted Cat in the Hats!
We also made some thing 1 and thing 2 hats for our dramatic play area!

Matching game made from Dr. Seuss stickers.

 

The Sneetches

 

We made our own star belly necklaces! We acted out the story in our very own star off and on machine! One child was designated to play Sylvester Mcmonkey Mcbean and the others were the sneethches who kept paying money to run through.

 

Bartholomew and the Oobleck

We made our own oobleck! 
Cornstarch, water and food coloring!

If I ran the Circus 

 

 

The children made their own Seuss inspired spiral mobiles out of paper plates!

 

 

We also made cotton candy as a class and added various circus elements such as hula hoops, juggling balls, and animal masks into our dramatic play area!

 

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

We played a homemade fish matching game and made our own red and blue fish patterns. 

 

For a water table idea we added sweedish fish and some ribbon to act as the waves. We asked the children to predict what would happen to the fish if we put them in the water. Their predictions were great and they were delighted to see that the water turned pink the more they had the fish swim around in the water.

 

 Click here for my Fox in Socks ideas.