Monday, October 31, 2011

Children's Literature for Food & Nutrition Theme

General books for Food & Nutrition Theme


Corn is Maize by Aliki


Eating Pairs: Counting Fruits and Vegetables by Twos by Sarah Schuette


Eating the Alphabet - Lois Ehlert


Farm Alphabet Book by Jane Miller


Food Alphabet by David Drew


Growing Vegetable Soup - Lois Ehlert


How Are You Peeling? Foods with Moods by Saxton Freyman


Our Community Garden by Barbara Pollak


To Market, To Market


Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle


Yoko by Rosemary Wells  (sushi, International Food Day)







Books about underground vegetables:


Carrot Soup by John Segal


Carrots, Carrots, Carrots! by Kristin Marder


Eating the Alphabet - Lois Ehlert


From Eye to Potato (Scholastic News Nonfiction Readers: How Things Grow)


Growing Vegetable Soup - Lois Ehlert


One Potato: A Counting Book of Potato Prints


Rabbit Food by Susanna Gretz


The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss


The Giant Carrot by Jan Peck


The Life Cycle of a Carrot by Linda Tagliaferro


Tops & Bottoms by Jane Stevens


Vegetables in the Garden - A First Discovery Book.


  


Books about Fruit:  


A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds by Jean Richards


Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey


Each Orange Had 8 Slices by Paul Giganti


Eating the Alphabet  by Lois Ehlert


Fruit  - A First Discovery Book.


Fruit by Sara Anderson


Fruit Shapes by Susan Banta


I Like Fruit by Lorena Siminovich (board book)


I Want my Banana by Mary Risk


Oliver’s Fruit Salad by Vivian French




  


Books about Bread:


Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban


Bread Comes to Life by George Levenson


Bread, Bread, Bread by Ann Morris


Everybody Bakes Bread by Norah Dooley


Little Red Hen - by Paul Galdone


Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza - by Philemon Sturges


Sun Bread by Elisa Kleven


What Was It Before It Was Bread? By Jane Belk Moncure



  


Books about Cows & Dairy Products:


Click, Clack, Moo by Doreen Cronin


How to Speak Moo!  By Deborah Fajeman


Kiss the Cow! By Phyllis Root


Milk - From Cow to Carton by Aliki


Milk to Ice Cream (Welcome Books: How Things are Made)


No Milk! by Jennifer Ericsson


Out and About at the Dairy Farm by Andy Murphy


The Milk Makers - by Gail Gibbons





Books about Beans & Protein: (Still working on this section!)


Growing Beans  by Peter  & Sheryl Sloan (uses egg shells)







Books about Soup & Friendship Stew:


Alvie Eats Soup by Ross Collins


Brave Potatoes by Toby Speed


Growing Vegetable Soup - Lois Ehlert


Little Red Hen Makes Soup - by Rozanne Lanczak Williams


Stone Soup- by Jess Stockham


Tumbleweed Stew (Green Light Readers Level 2) by Susan Stevens Crumme

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Vegetables from Underground


Leading up to Thanksgiving I will be teaching a food unit in my preschool (ages 3-5) classroom. I plan on posting lots of ideas to share with all my blogging friends as a way to say 'THANK YOU' for all the resources you've shared with me this year. (Especially the Math Work Stations linky crew.) I feel very grateful to have a professional learning community that spans the globe!


*Opening Circle - Ask the children - “What are some of your favorite vegetables?” Draw responses onto poster board.
Read aloud - Vegetables in the Garden - A First Discovery Book. Show the children how the transparent pages reveal another picture underneath.

Another excellent read aloud would be - Tops & Bottoms by Jane Stevens is wonderful book to read aloud to talk about the difference between vegetables that grow underground and above. The smart Rabbit does such a good job of tricking the bear with what they are harvesting.  It’s good to talk about how the Rabbit made sure he thought things all the way through. The lazy bear did NOT think things through so he kept getting tricked by the Rabbit. Help kids brainstorm how this applies to their lives, which is more age appropriate for a 5 year old.


*Discovery - “Today our focus is learning about plants that we eat that are from under the ground.” Show a picture of a carrot growing. Discuss the concept of above/below ground.

“Which part of the carrot plant do we eat?”
Then show a picture of a potato plant, garlic and lettuce. “Which part of these plants do we eat?”
Pass around a bulb of garlic. Explain that garlic is planted in the fall and harvested the next fall. Break open several bulbs and give each child 1-2 cloves to plant.


*Active Game - Play Hot Potato or do a Relay Race using carrots as the batons.


*Snack Ideas -

Carrot Taste Test - fresh vs. cooked

Ask if any parents would lend a juicer machine so the class could sample fresh carrot juice.

Brainstorm other ways that carrots can be eaten - carrot muffins, carrot cake, carrot slices (rounds), cut with wavy cuter, shredded carrots (like in coleslaw), carrot juice, mashed carrots).

 *Sensory Table - freshly dug carrots to wash. The green tops will be left on and kids will have safety scissors to trim the leaves. I think this activity will really reinforce the concept of ‘under ground’.

 *Play dough Table - have brown, orange, green play dough available. Encourage kids to make pretend underground veggies - carrots, potatoes, etc.

*Water Table - sink or float with root vegetables 

*Science Center - take the top of a carrot, trim the leaves away. Use toothpicks to prop the carrot in a shallow dish of water. Observe for several days to see if it grows. Measure the leaves. 

*Art-print making with underground vegetables - potatoes, carrots, turnips 

*Easel painting with orange, green, brown paints  

*Math - ordering by size small, medium, large. Have three different sized carrots and help children order them.

Try hiding seven paper potatoes (numbered 1-7) around the classroom. Kids go on a potato treasure hunt. As they find them they bring them to the table to match them to the number line.

Counting rhyme to learn - Begin by showing the kids how to hold their hands in a fist. Have the kids stand in a circle with their fists out with their thumbs facing the ceiling. Tap one fist as the rhyme is repeated, the fist that is landed on when you say 'more' has to put it behind their back. Keep repeating until there is just one potato remaining. { To make this go faster and so there are several winners, divide the class into 2-3 groups (depending on adults) before saying the rhyme.}

{I made a rebus rhyme of this to send home but can't post it since I used clip art from Microsoft.}
 One potato, two potato,
Three potato, four;
Five potato, six potato,
Seven potato, more?

  *Writing Center - precut carrots and potatoes and brown construction paper

*Mr. Potato Head ~ the kids will be excited to dress up our own spuds!

*Farm themed toys & books added to existing centers in the classroom.

* Closing circle - What is one thing you have learned about underground vegetables today?



Books about underground vegetables:

Vegetables in the Garden - A First Discovery Book.

Tops & Bottoms by Jane Stevens

Growing Vegetable Soup - Lois Ehlert

Eating the Alphabet - Lois Ehlert

Carrot Soup by John Segal

The Giant Carrot by Jan Peck

The Life Cycle of a Carrot by Linda Tagliaferro

Carrots, Carrots, Carrots! by Kristin Marder

The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss

Rabbit Food by Susanna Gretz

From Eye to Potato (Scholastic News Nonfiction Readers: How Things Grow)



Online Resources:

Lots of potato ideas here - http://www.universalpreschool.com/how-to/potato_curriculum.asp

Growing a Sweet Potato here - http://science.preschoolrock.com/index.php/Preschool_Botany/how_to_grow_a_sweet_potato_plant_growing_a_sweet_potato_plant_with_your_preschooler

Mr. Potato meets Play Dough - this looks exciting! http://happyhooligans.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/potato-head-play-dough/

Homemade Hundreds Chart


Proud of his homemade hundreds chart.
I hope he loves math later in life as much as he does right now!

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Hundreds Tile Board & Fine Motor Activity



I found my son working on his hundreds tile board with his new chopsticks!
How cute is this?!?



(If you are looking for one of these, Amazon has several different options. I think the magnetic version might be a better choice than just this plastic one.)

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Interactive Hundreds Charts

My son loves to work with the hundreds chart so I went looking online for some new resources. Currently he is learning how to count by 3s using the hundreds chart so I started my search there.  I ended up finding a great site that has an interactive hundreds chart, which can be used for all sorts of number sequences!  
http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/frames_asid_337_g_1_t_1.html?from=category_g_1_t_1.html


The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives is a goldmine of resources. Be sure to bookmark it if you haven't already!!  http://nlvm.usu.edu

This Hundreds Chart is a great tool to use to demonstrate skip counting. There are three modes which can be found BELOW the chart - practice, show and animate.

Practice mode-  allows the child to counting by clicking on numbers in the chart. If the child clicks correctly, the number becomes highlighted in blue, but if it's incorrect it is highlighted red. To start over just click clear.

Show mode - when clicked all the numbers in the counting sequence are highlighted immediately. To change the sequences use the arrows to change the number to "count by" or change the number that you "start at". I love how visual this is for demonstrating skip counting!

Animate - when clicked the numbers in the sequence appear one at a time. It is slow enough that child could practice counting orally before (or at least with) the numbers as they appear.

I also love the "Starting at" button which allows you to change the number that you begin the counting sequence. For instance, my son can easily count by 10s to one hundred if he begins at 10, or by 5s starting at 5, or by 2s starting at 2. This button allows you to start at another number and skip count, which is a higher level of thinking. Try counting by tens if you start with 13...or by fives if you start with 4 ---- definitely a lot harder!

This would be an even greater tool if you could interact with it on a touch screen. If anyone reading knows of one, I'd love to have the link. (Well I guess that I'd also need an iPad or SmartBoard too!) But for now we are going to have fun with this FREE interactive hundreds chart that can just be used on the PC. Enjoy!
http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/frames_asid_337_g_1_t_1.html?from=category_g_1_t_1.html



Other Interactive Hundreds Chart Games & Activities:


Fill in the missing numbers on a hundreds chart game = http://www.softschools.com/math/hundreds_chart/missing_numbers_game/


Answer questions using the hundreds chart =
http://www.softschools.com/math/hundreds_chart/games/


Paint different colors onto the hundreds chart, and can print out. http://www.abcya.com/interactive_100_number_chart.htm

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Educational Apps

We have an iPod touch that we let our kids play with occasionally. Though we know there are lots of great apps out there for children we really haven't invested the time to find them. I find looking at the iTunes App Store an overwhelming task and seem to spend less time on there the longer I have my iPod. Today I stumbled upon a website, http://www.funeducationalapps.com/  which is a great place to read reviews of educational apps for children. They categorize them by Ages 1-4, 5-8, 9-12 and write reviews that have been kid tested!
So I read some of their reviews for my kiddos and decided to buy Licking Letters. It only costs 99 cents so it's worth the investment! I thought this might be a fun way for my son to get some practice spelling. I am guessing that he's going to really enjoying dressing the frog in crazy outfits, which is the reward for the tokens you earn.

I also downloaded Mermaid Waters which is a free math app geared for preschoolers. I am hoping that my 2.5 year old enjoys the number recognition and counting activities. The review says that there are various levels of difficulty so maybe we will get a bit of mileage out of the app with both kiddos...but it may be a bit to easy for my kindergartner. Either way, it's a FREE.

How about you...what apps do your children like?

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Cut Up Sentences

Doing "Cut Up Sentence" activities are common in kindergarten and first grade instruction. Its a wonderful way to work on directionality of text, building sight word fluency, and learning how to construct a simple sentence. It's helpful for children to apply their sight words in the context of a sentence instead of just in isolation on flash cards.

My motivation for doing this activity is to encourage my reluctant kindergartner to WRITE. I am hoping as he becomes comfortable with this type of sentence writing that his own writing will blossom. He has the sounds he needs to write, but if he knows a word isn't spelled correctly he gets quite upset!


The way I am using Cut Up Sentences with my son:


  1. Let him choose a sentence from a book that we have read.
  2. Write the sentence onto a firm piece of paper such as card stock or the back of a cereal box. (For now I am doing this step but soon this will be his job as well!)
  3. Read the sentence together.
  4. Let him cut the sentence into individual words.
  5. Have him rebuild the sentence, and laugh at all the silly ways the sentence could be arranged.
  6. If it's a tough sentence, I keep the book open so that he can refer back to the original sentence for support.
  7. Once the sentence is reconstructed, I have him read the sentence aloud to check it.
  8. I point out how the beginning of the sentence is always capitalized and the final word has the punctuation. I often ask him to count the number of words in the sentence.
  9. The final step is for him to write the sentence into his journal or onto a sheet of paper. (Of course this is the step he grumbles about!)

Several sites have printable versions of cut up sentences (CUS). I prefer 'harvesting' one sentence from a book we've just read, since it has more meaning for him. But today I printed off a few sheets for him to practice on his own.

The website that I like the most for CUS is -- www.kinderblogger.org  Click on the "Cut Up Sentences" tab below the title. This site has a bunch of free printables. I think my son will enjoy drawing a picture to go with his sentence since he hasn't done that before!





Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Spiders, Spiders, Spiders

Currently I am teaching about spiders in my preschool classroom (ages 3-5). I thought I'd compile my spider ideas into one blog post so I could reference it in the future. Keep in mind, we didn't do all these ideas....if we had we'd be learning about spiders for a full month or more!

Lucky for me I have a great test audience at home - my 6 year old son and 2.5 year old daughter! The photos are my kiddos testing out the projects for preschool!

Weaving Webs:
1. Paper plate with whole punches along the edge. Tie a string onto one hole. At the other end of the string attach a small piece of pipe cleaner, this will be used to weave the web and when finished attach a spider ring to the pipe cleaner. This is great for fine motor skills. For younger children make sure the string isn't too long or it becomes frustrating for them to weave.
My preschoolers had a lot of fun with this project and they were extremely excited to take it home to play with. Next time I'd like to have some flies to attach as well.

2. Foam trays with small notches cut out of can be used for weaving webs as well.
3. Glue three tongue depressors or Popsicle sticks together to form a star. Attach a string to one and weave the web by looping around stick, pulling straight to the next, looping, pulling straight, and continue until finished. This could also be done by using small branches or sticks from nature!
4. For older children you could teach them how to make a dream catcher. (This site has a good tutorial - http://www.nativetech.org/dreamcat/dreminst.html ) Comparing a real spider web to your homemade dream catcher would be interesting.


Spider Hand prints:
1. Spread paint evenly over the fingertips of one hand (not the thumb) and upper portion of the palm. Press onto a piece of paper. Re-coat the same hand and turn the paper so the second set of prints form a spider's body and other four legs.
{While you have their hand covered in brown or black paint, consider making an extra print of their entire hand including the thumb to make it into a rake or extend the paint up onto their forearm to make a nice tree. These both would tie in nicely to a fall theme! And you get more mileage out of the paint.}
2. Trace hand prints (as above) onto craft foam. Cut out and add a magnet. Let the child decorate a spider face. Add the date for a keepsake craft. We made these several years ago and it's fun to pull them out of the fall decorations each year to see how their hands have grown!


Web Painting:
1. Marble Rolling Webs - cut a piece of black paper and lay it into a shoe box lid or cardboard tray. Add a small amount of white paint and a marble. Allow the child to rotate the tray creating lines of paint. {Add either salt or glitter to the paint so that it glimmers when it dries.}
2. Frisbee Marble Rolling - same idea as above except you cut the paper in the shape of circle and use a Frisbee instead of the tray. This requires more dexterity and is better suited for older children.
3. Tire paintings - take a toy car or truck. Roll the wheels through a small amount of white paint. Then have the child push the car around on black construction paper. To make it look more like a web, show how to paint from one edge of the paper to the other. This project is best if first done on small paper, such as a half sheet of construction paper. Once the child gets the idea, a large paper or even poster board makes a nice display!
4. White glue drizzled onto black paper makes a fun web. Be sure that children have the ability to squeeze the bottle and move around the paper to create the effect that you want. Otherwise, a large puddle of glue is what you will end up with.


Sensory Bin Ideas:
1. Spider Not Spider - After explaining the difference between spiders and insects, have them go on a spider hunt in this bin. I used a collection of plastic bugs, foam spiders, and base of shredded green paper & shredded brown wallpaper. Having just one type of spiders made it easy to distinguish spiders and therefore made this an independent activity for the younger kids. The older kids had fun sorting and naming the other insects as well!
2. Spiders & "Black Bean" Flies - The spiders were plastic rings from the Dollar Store. I planned on cutting the ring portion off, but it seemed too sharp for my 2 year old to play with, so I left the rings on. For the flies, I added three bags of dried black beans. I also planned on adding dried spaghetti as webs, but my children were playing so nicely with this bin that I never added it. This bin was a big hit with the preschool kids as well!

3. Water Table with Spiders - as simple as putting water and plastic spiders into a bin. My children at home loved it. At preschool we added a few mesh scoops for kids to rescue the floating spiders!
4. Cooked and cooled spaghetti - let children play with a small amount in a bowl. Once their interest wanes, suggest dipping a piece of spaghetti in white paint and dragging it across construction paper to create another type of web.
5. Hiding Spiders - take artificial spider webbing, which is found with Halloween decorations. Add one or two bags of the webbing to a tray. Add a collection of plastic spiders, spider rings, and flies (or other insects). As the kids play in the bin the spiders and fly get tangled in the web. It's quite a job to find all the hidden critters and even harder to remove them once they are embedded in the web. I think when we are done with this tub I will let my six year old son use scissors to help free all the trapped critters!

6. Spider Web Dramatic Play Box - to make this I wove a yarn web by attaching binder clips to the top lip of an oversized cardboard tray. I added one spider and one large fly and showed the children how to play "Spider & Fly" with a friend. It was great fun to hear the stories they told as played! Several of the preschoolers explained to their friend that only the fly could fly in the air and the spider had to stay on the web. It's so much fun hearing kids use their new knowledge in their play dialogue.
Of course the web was slowly deconstructed but still lots of fun & learning was happening.


Spider Art:
1. The classic paper spiders with accordion legs are a not to be missed project. If you are making these with a large number of kids, it is easiest if you pre-fold sheets of construction paper into a fan and then cut the legs the desired width.
2. Headbands - make a headband from poster board or painted cereal box. Attach eight accordion folded legs.
3. Number 8 - cut out a number eight and explain that spiders have 2 body parts (abdomen, cephalothorax). Glue eight legs onto the abdomen, suggesting that 4 go on one side and 4 on the other.
4. Cut out a spider body and legs. Allow the children to build their own spiders using the pieces. Felt or craft foam make this fun, but construction paper or card stock would work as well. Help children count the legs. Explain that some spiders have as many as 8 eyes. By not gluing or attaching these pieces, children can build it over and over again, almost like a homemade spider puzzle.

5. Egg Carton Spiders - cut egg cartons into sections with 2 egg cups. These two cups represent the spider's two body parts. Use cardboard egg cartons since they are easier to paint or decorate with markers. Add pipe cleaner or paper legs, googly eyes, and any other details you might like.
Another option is to use just one egg cup and attach a pom pom. That's the way I decided to make them this year since they turn out so cute! (see picture below)
6. Glove/ sock puppet - I was brainstorming a fun puppet and thought that taking a pair of black gloves, stuffing the fingers, sewing them onto a black sock and then embellishing it would make a great little puppet. I haven't gotten past the brainstorming phase, but if I ever do...I'll come back and add a photo to this post!
7. Water Spout and Spider Craft - perfect for retelling the Itsy Bitsy Spider! Decorate a paper towel tube as the water spout. Attach a string to spider and thread the string through the tube. At the end of the string attach a popsicle stick so that it will stay assembled. The stick also makes manipulating the spider seem like real puppetering...almost like a child's first marionette!




Spider Inspired Snacks:
After working with three year olds, I have decided there are less messier snacks than cupcakes! So I'm now on a hunt for more creative themed snacks that use healthy foods.
1. Plum spiders: Take a plum and add 8 chow mein noodles for legs.
2. Raisins make perfect 'flies' and can be added easily to any other snack. "Oh look, a fly landed on your cheese stick!" "How many flies are in your yogurt?"
3. It's good to explain to kids that spiders do not ingest their prey, instead they drink it. To illustrate the point, I made a bunch of laminated fly clip art. Then laminated them and punched a whole into it. This made it easy to insert a straw, and it could be used multiple time.
We tried drinking 'fly juice' from our straws. The drink could be anything but I chose lemonade in clear cups. I think the color and tart flavor added to the experience.

4. Gushers - we practice eating flies by putting one 'Gusher' fruit snack into our mouths. We gently bit into them and sucked the juice out. Talk about exciting!!!
5. Curds and Whey - most children do not know what curds & whey are so be sure to explain. Making real curds and whey is even more fun. (add link)
Follow this with a tastier snack by serving cottage cheese and some sort of fruit. Be sure to get out your tuffet too so you can act out Miss Muffet! Maybe hang one of your homemade spiders for a full retelling of the tale!
6. At the end of our 'spider study' at home, my kids had a special spider picnic. We had: fly juice, fly raisins on graham crackers, and curds & whey with shredded apple! They were very excited for this special celebration!

Science Activities:
1. Having pictures and posters of a variety of spiders makes learning characteristics even more fun
2. Catching a live spider to observe is great too. Just be sure to release it after a few hours.
3. Going on a nature walk and looking for spiders and webs is lots of fun. If you take a sock filled with cornstarch, you can make the web more visible by lightly sprinkling it. This also makes it more fun to photograph! Explain the importance of not disturbing the webs. Taking a photograph is a much better way of capturing the web.
4. Spider Food - Looking at bugs is fun for kids of all ages. Whenever we find a dead bug we put it into a medicine jar and add it to our 'dead bug collection'. I brought out my collection to share at Nature Preschool and the kids were VERY impressed.
5. Yarn Webs - Form a circle with a few friends and take turns throwing a ball of yarn to each other. Talk about the characteristics of webs.
6. This past summer we found a web full of tiny baby spiders. My husband taught me this great trick. If you get close to the web and blow on it, the baby spiders quickly disperse. My children were delighted watching how many baby spiders were there and could not believe how fast they moved.
7. If you have access to a spider plant with lots of babies, try planting them. Your child will have fun watching their very own spider plant grow. Add a popsicle stick with a pretend spider attached to the pot so they will remember the name of their plant.
8. How do spiders know when a fly is on their web? Though they have eyes, spiders primarily use their sense of touch. We played a game using this homemade mat (table cloth and painter's tape) to practice finding the fly. After gently shaking the mat the child who's turn it was had to slowly feel around for the fly. Of course at home my sweet girl thought it was much more fun to dance and sing "Ring around the Rosie"!

Nursery Rhymes & Songs:
1. Little Miss Muffet
2. Spider On the Floor
3. Itsy Bitsy Spider


Books for Read Alouds:
The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle
Spiders by Gail Gibbons
The Big Bug Search by Ian Jackson (not exclusively spiders but lots of fun)
Are You a Spider? by Judy Allen and Tudor Humphries
Spider on the Floor (Raffi Songs to Read) ISBN 0-517-88553-0
Spinning Spiders by Melvin Berger

Be Nice To Spiders by Margaret Bloy Graham - Copyright 1967 -- This is a wonderful picture book to share with children to teach the important role spiders play. I found my used copy on Amazon and my children were amazed to learn that 'this book was made before Mommy was even born'.

Aaaarrgghh Spider! by Lydia Monks -- I was disappointed with this book. The review made me think that it would be good for teaching children about being kind to spiders. However the flushing the spider down the toilet, walking it on a leash, and having a house overrun by spiders made me feel like this book was not a good read aloud for teaching about being kind to spiders!



Other spider resources on the web:

Eric Carle's Very Busy Spider page - http://www.eric-carle.com/bb-VBS.html

One of my favorite websites - http://www.teachpreschool.org/2010/10/itsy-bitsy-spider-day-in-preschool/

Another favorite website. Spiders are just a small part of her bug theme - http://prekinders.com/bugs-theme/

DLTK is my 'go to' place for age appropriate crafts! This link takes you to all their Miss Muffet related ideas! http://www.dltk-teach.com/rhymes/missmuffet/index.htm

S is for Spider - coloring page: http://www.first-school.ws/theme/animals/insects/spider.htm

Lots of great ideas at this site. I like the Itsy Bitsy Paint Stick Flip and Rhyme idea, and the Spider Math Mats too! http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/spiders.htm

http://atozteacherstuff.com/Printables/Spiders/index.shtml

Lots of great ideas here - http://www.kinderkorner.com/spiders.html

Even more fun ideas here - http://www.preschoolexpress.com/theme_station01/oct01_spiders.shtml

A fun gross motor activity that requires just painters tape and few pretend spiders - http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2011/10/spider-web-gross-motor-activity.html

Indoor spider web game. I love this idea but I would NOT teach my child to 'kill the spider' as she did. http://www.playcreateexplore.com/2011/06/indoor-spiderweb-and-bug-rescue.html

If you are teaching Kindergartners this is a great resource for spider themed printables - you'll need Scribd to print them.   http://kinder-pond.blogspot.com/2011/09/spidersthe-cute-kind.html

Spider Webs from Coffee Filters - http://www.artfulparent.com/2011/10/spider-webs-from-coffee-filters-another-halloween-craft.html

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Reading Websites for Kids

"I'm going on a website hunt.
I'm gonna find some good ones..."


Spent a rainy Sunday afternoon with my son looking for some quality (yet fun) reading websites. I want to have a good handful of sites that he can learn to use independently. This is what we found so far!
(Your suggestions are very welcomed!)
Our standard sites are - http://www.starfall.com/, http://www.pbskids.com/ but I have been informed he is ready for something a bit more interesting.



Dolch Word Games - http://www.dolchword.net/



My son especially liked the word blender -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/clusters/blender/game.shtml

 Phonics games for K-6
http://www.sadlier-oxford.com/phonics/student.cfm#gradek



My son liked the practice with high frequency words:
http://www.sadlier-oxford.com/phonics/grade_k_1/hifreq.htm


Fuzzy Lion Ears - matching beginning sounds
http://pbskids.org/lions/games/ears.html


Pounce- matching short vowel words
http://pbskids.org/lions/games/pounce.html