KidPages: Red Sled + Extension Activities

Remember long ago when I used to write up my lesson plans for Max's (and before that, Aaron's) preschool? I actually still have a few that I want to put up (my Olympics-themed lesson from last February was pretty awesome. But who cares about the Olympics in 2015? No one.), but no promises that it will ever happen.

You might wonder though why I haven't been writing up the lesson plans from this year's preschool. Well, it's a long story.

After Clark was born, I decided that I wasn't really interested in participating in another preschool co-op, at least not for this year. I think I was just a little burned out, and having a new baby gave me a great excuse. But guess what? June is not a good time to start registering for preschool. In fact, it's a little embarrassing because everyone's like, "Don't you know you should have registered back in January?" Plus, there are zero slots available.

In spite of putting Max on a couple of different waiting lists, August rolled around without any options. So when a friend told me about a preschool co-op in my neighborhood, I jumped at the chance to participate.

It is the most laid-back, relaxed preschool co-op I've been a part of. It meets once a week for ninety minutes. In some ways, this is great: planning is a snap and my turn only comes up about once every six weeks. But in other ways, I'm missing the structure and the extra time to run errands with only two kids during the week. Still, it's something, and we're enjoying it.

But anyway, I no longer have the long, extensive lesson plans of years past. However, I do have short little extension activities, and today I thought I'd share the most recent ones with you.

One of our favorite wintertime books is Red Sled by Lita Judge. In it, a little child props a red sled against the house at the end of a long day of sledding. A passing bear sees the sled and decides to take it for a joyride. Pretty soon a moose, rabbit, possum, (two) raccoons, porcupine, and mouse have all joined in on the wild ride. The next morning, the child can tell that something crazy (and wonderful) (and exciting) happened during the night.

It is mostly a wordless picture book (with just a few exclamatory remarks from the animals as they fly down the hill). There is little need for words because the animals' expressions capture it all: the joy, the thrill, and the fun. (I have two favorite illustrations--a closeup of the porcupine hanging onto the moose's antlers while his quills blow back in the breeze and one with a tiny silhouette of the entire group all towered one on top of the other.)

It's a pretty lively tale and one that I knew all the kids in our group would love.

After we read it, I taught them a little finger play called "Here's a Hill."

Here's a hill (tilt one arm to make a hill)
And here's a hill (tilt the other arm to make a hill)
All covered with snow (bring hands gently down like it's snowing)

I'll put on my coat (pretend to zip it up)
And jump on my sled (hold onto a pretend rope or jump)
And zoom! down the hill I will go! (clap hands and make hands slide down)

Then they made their own red sleds. I free-handed a sled to look like the one in the book (although my kids thought it looked more like a robot) and then gathered together all our red craft supplies: sequins, paint, foam letters, glitter glue, markers, crayons, yarn, and beads.

 

Then the kids filled in the white space with all things red, making it a red collage of sorts.

Finally, the title of the book, Red Sled, naturally lent itself to a rhyming game. I borrowed this game from my Snowmen at Work preschool lesson (and I originally got the idea from No Time For Flashcards). I already had all the sticks made, and I just added one more group of rhyming words to go with the -ed ending.

I passed out a stick to each child and then, one by one, I helped them figure out which jar to put their stick into. Most of them needed quite a bit of help. I narrowed it down to two choices: "Do you think "car" sounds more like "tar" or more like "Ted"? And then, if they needed a little more help, I would squeeze the words together: "Car-tar? Or car-ted?"

My four-year-old absolutely loved this game, and I need to just get it out and let him sort all the sticks by himself.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on Red Sled or other winter picture books. Please share!

Preschool: Doctors and the Letter X

Maxwell is part of a preschool co-op this school year. The group consists of six children, two girls and four boys. We do a weekly number, letter, color, and theme. For more of our preschool lesson plans, click here.

When I first found out that it would be my turn to teach Maxwell's little preschool group when the theme was "doctors and hospitals," my ideas were limited. Usually I use books as the starting point for my preparation, but I couldn't think of any good doctor books (aside from the "classic" The Berenstain Bears Go to the Doctor, which you will indeed see featured later on).

So I considered it nothing short of providential when I checked my email (after finally getting internet set up at our new house) and found a review request from Dr. Stephanie Cox, a pediatrician, who had written a book called, My Doctor and Me ABC.

I hurried off a reply, fearing I was too late since preschool was less than a week away. But Dr. Cox (bless her!) put it in the mail immediately, and it arrived just in time.

It proved to be the perfect lead-in to our activities about doctors. It was the first item on the agenda after we completed our welcome and calendar activities.

As the title suggests, the book explores the doctor's office through the ABC's (for once, "X is for X-ray" didn't seem like a cop out), with each page focusing on one letter: D is for Diagnosis, O is for Otoscope, etc.

One of the things I loved about this book was that it introduced a lot of medical terms to the children: uvula, abdomen, physician, fracture, and others. As I read the book to the preschool kids, we stopped and discussed some of these in greater detail.

The illustrations are simple and nondescript. They enhance the text without distracting. The text is informative and told in catchy rhymes. This is just the right kind of informational book for 3-5 year-olds. It worked great for our preschool co-op, and I think it would be perfect for kids who are a little bit nervous about visiting the doctor.

(Side note: until recently, it was only available as an e-book, but now, as you can see from above, there is a paperback version available. My kids have looked at and listened to it many times, and it even made Aaron and Maxwell decide to examine each other's uvulas!)

After the story, we worked on this worksheet about the letter X . I have to say  I've been impressed with how much the writing skills of all the children have improved over the course of the school year.

We finished the worksheet just in time for a visit from a very special guest. A few weeks before, I had asked my good friend, Jen (an internal medicine physician), if she would be willing to come talk to the kids about what it's like to be a doctor.

She came in an official looking white coat with a trusty stethoscope draped around her neck (and accompanied by her adorable daughter), and she was definitely the highlight of the day.

She talked to the kids about what it takes to be a doctor: years of schooling, practicing skills, reading huge, heavy textbooks, etc.

She brought bandages so they could wrap up each other's injures:

Those who wanted to could don a germ-concealing mask:

Then she pulled out her reflex hammer and tested all the kids' reflexes (which they all thought was super funny):

She listened to their heartbeats and then let them listen to each other's and also to their own. She pulled out an otoscope and showed them how it worked. And then, the crowning event, she gave each of them a bandaid, which just shows that besides being a doctor, she also understands that preschoolers don't need a reason to wear a bandaid. It was so nice of her to come spend the afternoon with us, and it really helped the kids learn what goes on in a doctor's office without feeling any sort of anxiety or pressure.

By that time, the kids were hungry, so we paused for a quick snack. I wanted something that would be healthy, so we went with apple slices (you know, "an apple a day . . . "). Since we had also just celebrated St. Patrick's Day the day before, I also wanted something green. So I made these Popeye Muffins, which get their vibrant green color from spinach.

I was fortunate enough to have another mom helping me, so for our next activity, I actually split up the kids into two groups.

One of the groups worked on these skeletons (i.e., full body x-rays) made from Q-tips.

I lightly drew white lines on the paper ahead of time so that the kids would know where to glue the Q-tips if they wanted a little help. I actually thought several of them would want to use the blank side of the paper and make their skeletons a little different from the design I drew. But they all went with my version, so all of the skeletons ended up looking almost exactly the same. Oh well.

Meanwhile, I brought the other kids back into the living room for a little imaginative play. When I was a kid, my siblings and I were crazy about Playmobil. For years, we diligently saved our money for months at a time until we had enough to buy a new set. When I started planning this preschool lesson, I remembered that I had the operating and recovery rooms stored away at my parents' house, and I begged my mom to mail them to me so the kids could play with them.

They had so much fun, and it was definitely a good idea to split them up into smaller groups so there wasn't any fighting over various pieces.

On the second day of preschool, we began by reading this favorite:

I know the Berenstain Bears can be very divisive--either you love them or you hate them. I happen to love them, as long as they're the ones from the 70's and 80's. Many of the children had heard this book before, but it totally captured their interest anyway.

After the story, we talked about the heart. I showed them pictures from the First Human Body Encyclopedia. And then we watched this short video about how blood travels in and out of the heart. Then I gave the kids this picture of the heart to color.

Then we learned a little bit about muscles. I found this idea for a bicep/tricep model but thought it would be too difficult for the kids to assemble on their own. So I asked Mike (my husband) if he'd make one for each child.

After we talked about the way the muscles move to let their arms bend and straighten, they traced and cut out their hands and attached them to the model.

Then they spent some time stretching them back and forth.

The rest of the morning was spent with a snack (it was the day before one boy's birthday, so we had cheese and crackers because he loves cheese), rotating the groups from the day before (with the skeleton and the Playmobil) and playing outside.

Maxwell's Preschool: Walter the Baker

Maxwell is part of a preschool co-op this school year. The group consists of five children, two girls and three boys. We do a weekly number, letter, color, and theme. For more of our preschool lesson plans, click here.

It was my turn to teach preschool last week. The theme was cooking and baking along with the number 19, the letter R, and the color brown.

When I saw I would be teaching about baking, I immediately thought of Walter the Baker by Eric Carle. 

Our family loves this story about Walter's invention of the pretzel. Every morning, Walter bakes a batch of sweet rolls for the Duke and Duchess. But one morning, the cat spills the milk, and Walter substitutes water in the rolls instead. The rolls turn out like rocks, and the Duke is ready to banish Walter from the Duchy. But then he realizes he will miss Walter's sweet rolls, so he gives him a difficult challenge instead: "Invent a roll through which the rising sun can shine three times. It must be made from one piece of dough, and most of all, it must taste good." Walter works all through the night, and at last, quite by accident, comes up with the pretzel.

Although the story is not based on fact, it turned out to be the perfect way for our little group of preschoolers to learn more about baking.

On the first day, I arranged for a tour at our nearby Great Harvest. I don't know if all Great Harvests offer preschool tours, but this one was fabulous.

Our tour guide, Sarah, was so nice. She was great with the kids and made sure they all had a fun time.

First she read them a book about baking bread. 

She showed them the ingredients (whole wheat flour, water, salt, honey, and yeast) that go into a regular batch of bread.

Then the kids donned aprons so they'd be ready to head into the kitchen and meet the bakers.

 
The rule was, Keep your arms folded so you stay safe next to the hot oven.

The kitchen was brightly lit and warm. Sarah showed everyone the big work table where the bakers get the dough ready.

Then we saw a batch of bread come out of the ginormous oven. I couldn't believe how many loaves were in this oven at the same time. There were several racks just like the one you see, and they have a big timer to let them know which batch of bread is ready to come out when.

Then we got to see the large wheat grinder where they grind the grain into flour, and also the huge bowls and mixer that they knead the dough in. They said that over the holidays, all of their bowls were full all the time. Each bowl had an extender going up the sides so that it could accommodate enough ingredients for 100 loaves of bread. Pretty crazy.

Then we left the kitchen and went back to the table where Sarah gave each of the kids a small ball of dough.

They pounded and twisted and molded and shaped their dough until it was exactly like they wanted it.

Then they went back to the kitchen to politely ask the bakers if they would please bake their creations for them.

Besides their own hand-crafted rolls, the kids also each got a little goodie-bag filled with a large half-loaf of honey whole wheat bread, a chocolate chip cookie, and a coupon for another free loaf. Great Harvest was very generous, and the children loved the tour (although when I asked all of the them what their favorite part was, one of the little girls said, "The drive going there.")

On Thursday, I had all of the children at my house where we experimented more with baking.

After our usual opening activities (calendar, pledge, weather, etc.), we talked about our field trip to the bakery. I asked them if they remembered the ingredients that went into a loaf of bread. When they mentioned water as one of the ingredients, I told them we were going to read a story about one baker who tried to use water in place of milk for his rolls. We then read Walter the Baker.

At the end of the story, we talked about how different ingredients are good for different things. For a loaf of bread, water is essential. For sweet rolls, it doesn't work as well. Ingredients work in combination with other ingredients, and sometimes you have to experiment for quite awhile before you find a combination that works.

With those ideas going around in their minds, I did something very brave: I let the children create their own recipe.  I first saw this idea on Tinkerlab, and I tweaked her suggestions to work with our group of four-year-olds.

In spite of my fears, this activity was a huge success. Here are a few of the things I did (either accidentally or on purpose) that I think helped it turn out so well: 

Tip #1: Choose complementary ingredients
No, I didn't give five children free reign in the kitchen (maybe if you were only doing this with one child, you could allow a little more freedom). I pre-selected ingredients, but I tried to give them enough choices that the end result was still wide open and they felt like they were in control of the decisions. I went with flour, sugar, cocoa powder, applesauce, butter, eggs, water, milk, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, blueberries, chocolate chips and raisins.

Tip #2: Give some basic guidelines
I told them the measuring cups were for the flour, sugar, blueberries, etc.; the glass measuring cup was for the liquids; and the measuring spoons were for the spices, baking powder, etc. I just wasn't prepared to let anyone choose to add a cup of salt. We wanted to experiment, but even experimentation calls for a few boundaries.

Tip #3: Take turns
Each child got a turn to choose an ingredient/amount and a turn to stir. Then we added a few more ingredients by voting.



Tip #4: Give a few gentle nudges
I tried very hard to keep my mouth shut. But when one of the children chose to add a tablespoon of salt, well, I may or may not have filled it up only partway. However, in my defense, when another child chose two cups of water, I pressed my lips together and didn't say a word. As we neared the end, I just asked them about a few of the ingredients they hadn't considered yet and let them decide (by raise of hand) if they thought we should add them or not.

Given that the batter was on the significantly runny side, I didn't quite know what to expect.

But they actually baked up rather nicely and resembled a muffin when I took them out of the pan.

All of the chocolate chips sunk to the bottom, and they were on the spongy side, but the kids still ate them up. And some of them even asked for seconds. I think they were just so proud of their own creation, they overlooked some of the obvious faults. (Although there was one little girl who was adamant that there was too much salt (and I had to agree with her). But even that was a good lesson.)

And just in case you're interested in seeing what all went into these scrumptious muffins, I happened to write it all down:

Salty-Sweet Chocolate Muffins (salted chocolate is all the rage right now, right?)
Add ingredients in the order listed below. For authentic results, stir after each addition:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup chocolate chips
2 cups water
2 tsp. salt
1 T. cinnamon
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 cup cocoa 
1/2 cup butter

Pour into greased muffin tins and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Because I wasn't sure if their baked creation would turn out edible or not, I also made a batch of pretzel dough the night before. (Plus, how can you talk about Walter the Baker and not make pretzels? That would be very, very wrong.)

I gave each child a ball of dough. (I adore this recipe. It's quick to mix up, it can wait in the fridge overnight, and it is very forgiving of too much flour.)

The children stretched and rolled and stretched and rolled, and then we twisted each one into a tricky pretzel shape. We talked about the function of yeast and how it helps bread and pretzels to be light and fluffy on the inside. We baked them up, and then I brushed them with butter and sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar when they came out of the oven.

(Confession: I actually made two batches of pretzels the night before, and after all the kids left, my own kids and I twisted up the second batch, baked them all right then, and ate them for lunch. Yeah, we love these pretzels.)

The letter of the day was "R," so since we'd been talking about yeast and bread, we talked about other things that RISE. The children mentioned the sun and balloons. Water also rises during flooding or when the tide comes in.

We made a cute little craft to show some of the things that rise. I gave the kids a piece of cardstock with pictures of bread, balloons, and the sun. 

 

They colored and cut them out. Then I attached a brad in the middle of each one and poked it through a precut slit in the black cardstock. Then the children could slide up the brad to make the sun (or the bread) (or the balloons) rise.

Then we made a thank-you card for Sarah, who gave us a tour of Great Harvest earlier in the week.

Finally, we were supposed to play a game with the number 19, but we were completely out of time. But this is what I'd planned for us to do:

I made up this little gameboard with 19 squares. At the beginning of the game, I was going to have each child choose which number they thought would be the last one chosen. Then we would begin drawing cards. If they chose the number 5, they would put a pretzel on it. Then if they chose the number 14, they'd put a pretzel on it, etc. The last number drawn would be the winning number, and whoever made the closest guess to the winning number was, obviously, the winner. I know, not the most creative or exciting game, but I thought it would help them reinforce their number recognition.


And that was our week of baking and cooking!

Maxwell's Preschool: S is for Scaredy Squirrel

Maxwell is part of another preschool co-op this school year. The group consists of five children, two girls and three boys. We do a weekly number, letter, color, and theme and use the curriculum The Amazing Action Alphabet. (As of right now, I am not overly impressed with The Amazing Action Alphabet, but it is providing some structure, which is nice.) For more preschool ideas, click here.

For my first week of teaching, I had the number 5, the letter S, the color blue, and "feelings and emotions" as a theme.

I thought Scaredy Squirrel would be the perfect lead-in to a discussion about feelings and emotions . . . plus "scaredy" and "squirrel" both begin with the letter S. How convenient.

Scaredy Squirrel is afraid of everything. He never leaves his safe nut tree, and he never varies from his very reliable schedule. But just in case disaster were ever to strike, Scaredy Squirrel is well-prepared with his emergency kit. (And if all else fails, he knows he can always play dead.) Then one day, something unexpected does happen. And Scaredy Squirrel realizes the "unknown" isn't as awful as he feared . . . even if his emergency kit falls out of his tree.

(There is a whole line of Scaredy Squirrel books, and all of them are funny and creative and present a new set of problems and fears to overcome. Our other favorites are Scaredy Squirrel at Night and Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend.)

After beginning with our opening routine (welcome song, days of the week song, calendar, weather, pledge of allegiance, reading the story in the alphabet book, and doing a little worksheet), I read Scaredy Squirrel to the children.

But first, we had a little discussion about things that we're scared of. Even though the kids were very influenced by what each other was saying, we still heard a variety of ideas.

I only got to the first page before I had to stop. The first page reads, "WARNING! Scaredy Squirrel insists that everyone wash their hands with antibacterial soap before reading this book." So of course, we had to stop and put on some hand sanitizer. We wanted to follow Scaredy Squirrel's request.

Personally, I sometimes find Scaredy Squirrel a little tedious to read aloud because it contains lots of lists and diagrams and such (which are all absolutely hilarious but make it difficult to maintain the flow), but the kids LOVED this book. Some of them are a little energetic sometimes, but all of them were motionless while we were reading.

After reading it, we gathered around the table to make our own charts of things we're afraid of. Scaredy Squirrel's chart looked like this:

The kids' charts turned out like this:

Looking back, I wish that I'd labeled all of their squares just like Scaredy Squirrel's. Some of their pictures are more difficult to interpret than others, although I know tarantulas, bees, and sharks all made an appearance straight from Scaredy Squirrel's own list.

Top left corner, going clockwise: shark, ghost, a stuffed snake named Luvvy, and bees

After that, we had a snack. Since Scaredy Squirrel loves nuts, we had "acorns"--really chocolate kisses, vanilla wafers, and pretzels, glued together with frosting. Super healthy, I know.

In the book, Scaredy Squirrel shows several similar emotions: fear, anxiety, stress, terror, and panic. But I wanted the kids to think about more emotions than just those ones. So I decided to let them give Scaredy Squirrel whatever emotion they wanted.

I drew my own picture of Scaredy Squirrel but left off his face. Then I laminated him. I made one of these for each child.

I put dry eraser markers out for everyone (and lectured them about the importance of keeping them away from their clothes :-)). Then we talked about some of the other ways Scaredy Squirrel might feel. I had a white board, and as the kids thought of various feelings, I drew an example up on the board. They could then copy it on Scaredy Squirrel or come up with their own ideas.

 

 Surprised

I was surprised with how imaginative the kids were with this activity. They loved it, and they were really quite good with adding little details to change Scaredy Squirrel's expressions.

 Angry

There is a little twist at the end of Scaredy Squirrel. As he jumps to save his emergency kit, Scaredy Squirrel discovers something amazing: he is a flying squirrel. Since he had never ventured beyond his nut tree, he never knew he had this amazing talent.

Of course, Scaredy Squirrel wasn't really flying, but gliding. I thought this would be a great time to talk about how falling objects slow down based on how well they're able to catch the air. For the sake of this lesson and our obsession with the letter S, we called this soaring. 

I found a great book of science projects for 2-6 year-olds called Science Play by Jill Frankel Hauser.

It just happened to have a whole experiment focused around air resistance.

The book suggested using paper strips in three different ways:

1. As itself - no folds or cuts anywhere
2. A larger rectangle with a long slit coming in from either side, then opened up and taped to make a triangular shape.
3. A little snip in each end that were then interlocked to make a fish shape
4. I added the fourth rectangle and later let them cut, fold, and tape it however they wanted to make the absolute best flier they possibly could

Then it was time to test the fliers. First we tried the paper strip. 

 

Then we tried the fish shape. This one was actually really cool because it spun around and around all the way down.

After that, we tried the triangle shape. Now that they had three different flying examples, we went inside to work on the green piece of paper.

I was amazed with their creativity. They cut and folded, and they used lots and lots and lots of tape. All of them looked so different!

As a final activity, I put a basket under the club house. I told the kids they could use whichever flier they wanted. Then they had to drop them and try to get them in the basket. This was much more difficult than I was expecting.

That was the end of the first day (we hold preschool two times a week).

On the second day, the first thing we did (after our opening routine) was go into the kitchen and make some pretzels. I wanted them to have a more tactile experience with the letter S. I gave each of them a ball of dough and let them roll and twist and shape it into an S.

I had made the dough the night before (I used this recipe). I've never let the dough sit overnight before, but it worked out just great.

While the pretzels were cooking, I had them work on a little number 5 worksheet.

While they were doing that, I took the pretzels out of the oven and brushed them with butter and sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar.

We ate them while they were still warm. They were so yummy! One of the little boys is kind of a picky eater. He was in Aaron's preschool co-op last year, and I almost never could find a snack that he would eat. But he LOVED these pretzels, so I felt very gratified.

To go along with our feelings and emotions theme, we read another book: Happy by Mies Van Hout.

This one is absolutely delightful. It shows one fish on each page displaying a different emotion. The emotions range from your basic "happy" and "sad" all the way to "shocked" and "jealous" and "furious." I love the variety. It's the only book I've found that covers so many feelings, and it's amazing how well the pictures express what the fish are feeling.

(My two-year-old has this book memorized, and it is so adorably cute to hear him say big words like "curious" and "confused" while making the appropriate faces.)

As I read this book to the kids, we tried to copy the faces of the fish. I explained any of the feelings they weren't familiar with.

Then I had all of them sit on the couch. Each one had a turn leaving the room and deciding which emotion from the book they were going to express--a simple version of charades. It was wildly entertaining to see these emotions on the children. We played several rounds of this game, and I think they would have just kept playing if I hadn't moved them on to another activity.

In Scaredy Squirrel, there are a couple of pages that outline Scaredy Squirrel's schedule each day: at 7:00 a.m. he eats a nut, at 12:00 p.m. he eats another nut, etc.

I thought it would be a good opportunity to have a simple lesson on telling time. But first, we had to make our own clocks.

I did quite a bit of the prep work for this project ahead of time. I cut out the arrows for the clock hands. I also wrote out the numbers 6-12 on squares and glued them around half of the paper plate.

 

I wanted the children to have both writing and cutting practice, but I knew it would be too overwhelming for them to try and write all the numbers. So far, we've learned the numbers 1-5, so I gave them a strip of paper with several squares marked on it. I had them write the numbers on the squares and then cut them apart. Then they glued them onto the paper plate to finish the clock.

Then I showed them how the little hand tells us the hour, and when the big hand is right on the 12, it is exactly three o'clock (or five o'clock or whatever).

We played a little game where I told them what time it was (seven o'clock, for example), and then they scrambled as fast as they could to show that time on their clocks. Then they flipped it around for me to see.

By this time, they were all getting a little restless, so it wasn't quite as fun as I was hoping for. However, when my five-year-old got home from school and saw the clocks, he had to make one, and I've since used it to help him learn to tell time, with good success.

We only did one more activity after this, and it was very unstructured. Since we were learning about the number five, I told them to go on a five scavenger hunt. They could go anywhere in the house or in the backyard and round up a collection of five. It could be a collection of anything, even mismatched or random objects, but it could only have five objects in it.

Here are two collections--one of animals and another of leaves.

I think it's kind of funny that both last year and this year, my weeks to teach fell on the letter S. So while I don't have any lesson plans for many of the other letters, I now have two completely different lessons for the letter S.