Martin luther King Jr. Preschool Activity

We had fun with this activity celebrating the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

We read a couple of books about about peace and friendship including Can You Say Peace by Karen Katz and We All Sing With The Same Voice by Phillip J Miller.

We discussed the theme of peace and friendship and talked about what it means to be peaceful and friendly. (topics that aren't limited to MLK day, we discuss these themes quite often.)

We then read this beautiful book I recently discovered called I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King Jr. and Kadir Nelson. The book has gorgeous illustrations!

This description was from Amazon:

 from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s daughter, Dr. Bernice A. King: 

“My father’s dream continues to live on from generation to generation, and this beautiful and powerful illustrated edition of his world-changing "I Have a Dream" speech brings his inspiring message of freedom, equality, and peace to the youngest among us—those who will one day carry his dream forward for everyone."  




Although the book is beautiful I did skip over some of the vocabulary/parts that I knew would be too complicated or mature for my 4 year old and 2 year old. I still think it's a great book to introduce MLK day to preschoolers and it allowed for age appropriate discussions about who MLK was, what he stood for, and why we celebrate him.

After we read and discussed the story I asked the girls to draw illustrations (observational drawings) about what they liked about the story. As they recalled what they wanted to draw they revisited the story, turning to favorites pages. This is a great comprehension activity to do with any story!

The girls were given clip boards, paper and pencils to do their drawings. Clip boards are another great way to make drawing and writing fun! Kids love them and it also allows for writing to be done in many places other than a table.







When they were finished they were asked to tell me about their drawings. As they told me about them I wrote down their dictations on the drawing. This is a great way to model that print has meaning. You are teaching them that what they say, their very own words can be written down and thus words have meaning!

Here is my 2 year olds

Here is my 4 year olds:

 

When they were done I mounted them with black construction paper and displayed them in our kitchen.
Don't forget to display those drawings! Kids love to see their work displayed with honor!




Simple, fun, age appropriate way to celebrate an American Hero!




This activity was linked with

Butterfly Books and Kids Co-op

 We recently wrapped up our butterfly garden study by setting our butterflies free. During our exploration of butterflies we had fun with these butterfly books and I thought I would share as some of them aren't overly popular.

 1. Butterflies Fly by Yvonne Winer- This book is more poetic than storyline based but I like that they feature many different types of butterflies from all around the world.  The illustrations are captivating as my girls adored looking at the pictures.  Although it's poetic I also like how they tell you facts about each butterfly featured.  There's also a butterfly identification guide at the end of the book which my 3 year old really enjoyed!

2. The Butterfly Alphabet by K Jell B. Sandved- The author photographed all the letters of the alphabet in butterfly wings (over a 25 year period!) On one side of the page you will find the butterfly and the other page you will find the letter in a full close up of the wing.  The photographs are fascinating and really can be enjoyed by all ages!  It has a simple rhyming text with each letter/page that appeals to younger children.

3. From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman- This book was perfect to read as an introduction to any butterfly unit/study. In our case we read this book the day our butterfly garden arrived.
It takes you through the entire metamorphosis process but is written in fun easy to understand way for preschoolers or kindergarteners. It's part of the Let's Read and Find Out Science series of books which are all wonderful!

4. Waiting For Wings by Lois Ehlert- This ones probably more popular as the it's by a famous author Lois Ehlert. In Lois Ehlert fashion the illustrations are beautiful and the text is simple and rhyming.  The books demonstrates the life cycle of four common butterflies. This book will be loved by any preschooler!!

5. A Butterfly is Patient by Diana Hutts Aston- This book has gorgeous illustrations!  The text is fairly long and may not be conducive for a young child to sit through but it's worth it to at least look at the pictures together and discuss the different types of butterflies. It's filled with a lot of information about butterflies and would be the perfect butterfly book to grow with your young child!

Be sure to check out all the wonderful ideas in The Weekly Kids Co-op!

Everyday is Earth Day

This is a series I will be doing to feature ways you can celebrate our Earth with young children.

We started simple with a nature walk in our own backyard. I am lucky we have a fairly "naturey" (I know that's not a real word but humor me please!) yard but you can easily do this activity at a local park, gardens, forest preserve etc. Before the walk we talked about all the parts of our earth that we can find in our backyard.

We walked around the yard exploring and my 3 year old collected the nature items she discovered.





I explained we were going to make her very own nature book using the items she collected.



These little books are great for so many projects. I purchased them in a bundle at Discount School Supply

Using popsicle sticks she glued on each item to a page and then we labeled it. (A great way to include text with meaning.)





And Voila! We have our nature book!

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Sink or Float Experiment

Here's a fun little story extension from the book Who Sank the Boat by Pamela Allen.

The book has a simple little plot about animals that go for a ride in the row boat. As each animal hops in the boat the question is asked "Do you know who sank the boat?".

Great story to introduce the concept of what makes things sink and what makes things float.

After we read the story I made a simple graph- with the words sink on one side and float on the other.



Ahead of time I gathered several objects to test if they could sink or float. I told my daughter we were going to conduct an experiment and be scientists. We talked about those new words :experiment and scientists. My 3 year old pulled from the bag and I had her predict if she thought it was going to sink or float. (we also talked about the word predict).

She tested it out in the bucket of water and then placed the object in the corresponding column.





When she was done testing them all we compared and contrasted the columns. I asked "Which one has more?", "Which one has less?".



She loved it and after we were done wanted to find more objects to test!

Story Extension Activity with a Leo Lionni Book

Hello and Happy New Year!!  I am so excited to begin the new year with some fresh and abundant ideas for this blog!  Thank you for coming along for the ride.  And as always, I love to hear from you so any feedback is appreciated!

When I taught preschool I absolutely loved story extension activities.  Story extension activities really can be anything you do to extend the book of choice such as art projects, acting out the story, making a book about the story, etc. the list really is endless. I plan to include many posts of my favorite story extension activities in the near future.

Really there is nothing like seeing a book come to life through a child's eyes based on a project you did together!  It's such a great way to celebrate the joy of GOOD books!

Today we read Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni.  On a side note Leo Lionni is a fabulous children's author and illustrator with some great gems under his belt.




The book is about color mixing- when little blue hugs little yellow they turn into little greens.

After we read the book I gave the girls a zip lock baggie with squirts of blue paint and yellow paint.



We talked about the book and I asked my 3 year old to recall what happened when little blue and little yellow hugged? "They made green!" I asked her how we could make green? She looked at her paint in the baggie and said "With the blue and yellow."

And away we went! Both girls loved squishing the paint around in the bag!! Fun and simple story extension that even ties in some science with color mixing!

a Halloween Story Extension

When I used to teach preschool I LOVED reading stories and doing extension activities related to the book; acting it out, making an art project, making a recipe, etc.

This is one of my favorite Halloween books for early childhood.


The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything by Linda Williams.

You can find it here on Amazon: The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything

The book is full of repetition which the kids love and it makes for a great story extension of "acting out" as you read aloud.

In the story the little old lady comes across two shoes that go clomp clomp, one pair of pants that go wiggle wiggle, one hat that goes nod nod, one pair of gloves that go clap clap and one scary pumpkin head that go Boo Boo.

The objects and sounds/actions they make are repeated throughout the story.  I made a sign for each of them, drew a picture and wrote the corresponding phrase under each one.  

Each participant was assigned a card- in our case we had grandma and grandpa help out to fill all the spots.

My husband read the story out loud.

Mallory was the shirt so when my husband read "and the shirt went... Mallory then held her sign up and said "shake shake!"....and so on with each participant and their part.

Grandma was the hat that went nod nod.

Papa was the shoes that went clomp, clomp.

Daddy was also the pants that went wiggle wiggle and we are all together the big scary pumpkin head that went boo boo.

I can't even begin to describe how much Mallory enjoyed this simple story extension. I had already had the signs made from my years teaching but it's so easy to put together some for yourself.

What a great way to celebrate books by providing an all family fun activity!