Teaching with Ticia: coloring books

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This may seem kind of like a weird topic, but there's some great learning coloring books out there.  In particular any that are paired with a book.

I was lucky enough to find at Barnes and Noble a few years ago a copy of "Santa Mouse," and the coloring book that used the same illustrations.  I went through and copied most of the pictures from it that helped tell the story, colored, and laminated them.

This year we read the book, and then afterwards I pulled out my pictures and we used them as a story-stretcher.

First we reviewed the story looking at the book and making sure we understood the order of the events.

Then we took the pictures and put them in order of the events of the story.  This was also a great way to reinforce left to right, as we put the pictures down just as we would if we were reading.

Then they took turns putting the pictures in different orders and making up their own stories.

As an alternative if you can't find a coloring book for the pictures you can also scan the actual pictures from the book in.  Back when I was teaching I scanned in pictures from most of the books I used regularly and then printed them on cardstock.  I then also wrote a sentence to go with the picture and we used it as an activity for learning "Beginning, Middle, and End."

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Dictate, Draw, and Drama Activity with a Build Your Own Stage Suggestion

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Karen, the Sippy Cup Central Mom, submitted this interactive language arts activity titled Dictate, Draw, and Drama.

The idea behind the 3 D's (dictate, draw, and drama) is creating or retelling a story, illustrating it, and then acting it out.

Have your child begin by telling a story using his or her amazing imagination.

As the child tells the story write it down in his or her own words.

When the story is complete, allow the student to draw an accompanying picture on a separate piece of paper.

Finally, set up your stage and prepare your props to dramatize the new story.

Don't already have your own puppet stage? Check out these step by step instructions for inexpensively creating the fold up stage shown below.

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Play To Learn: Education Cubes

Hi and welcome to Play To Learn!

I’m so excited to share a new game that’s all about learning with you today! My good friend Mama Jenn just launched her new Education Cubes website where you can download TONS of different printables for learning with her education cubes and it’s perfect for my Play To Learn posts!

Education Cubes are fun educational printable cards that are to be used with Stack-N-Smile Photo blocks. Mama Jenn has created cards for just about any subject you can ask for! What I love most about the Education Cubes is that they’re fun! All my kiddos loved these and seriously, if learning can be this much fun count me in!

So far she has the following available:

• Early Learning: Alphabet, Calendar, Colors, (Numbers & Shapes coming soon)
• Language Arts: Alphabet, Dolch Site Words, Word Families (SWR Spelling coming soon)
• Math: Addition, Subtraction, Measurement, Numbers, Ordinal & Roman Numerals, (Multiplication, Division and Shapes are coming soon)
• Science: Earth Science (Biology & Chemistry coming soon)
• Geography: US Geography, US History (World Geography & World History coming soon)
• Electives: Bible & Spanish
• Misc: Christmas

She was even nice enough to create a set of them for my Letter of the Week curriculum!

My daughter had so much fun rolling the cubes then saying the letter that each picture started out with, it was a great way to review letter sounds.

I have to say that Mama Jenn definitely found a great way to make math fun! My kids loved rolling their dice! She currently has addition, subtraction, measurement, Numbers, Ordinal & Roman Numerals and is working on multiplication, division and shapes.

I’m doing a giveaway for Education Cubes this week too and wanted to share it with you all too!

If you have more ideas to share, or would like to be included in future “Play To Learn” posts, please email me at homeschoolerconfessions {at} gmail {dot} com, we’d love to hear from you!

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Show and Tell #40

Welcome! New to ABC and 123? Please check out our FAQ in the sidebar.

We are excited to kick of a fantastic new year of Show and Tell! Thank you all for making it the success that it is. We look forward to seeing what you are up to. As before, we will randomly select three links to feature at the beginning of next week's edition.

Ready? Set. Share!


<a href="http://www.abcand123learning.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img border="0" alt="abc button" src="http://i596.photobucket.com/albums/tt46/meyeringk/ABCGraphics-Page003.jpg" /></a>
Please remember these rules:

~Post an "Ah Ha Moment," favorite lesson, experiment, learning game, field trip, whatever you're currently working on, or your child's fridge worthy artwork, handmade gifts or anything holiday related.

~Direct link to your post, not your home page.

~Include a link back to us or our link button in your post.

~If you come back and your link is missing, double check to make sure you've followed the directions!

~Lastly, please try to visit and comment on, at least three links. Spread the comment love and make someone's day!

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10 Creative Ways to Use Calendars

Happy New Year! We are finally back in posting mode and looking forward to 2011!

Last year Elise shared with us a wonderful post listing 10 very different ways to use calendars to play and learn. We were thrilled to hear she was on it again this year with a new post full of fun. Thanks so much for your willingness to share!

Calendars are one of those resources that are versatile and come in handy for all different types of play and learning activities. The best part of all is at the moment calendars have been heavily discounted.

This year we plan on learning more about other countries and artists so I have stocked up on calendars that have pictures featuring these subjects.

As well as the ten ways to use calendars with young children that was I wrote about here we also used our calendars in the following ways throughout 2010:

1. We used some pictures from our calendars as part of a sensory experience to learn more about Australian animals and their habitats.

Photo below: For the aforementioned activity I used pictures of Australian animals from a calendar, together with some texture cards I made using household items and bits and pieces from our craft cupboard, as well as four habitiat cards that I also made.

Photo below: The texture cards

Photo below: The activity - Choose a picture of an Australian animal, then look at the texture cards to see if you can find a card that would feel like the animal.

2. Pictures from calendars can make inspiring backdrops for imaginative creations. As part of our Imagine theme last year, I made up an outdoor scavenger hunt. The Outdoor Creations Scavenger Hunt can be accessed from the link below:Outdoor Creations.

We used our treasure collected from the scavenger hunt to transform into all sorts of creations. We used some pages from a fairy calendar to inspire some of our creations made from flowers, bark, twigs and stones.

Photos below: A page from one of our fairy calendars provided the perfect setting for our creations.

3. A scene from a picture in a calendar could also be a perfect backdrop for play dough creations. Alternatively, you could use a calendar picture as a stimulus to create creatures, houses, transport etc for the place featured on a calendar picture.

Photo below: This was a play dough billabong that we created one morning. We used bubble wrap in this case for our setting, but I am thinking that this year we may use pictures from our calendars to complement and inspire some more of our play dough creations.

4. Pictures from calendars can be used as part of giant game board.

Photo below: Calendars could be used to learn about colours. Use masking tape to draw up a large grid on your floor. You can then place a different coloured calendar picture in each grid. Simply name a colour and have your child jump into the box containing the picture featuring the colour you mentioned. Calendars are excellent because you can have a set of coloured pictures that your child is interested in.

Photo below: We have also used our giant game board to play different versions of twister. I have not yet used calendar pictures for this, but I think this year we will. Simply put a picture in each square and then have your child place their left hand and/or foot etc onto a certain picture. Perfect to reinforce left and right.

5. Last year, I used some of our calendars featuring animals to make up an activity where the kids had to use their detective skills to observe and then draw conclusions about animals.

Photo below: I selected pictures of various animals from calendars. I then temporarily secured numbered strips of paper onto the picture. The numbers indicated the order in which the strips of paper were to be removed to try and identify what animal was featured. The first strip of paper (labelled number 1 was usually a tail, paw, foot etc), the second strip of paper would reveal another feature of the animal and so on.

The beauty of this activity is that it is appropriate for various ages and it is easy to simplify. Also, it is versatile - the pictures could be of places, landmarks, famous paintings, objects, or be used to fit into a particular theme.

6. This year we are going to use some of our recently purchased calendars to learn more about the world around us. I am thinking about using some of the calendar pictures together with Venn Diagrams. I used Venn Diagrams often in my classrooms when I was teaching as they are an excellent way to assist learners in comparing and contrasting ideas. A Venn Diagram involves constructing two circles (or using two hula hoops) which intersect. Each circle is used to record the characterisitcs of the item, animal, place etc that you are analysing. It is in the intersecting section where you record the common characterisitcs of the two ideas you are comparing. Another useful tool that I have used with is a Y chart. A Y chart involves drawing a large uppercase Y and labelling the three sections, "Looks like"; feels like" and sounds like". Graphic organisational tools are easy to introduce to young children and help organise ideas when you are brainstorming. A visual stimulus, such as a picture from a calendar would complement activities using graphic organisational charts.

7. The small pictures, usually on the back of the calendars, could be used to make story telling dice. Story telling dice are a fun way to encourage imaginative story telling.

8. Our puppets need a good work out and I am thinking that puppets and pictures from calendars could also work well together for another variation with story telling. You could also use some of the pictures from calendars to make popsicle stick puppets.

9. Create an artwork using pictures from calendars. You could use a portion of a calendar picture and use it to complete a painting or drawing. You could also consider using sand (perhaps even colour it), leaves, buttons etc for a creation.

10. Use calendar pictures together with photos to create fun scenes. Now I have 20 ways that we can enjoy our calendars this year. Money well spent I say.

For the complete post visit Inspiration Surrounds, Creativity Abounds.

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Feature Yourself Friday: Meet Kara

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Hi! I am Kara and I have a fun little preschool activity blog called little learners lounge. I started up the lounge when my daughter Eva turned two and decided she no longer needed to nap. I knew I needed to come up with some things to keep her occupied throughout the day so I began planning weekly themes and activities to go along with them. Using my background as a first grade teacher and early literacy specialist, I have tried to incorporate authentic learning opportunities into each theme, along with tons of books! We do all sorts of activities in the lounge including crafts,

(clothespin Stegosaurus)

(popsicle paintings)

cooking,

(fresh squeezed lemonade)

gross and fine motor activities,

(seaweed dancing)

(transferring pompoms with tongs)

and academics too!

(fire house math)

(popsicle letter matching game)

And that's just the tip of the ice berg! We have explored many themes throughout the last year and this year we are investigating many more while "traveling" the world. So stop on over to little learners lounge and say hello! You can also find us on Facebook. Thank you to everyone at ABC and 123 for letting me introduce myself and thank you for taking the time to read about my little blog. I hope to see you in the lounge!

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Teaching with Ticia: Snow!

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With January our thoughts all turn to winter themes and units and snow and Jan Brett's The Mitten.  Or maybe that's just me.  But, here in Texas it's really hard to think about all these things with weather in the 70s.

So, to help our study of snow we made some.


Supplies needed: mixing bowl or some other suitable container, disposable diaper, water, measuring cups

Optional: toys to play with

For our experiment, we were going to be traveling to another location and doing it with another family, so I bagged up half a diapers worth of stuff for each child and when we got there poured it into the bowl for the kids to play with.


Now, there's two different ways to go.

1.  A cool sensory experience; in that case rip the stuffing out of the diaper, dump it in a bowl, and let your kid have at it pouring water in.

OR

2.  Make it an experiment.

In which case, here goes:

First, make a prediction of how many cups the stuff will hold.  What will this feel like afterwards.  Feel it right now, what does it feel like.  Is it rough, soft?  Does it have lots of little pieces or is it all one big clump?


Now, put the diaper stuff in a bowl.  Slowly start adding scoops of water.  With older kids you can be more scientific and make sure you're measuring accurately.  Little guys will happily count through how many cups of water you can add, and you will be surprised by how much it soaks up.

My daughter wasn't willing to pour large amounts of water in, and it was interesting to compare the consistencies of the different bowls after awhile they were very different.







Look at the difference between these two bowls.  Princess only added in about 1/2 cup of water, and hers still feels and looks rather like clumpy cotton.  Batman had added at least two cups of water into his (honestly I lost count), and you can see the difference in size and textures.


Possible extensions:

1.  Sensory table- when I did this last year with the kids they spent a good 30 minutes playing with it and burying things in it, and pretending Santa was up at the North Pole.  Way too cute.

2.  Look into the science of it at the chemistry level.  Here's a link that got me started on this, and there are several follow on ideas listed on that page.

3.  Read winter themed books, some suggestions: Jan Brett's "The Mitten;"  "Snip, Snip, Snow;" Animals in Winter, Snow.

Any other book suggestions?  I have to admit living in Texas I don't have a wide repertoire of snow books and winter themed ones, so I'm always up for more great suggestions.

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