A week with some favorite books

This week we are learning with some of our favorite books.   

Monday we enjoyed Banana! by Ed Vere:   
 
 It has been a class favorite all year.  It only has two words:  "banana" and "please" - it's about two monkeys having the opportunity of sharing one banana.

Adding Machine - One of the class favorites, I found this at a thrift store, the numbers don't print anymore, but it sure is fun to push all the buttons and to pull off the tape as it scrolls out.

 

One of my kiddos writing the text of the Banana! book.  I love it when they get to this stage with their letters!

Monkeys - The kiddos did a great job re-creating the monkeys from our book, complete with one banana to share.

 

Banana Play Dough - Today Ms. Sara was extra silly:  I put banana extract in the play dough!

For our book on Tuesday we did Mouse Count by Ellen Stoll Walsh:



Circle Time - Mouse Count - First I read the story, then the kiddos helped me act it out a few times, taking turns to be the snake or a mouse.  I just have large pom poms for the mice and a jar I found in the kitchen.

Pom Pom Mice - Story Retelling - The kiddos got to make their own mini version of our circle time story.  They decorated a tp roll for their snake, then carefully chose out 10 "mice" to put in their jars.  Now they can tell you the story of Mouse Count at home!

  
Cute Triangle Mice - Quick and simple, we just had to make these cute mice.

Wednesday's book to learn with was The Three Billy Goats Gruff.   This isn't a preschool class favorite, in fact I don't think we ever read it in class before today, but it's one of my favorites to teach with because it's so fun!

 

Circle Time - We read the book, then we acted it out...
...Trip, trap, trip, trap went the bridge.
"Who's that tripping over my bridge?"  said the troll...

With the preschoolers, we actually used the table as our bridge.  Below, you see a troll climbing up onto the bridge.  When the biggest billy goat butted the troll off the bridge, I just helped them jump off.

 For the younger class, we acted out the story with stick puppets.

 Bridge Building with Blocks - We decided to try our hand at building a bridge for our troll.  It was a bit trickier than we thought to get the bridge to be the right size to fit the troll under and to still be strong enough for the goats to cross over.

Paper Bridges - Once we mastered the block bridge we tried it with paper and made paper puppets to tell the story.  I hope they retell the story for you at home!

Cute Billy Goats - With the younger kiddos we created a simple goat, with a beard and craft stick horns.

For our last day in our book week, we learned with "Peanut Butter Rhino" by Vincent Andriani:
 
This is another class favorite.  Who can resist the silliness of a PB sandwich getting stuck on Rhino's bottom.

Circle Time - We read our book then we just had to act it out, several times.  

Today in circle time we put together a few sequence stories to prep the kiddos for their learning station.  The sequence story they put together here was a kiddo making a pbj sandwich.  Unfortunately I don't know where I got these sequencing cards.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich - I found these at the dollar store, so I HAD to get them so the kiddos had their own sandwich to get stuck on their bums.  Ha!  So much less messy than the real thing.

Rhino Art - Using paintings the kiddos did way back in space week (they painted papers to make planets), the kiddos put together a rhino.  As we worked, we talked about some rhino facts.  A bit abstract, a bit Picaso, but super cute!

Peanut Butter Play Dough - We cleaned up and headed upstairs for tasty fun.  The kiddos helped me make it (2 cups peanut butter, 1 cup honey and 2 cups powdered milk).  Then we played with it and ate it and played some more.