Back to School Picture Books, Songs, Snack, and Craft

I can't believe summer is already over. We started our first "official" week of homeschooling our kindergartner two weeks ago, and I've been doing some preschool activities with my 4 and 2 1/2 year-old children as well. At these ages, books are the heart of all our learning.

Whether your children are heading off to preschool or kindergarten, or you are doing your own school at home, here are a few fun "back to school" books and activities you might enjoy.

Back to School Books

My Friends Taro Gomi

I read this book with the children in our preschool co-op last year, and we talked about how just as the little girl learned something different from each of her animal friends, one of the fun things about school is that we can make new friends and learn from each other.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Because we did a letter of the week theme for our pre-school, we introduced the year with the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. I found a palm tree decoration at the dollar store that we used as our own Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree in our house, adding colorful construction paper letters each time we learned them.

If You Take a Mouse to School by Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond

My children love Laura Numeroff's books, and this back to school book featuring mouse is charming.

Back to School for Rotten Ralph  by Jack Gantos and Nicole Rubel

My kids love how mischievous Rotten Ralph is...

Seven Little Mice Go To School by Kazuo Iwamura

My oldest son loves snakes/the woods, so this non-conventional back-to-school book featuring mice who outwit a snake was a hit for him.

Back to School Songs

To go along with our back to school books, we also sang some fun songs. These are all classic children's songs that can be found on various kids' songs anthologies if you are unfamiliar with the tunes:

"The ABC Song" (to go with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom)


"Make New Friends" (a fun round to go with My Friends)

Make new friends,
but keep the old.
One is silver,
the other is gold.

"The More We Get Together" (a fun get to know you or opening song)

The more we get together
Together, together
The more we get together
The happier we'll be
Cause your friends are my friends
And my friends are your friends
The more we get together
The happier we'll be

Optional bridge to "The More We Get Together":
There's _(child's name)_______ and _____________ and ______________ and ______________,
The more we get together the happier we'll be.

Back to School Snack

A fun back-to-school snack (and other Chicka Chicka Boom Boom activities), can be found at Mrs. Martell's Class. The children made Chicka Chicka Boom Boom trees with sliced apples as the leaves, a chocolate wafer trunk, cocoa puff coconuts, and skittles in place of the colorful alphabet letters.

Or if you want another fun treat, you can try making these cute apple cupcakes that we shared earlier with you.

Back to School Craft

For a simple back to school craft, I printed out each child's name extra large on a full-sized sheet of paper. The children traced and decorated their names and then I provided them with stickers, scrap paper, and other craft supplies to decorate with and glue on in an open-ended collage.

Also, don't forget to check out all of our A to Z Preschool themes that you can do on your own at home or as part of a preschool co-op. Happy Learning!

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14 Favorite Valentine's Picture Books to celebrate the 14th day of February -- Preschool, Elementary School or Homeschool fun!

In honor of the 14th day of February, we share 14 of our favorite children's books for Valentin'es.  As you know, we are huge advocates of reading to children.  People ask me all the time how to teach children to read and I say the #1 thing is to read aloud to them.  Holidays are an especially good time to get their attention with new seasonal books you can get from the library or purchase for your own library.  I actually have a basket that I keep  in my family room and rotate out seasonal books depending on the holiday of the month.  This gives the kids a chance to have it right at their fingertips anytime they want.  Enjoy.

Somebody Loves You Mr. Hatch by Eileen Spinelli
This tender book is one of my favorite Valentine books (and it often makes me cry!). It is a wonderful book about how one act of kindness can lead to another and another and change the life of not just one lonely man but also the lives of all the people in his town.

Love, Ruby Valentine and Ruby Valentine Saves the Day by  Laurie Friedman
I love these adorable books because in both of them Valentine's Day does NOT turn out the way Ruby hopes or plans, but she still makes the best of things and makes the holidays special. These have some good life lessons for all of us.

 
Happy Valentine's Day, Curious George by N.Di Angelo
My two younger children love monkeys, so this Valentine edition of a Curious George story is one of their favorites. The little flaps on each page that reveal part of the story are also a lot of fun for toddlers.



Skidamarink  by G. Brian Karas
is a delightful book that you may need to get from the library or find a different version than I have. But it is the sweetest well known song that my kids love me to sing to them year round.  This book puts the song to words.

The Story of Valentine's Nancy Skarmeas
is a series I love that teaches kids the meaning behind holidays.  I learned some things myself and it's the perfect length to keep your preschooler's attention.


Roses are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink  by Diane deGroat
is a book that always makes my kids laugh, especially my son.   The main character writes some valentines that aren't particularly nice, but in the end makes it right.  The book has a good message on how to treat others kindly and how our actions can affect others.


 
Olive You! by Katy Hall
is a typical joke book, but if your kids are like mine, they LOVE jokes.  This is fun in that it is all valentine's jokes and makes for a quick read.


 Junie B. Jones and the Mushy Gushy Valentine by Barbara Park
I have a soft spot for Barbara Park because when my oldest wrote her a letter at the age of 5, she wrote back a PERSONALIZED handwritten note to her in response.  What a neat author.  I have to admit that when I first read Junie B. Jones, I couldn't get over her terrible grammar.  But I came to realize that early elementary students LOVE her.  Junie B. is so funny, regardless of gender.  And she thinks along their frame of mind.  I believe that a series that gets kids reading voraciously is a good find and I know plenty of young readers who do just that with the Junie B. Jones series. 



Queen of Hearts by Mary Engelbreit
is beautiful with the illustrations alone.  Mary Engelbreit is such a fun illustrator.  This cute story helps kids realize the true meaning of valentines and helps kids realize that people and those you love matter more than material things!

We also love #10-14:
 

Check out our popular valentine's posts for boxes, parties, treats, and crafts here! And feel free to share any of your ideas in our comments or on our facebook page.  We love your ideas.

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M is for Money

For the letter M, we talked about money. I introduced my children to the names of different coins, as well as their respective coin values (though I don't expect them to remember the coin values at their ages). We learned about the history of money and looked at pictures of money around the world. I also tried to focus on the value of saving money up for a worthwhile goal or cause.

Learning the Letter

We learned the shape and sound of the letter M through our usual tracing and sound-hunt activities. I had my four-year-old practice writing "mom" and it was so heartwarming to see "mom" in those cute wobbly letters. I am also spending some time doing whole alphabet review activities with my kids because even though we are officially only halfway through the alphabet, they know most of their letter sounds by now. One thing I did to review was practice matching upper and lower-case letters. You can easily make your own letter matching game. Because my kids love trains, I made them a train-themed letter-matching game. I just printed out small pictures of train cars and wrote capital letters on some and lower-case letters on others. Then I had the kids match up the appropriate letters.

The Books We Read

As always, our favorite part of "preschool" is reading lots and lots of books! We checked out quite a few books on money from the library. Here are a few of our favorites.

Making Cents  by Elizabeth Keeler Robinson

This book taught about coin and dollar values while simultaneously telling a story of children building a clubhouse.

If You Made a Million by David M. Schwartz

Fun illustrations and silly side stories make this book a great introduction to the value of money.

The Berenstain Bears' Trouble with Money  by Stan and Jan Berenstain

My kids really enjoy the Berenstain Bears books. This story told of brother and sister bear and their attempts to mend their "spendthrift" ways.

One Cent, Two Cents, Old Cent, New Cent: All About Money (Cat in the Hat's Learning Library) by Bonnie Worth

In this book, the Cat in the Hat gives a history of money. The simple rhyming text and fun illustrations kept my kids interested, and we all learned a few new things about the history of money.

Little Critter: Just Saving My Money (My First I Can Read)  by Mercer Mayer

A quick, easy book that tells how Little Critter saves his money for a new toy.

Math Activities

The topic of money naturally lends itself to math activities. We practiced counting coins and I taught my children the names and values of the coins. We also made these money books. The boys love it when we make our own "books." They read their money books over and over again.

Science

A great science demonstration to go with money is found here. You can "clean" pennies in a solution of 1/4 c. vinegar and 1 t. salt. We didn't have any regular vinegar--just cider vinegar, so my kids were extra impressed that putting the pennies into the icky looking yellow vinegar made them shiny and clean. I told them that the vinegar and the salt worked together to clean the pennies by removing something called "copper oxide." Then, we put nails into the solution and we saw how the copper oxide attached to the nails and made them turn a copper color. Though my kids don't really understand all of the chemistry behind this demonstration they still enjoyed seeing the before and after of the pennies and nails.

History

It was fun to learn about the history of money as we read our books. We also loved watching the "How It's Made: Coins" video from Discovery Channel. (We have a Netflix streaming subscription which includes this episode of How It's Made--S1: Ep 25--or you can see the video on YouTube).

Craft

For our craft, we arranged coins in the shape of a letter M and then did a coin rubbing activity, inspired by this post. I started by making the shape of a letter M with glue. Then I had the kids choose coins to put on the M. Next, we put a sheet of white paper over our letter M's that we had made of coins and we used crayons to rub the design onto the new sheet of paper. After the kids rubbed the coins I cut out the letter M's and mounted them on to green paper to make them stand out more.

I have been collecting one craft from each of our units to put in page protector inside an alphabet binder for each child. For some units, when our crafts didn't really fit into the binder, I just printed out pictures of our activities to put into the binder. The boys enjoy looking through these books to review what they have learned, and I love having these memories preserved.

Pretend Play

My kids used a set of pretend money to play "grocery store." They took turns being the checker and the customer. I love watching them play. My 2 1/2 year old is really learning to use his imagination a lot more, and my 4 year old has always loved pretend play (He is usually dressed up in one costume or another--I think it is rare to see him in "regular" clothes.) We got our pretend money at our local dollar store, though you can also print out some on this website. I helped my kids set up the store to start, but after that, it was up to them to keep playing the game, and it kept them entertained for quite a while.

Snacks

We had lots of round, circular crackers and cookies to represent "coins" for our snack time. You could also get chocolate gold coins if you want something as a special reward.

Games and Songs

We loved playing this piggybank coin recognition game. 

In addition, we did a weight-matching game. I made three matching sets of coins in these amounts: 5 pennies, 10 pennies, and 25 pennies. Then I had my kids take turns closing their eyes while I placed a roll of coins in each hand and asked them to tell me if the rolls of coins weighed the same or different. If they told me that they were different, I asked them which was heavier and which was lighter. We took turns playing this several times, and then we took those same rolls of coins and lined them up from shortest to tallest.

We also recited this poem about money. It was included in our money book that we made. I've also seen it in several other places on the web, and it is a cute way to remember the values of the various coins:

Penny, penny

Easily spent

Copper brown and

worth one cent.

Nickel, nickel,

Thick and fat,

You're worth five cents.

I know that.

Dime, dime,

Little and thin,

I remember,

You're worth ten.

Quarter, quarter

Big and bold,

You're worth twenty-five

I am told!

We had fun singing some other nursery rhymes/songs that feature money, such as "See Saw Margery Daw":

See Saw Margery Daw,

Johnny shall have a new master;

He shall earn but a penny a day,

Because he can't work any faster.

Once again, it was a busy, fun week. Hopefully my little ones can appreciate the value of money a little more now J For more of my "M is for Money" ideas, see my board on Pinterest.

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F is for Fall (plus great Earth Day ideas!)

During the "fall" season I enjoyed doing some nature activities with my children. In all honesty, we don't have much in the way of seasons here in southern California. But it was still fun to learn about seasons and to do some fun nature-inspired crafts. Many of these activities could also work well for Earth Day on April 22 :)

Learning the Letter

We practiced the sound of the letter F. One our favorite toys is our LeapFrog fridge phonics alphabet set. So whenever we learn a new letter, we always put that letter into our fridge magnet and sing the song, i.e., "F says ffff, F says ffff, every letter makes a sound, and F says ffff." We try to notice the letter of the week throughout all of our daily encounters. Sometimes I print out letter tracing pages I find online, but other times, we'll practice forming the letter with different objects. The letter F is an easy one to form using blocks or toys because it is made of all straight lines (the capital letter at least). 

The Books We Read

Our preschool activities are centered around the books and stories we tell. I told the story of the grasshopper and the ant using these printouts. Then we read several fall-themed books.

Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert.

We love the illustrations in this book. And it was a great lead-in to many of our fall crafts.

Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson

This is a sweet book about Fletcher the fox who is worried about the changes fall is bringing.

Strega Nona's Harvest by Tomie dePaola

I love the Strega Nona books, and this fall-themed one did not disappoint.

Blueberries for Sal

I have had this book since I was a girl, and it has always been one of my favorites.

It's Fall by Linda Glaser

This picture book is a great introduction to the season of fall and all of its aspects.

Math Activities

I printed out this image of a bare tree and used it as a counting mat. I created number cards from 1-10. Then, I had the kids choose one card at a time. They would put the corresponding number of fake leaves on to the tree mat.

Science Activities

We learned about seasons and why some types of leaves change colors as we read two Scholastic science readers. Another thing I often do during the science portion of our units is do a quick search on YouTube for informational videos related to our topic. I can always find a few good videos to incorporate, and my kids love it when we get to watch a "show" while we are learning.

Field Trip

It would be wonderful if we lived in a place with vividly colored autumn leaves. We would definitely love to go to the mountains to collect some bright red and orange leaves. But in southern California, we have to be content with what we can find. I gave each child a brown paper bag to collect items. Then we went on a walk to search for fallen leaves and berries, pinecones, and other bits of nature that we then used for our crafts. No vividly colored leaves for us--but the kids were still happy with their big, brown leaves.

Arts & Crafts

We were feeling very crafty during our fall unit. First, we made our own "leaf man" puppets to go with Lois Ehlert's book. 

We also used sticks and other items we found on our walk to make homemade paintbrushes which we then used to paint. 

I was inspired by this idea to have the kids press fall objects into playdough.  I used this recipe to make orange playdough which I then kept on hand for our pumpkin and Halloween units that we did in the following weeks. 

Using more of our nature items, we made little animals from pinecones and rocks similar to this. And we also did leaf rubbings. A previous year, I did a tissue paper tree with my older son, along with just a regular "leaf man" craft. 

The children enjoyed all of these crafts, and the crafts really could be done any time of year that you are in the mood for a nature theme.

Sensory Bin

I had some fake fall leaves that I mixed with raffia, pinecones, and other fall items for the kids to explore. We added some of the things we collected on our walk to this play sensory bin.

Snack Time

For whatever reason (too busy crafting I guess…) we didn't do a special fall-themed snack. But I do think these doughnut-hole acorns are really cute… Maybe we'll do that next year J

Games and Songs

We did this maple leaf color matching game--it was a good challenge, especially for my 2-year-old, since some of the color differences are subtle. We enjoyed listening to Vivaldi as we watched this YouTube video with some pictures of fall leaves. I found a lot of autumn-themed children's songs as we surfed around the web. Here are a few we liked. I gave the kids red and paper leaves to hold and use as we sang our songs. They always love having visual aids to hold during songs.

For more ideas, see my "F is for Fall" board on Pinterest!

How cute is this? Groundhog's Day is this week!

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My kids have the greatest grandparents - one grandma does Grandma Preschool and my preschoolers ask if they get to go everyday!  This week, they came home with this craft for Groundhog's Day.  I LOVE it!  Simply made with a recycled toilet paper roll, green paper, a popsicle stick, yellow pom-pom and googly eyes.  Then the kids could have their own groundhog pop out of the ground.  How cute and simple! 

I don't have a formal lesson plan for Groundhog's Day, but below are ideas I've saved from the internet and school and used in previous years just for fun...

Fun Facts about Groundhog Day

• When German settlers arrived in the United States in the 1700s, they brought a tradition known as Candlemas Day. Candlemas Day came at the mid-point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Superstition told that if the weather was nice on that day, the second half of Winter would be stormy and cold.

• For the early Christians in Europe, it was the custom on Candlemas Day for clergy to bless candles and distribute them to the people in the dark of Winter. A lighted candle was placed in each window of the home.

• The weather continued to be important to the early Christians. If the sun came out on February 2, the day halfway between Winter and Spring, it meant six more weeks of wintry weather.

• In Europe, it was a hedgehog that was watched with hope that he'd not see his shadow. When settlers arrived in America, there were no hedgehogs to be found. So they adopted the groundhog as the new world's weather forecaster.

• The groundhog was chosen because it wintered underground like the hedgehog and because the Native Americans in the region respected the animal greatly. They considered the groundhog to be a wise and sensible animal.
  Activities

• We taped paper on a wall and had the children take turns standing in front of a flashlight, while we traced each child's shadow on separate papers. The children loved guessing who was who when we displayed the final results.
  
• "Guess the Shadow." I drape three sides of an overhead projector with black bulletin board paper (so that the children cannot see what I am placing on the illuminated table.) After turning out the classroom lights, I place a common object from the classroom onto the illuminated table. The children have to guess what the item is from it's shadow. Once I have shown the children how the game works, I let each one of them take a turn selecting an object from a box of items I chose earlier. Things that make a distinct shadow are best: paint brush, scissors, crayon, magnifying glass, small cars, dishes/cups, piece of puzzle, toothbrush, glove, etc. This activity is easy to pull-off when you've planned an outdoor shadow activity and there is no sunshine!
  
•  Three year olds loved pretending to the groundhog as they took turns popping out of a medium sized cardboard box.
  
• Have each child make a paper or cardboard groundhog stick puppet with a Popsicle stick. First thing in the morning, carefully stick the stick into the ground so that the groundhog is standing up. Then measure the shadows at 1 hour intervals throughout the day. Chart shadow lengths. Then at the end of the day, discuss why the lengths and directions of shadows varied.
• Have children trace a groundhog pattern on brown paper and add a craft stick to make a puppet. Give children a piece of blue construction paper, a pre-made hill of green construction paper with "Groundhog Day" written on it and a pre-made yellow sun with "February 2" written on it. Have them glue the ends of the hill and attach to the bottom of the blue paper, leaving the middle free of glue so the groundhog has a space to pop through. Have them glue the sun on an upper corner. Have children use their groundhog and set to act out the poem:
  "The Groundhog" 
  The groundhog poked his head up 
  And peeking all around
  Saw his little shadow 
  Lying on the ground 
  The groundhog knew that winter 
  Would last for six weeks more 
  And so he pulled himself back down 
  Inside his little door.  
  
  
  Songs 
  
  HERE'S A LITTLE GROUNDHOG
  (Sung to I'm a Little Teapot)
  I see a little groundhog, furry and brown.
  He's popping up to look around.
  If he sees his shadow, down he'll go.
  Six more weeks of winter- oh, no!
   OR
   I'm a little ground hog, short and stout.
  On ground hog day I pop my head out.
  If I see my shadow I don't come out.
  I stay down in my hole and pout.
  (Dramatize by squatting on the floor in a ball, popping up, peering about and returning to hiding.)

MR. GROUNDHOG

 (Sung to Frere Jacques)

Mr. Groundhog, Mr. Groundhog,

Take a peek, Take a peek.

If you see your shadow

The weather will be awful

For six more weeks, six more weeks. 

 OR

Mr. Groundhog, Mr. Groundhog.
Are you there? Are you there?
Will you see your shadow?
We all want to know
On this day, Groundhog Day.

(To the tune of Ten Little Indians)

One little, two little Three little groundhogs. 

Four little, five little Six little groundhogs. 

Seven little, eight little Nine little groundhogs. 

Sleeping down under the ground.

Creative Valentine Box Idea #3 - Robot

Robot

Supplies needed:

Two cardboard boxes (preferably of different sizes), two toilet paper rolls, smarties, silver spray paint, cardboard hearts, pink pipe cleaners, red cardstock, hot glue gun, black marker

Instructions:

1. spray paint both cardboard boxes, toilet paper rolls and smarties silver

2. Hot glue cardboard boxes together. These will be the head and body.

3. Hot glue toilet paper rolls to larger box.  These will be the legs.

4. Cut out 2 large paper hears out of red cardstock. 

5. Hot glue paper hearts to the toilet paper rolls for the feet.

6. Curl pipe cleaners with a pencil, for fun, we bent the "hands" into heart shapes.

7.  Glue pipe cleaners to both sides of the larger box.

8. Cut a hole out of the larger box for the valentines to go through.

9. Hot glue smarties around the edges if the smaller box and down the middle front of the larger box for a more robot look.

10.  Hot glue cardboard hearts (di-cuts or stickers work, too) for the eyes and decoration.

11. Draw a smile on your robots face!

Just for fun - the robot "listening" to the ipod

Return to Valentine Ideas and Many more Valentine Box Ideas!!

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Creative Valentine Box Ideas #2 - Ipod

Ipod (I adapted this from something I found at Family Fun, which is another great craft idea!)

Supplies needed: cereal box, pink foam, red pipe cleaner, red cardstock, printed list of songs/ipod dial from Family Fun, white yarn, hot glue gun, cardboard hearts(I got these from cardboard heart thumbtacks at the Dollar Store and just took off the thumbtacks).

Instructions:

1. Cover the cereal box with pink foam, cut to size. (Note: this can be changed to a different color for a boy!)

2. Hot glue red pipe cleaners on the four corner sides of the cereal box.

3.  Cut out printed song list and ipod dial.

4.  Cut red cardstock 1/4 inch bigger on each side of the song list and ipod dial and glue to back of them.

5.  Hot glue song list and ipod dial onto box.

6.  Hot glue cardboard hearts (or stickers) to box.

7.  Cut white yarn to the desired length.

8.  Hot glue cardboard hearts to one end of the yarn.

9.  Tape the other end of the yarn to the inside of the cereal box

10.  If desired, add your child's name to it

Return to all of our great Valentine Ideas and more box ideas!!

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Creative Valentine Boxes I've Seen...

Here are a few creative Valentine boxes I snatched pictures of at school over the years... 

Pig

Guitar

Car

 

Mailbox

Check out our previous valentine boxes:a castle, lion, ladybug, robot, ipod, and gumball machine
and many more in our Valentine Section! 

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Back to School treats...

My mom started a tradition.  I have continued it on with my own children.  It's called the Chocolate Chip Cookie Tradition.  You may have a similar one in your homes.  Every year on the first day of school, my kids know they will come home to home made (from scratch - no frozen or prebaked cookies, which we often have) cookies.  They love the cookies and milk dipping.

But what I love has nothing to do with the actual cookies.  It's having my kids sit on the stools and while they eat, they tell me about their day, their friends, recess, lunch, etc.  Those moments are the chocolate chips in the cookies of life to me!

Try it out, it's a fun tradition! 

OR, if you'd rather, try something unique for the first day of school like this...

Bake these cute apple cupcakes for teacher appreciation, back to school parties or just for fun on the first day of school.

Needed: Cake Mix, Red Frosting, Red Sprinkles, Green Fruit Slices, Kit Kat Bars cut in half. If you want to add a special touch, you can put them in a crate and add a bow like I did.  I actually lined the crate with fabric and stuffed it with red tissue paper so the cupcakes stood on top.