Preschool With Josiah–The Snowy Day (BFIAR)

Josiah and I spent the last two weeks “rowing” his next book – The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. I was really hoping for some real snow to go along with “The Snowy Day.” However, all we got were a few flurries. Unfortunately, we’ve had an unseasonably warm January and not enough snow to play in. So…we made our own snow, and had an indoor snowball fight.

Mommy won!

Josiah has enjoyed having his own real schoolwork to do while Alexis does her work boxes. I’ve set up three workboxes for him that he does with me about 3-4 times a week. I also try to plan some extra activities along with the workboxes (a cooking project, a craft…).

Snow Paint

I saw this idea on another blog. I wish that I could remember which one. Josiah helped me mix up some salt paint to paint snowmen and snowflakes.

1/4c Liquid Laundry Soap

1/4 c Water

2 Tbs blue paint

1 c salt

We cut these out to hang up and decorate our school room before adding them to his Lap Journal.

Snowball Cookies

Some of them may not have been quite “ball-like.”

He decided that he just wanted to lick the powdered sugar off of them!

Recipe:

1 C butter

1 tsp vanilla

6 tbsp powdered sugar

2 c flour

1 c walnuts (we left out because I didn’t have any)

1/3 c powdered sugar

cream butter and vanilla. combine 6 tbsp sugar and flour. Stir into mixture until just blended. Mix in Walnuts. Roll into 1 inch balls (or sausage looking things). Bake 12 minutes at 350 degrees. After cool, roll in the remaining powdered sugar.

Workboxes – For direct links to the resources I used, see the end of this post.

Some of his workbox activities included:

Making the Letter S with his Handwriting Without Tears Pieces

Counting the Snowflakes and clipping the clothespin onto the correct number (From The Snowy Day Printables at Homeschool Creations)

Finding the Letter S with his Do-A-Dot markers (Confessions of a Homeschooler)

Pre-Writing Practice (From The Snowy Day Printables at Homeschool Creations)

Color By Number (2 Teaching Mommies) – This was my favorite! He has NEVER shown a bit of interest in coloring or anything fine motor skill related. But, he picked this up and worked so hard on it!

Winter Playdough Mats (PreKinders) – Each one had a different number listed of things to make (5 snowballs, 4 icicles…)

Snowman Grid Game (PreKinders)- We took turns rolling the dice and placing the correct number of snowballs over the snowmen (1:1 correspondence). The first to fill the board won!

Initial Sounds Clip Cards (The Snowy Day Printables from Homeschool Creation)

Before Five in a Row Lap Journal – I got the inspiration for this Journal from Delightful Learning. Here, I keep the work for each book that he rows.

Resources Used:

The Snowy Day Printables from Homeschool Creations

Snowman Preschool Pack from Living Life Intentionally

The Snowy Day Lapbook Pieces from Homeschool Share

Letter S Printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler

Winter theme from PreKinders

Winter theme from 2 Teaching Mommies

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt–BFIAR

I am VERY excited to have started a consistent learning time with Josiah. His favorite thing in the world is BOOKS. So, after being inspired by many other bloggers out there, I’ve decided to use Before Five in a Row for preschool this year. A Letter of the Week type curriculum does not interest Josiah at all, but BOOKS do. With Before Five in a Row, we do lots of reading and many fun activities to go along with the books that we row.

I chose to start with “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt,” because Josiah already likes to pretend to go on bear hunts. There were so many great ideas to go along with this book that we didn’t get to do nearly all of them. Thanks to Homeschool Creations, Delightful Learning, and Stay and Play Mama for the printables and great ideas!

Each day, we would read and act out the story together…because you just CAN’T read it without acting it out!!!

They liked to take turns being the bear and hiding in various places for the cave. The laundry basket was fun!

“…one big, shiny wet nose…”

Thanks to our library which has wonderful literacy kits to check out, we had LOTS of little bears to count, hunt for, play with, sort, and use for color recognition.

Making Mud…and EATING IT!

“Squelch Squirch Squelch Squirch”

Everyone enjoyed making chocolate pudding to represent the mud in the book. We added little teddy bear crackers to make it extra yummy!

Number and Color Recognition

I made these little cards with the numbers 1-10 for the boys to count out the correct color of bear.

Acting Out the Story with Stick Figures

This was a favorite! They loved using these little puppets to act out the story on our Story Board.

Making a Memory

I really liked the idea from Delightful Learning to make a memory with each book. I hope that this will be a memory for my kids.

One morning, they woke up to find bear prints throughout the house. They followed the prints….

through the LONG, WAVY GRASS…swishy, swashy, swishy, swashy…

…through the deep, cold river…splash, splosh, splash, splosh…

…through the thick, oozy mud…squelch, squirch, squelch, squerch…

…through the deep, dark forest…stumble trip, stumble trip…

…and through the swirling, whirling snowstorm…woo hoo whoo hoo!

They followed the prints all the way to the bears cave and found…a FRIENDLY BEAR that wanted to have breakfast with them in his cave. We all enjoyed Blueberry muffins (since we did talk about the letter B this week) with the bear!

Lap Journal

We have tried lapbooks at different times with varying amounts of success, but they usually end up getting lost or messed up. So, I really liked the idea of a journal to keep our activities for each book in.

We worked on tracing lines ( Josiah had NEVER done this before) and patterns. He also worked harder than ever at staying in the lines while he was coloring. He does not usually like to do anything on paper. He also matched the bears with the correct habitat.

We played the bear hunt game together. He also sized the bears from smallest to largest.

He placed the bears over, under and through the cave. We also put our stick puppets, Bible Verse and poem in to remember.

Under our “mud poem,” I left room for a picture of us making chocolate pudding together. I had Josiah retell the story to me and wrote down (the best that I could) what he was able to retell. He talked very quickly and had most all the details. We’d read it so much that I think we all have it memorized! We also played a number recognition game where we hid the bear under a cave. They would have to guess which number cave the bear was under. And we sequenced the story with Story Card.

Other Read-Alouds

To go along with our Bear theme, we also read:

Bear Wants More by Karma Wilson

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear by Timothy Busy

Bear Snores on by Karma Wilson

Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you Hear by Bill Martin

Rhymes and Fingerplays that we Enjoyed

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.

Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.

Then Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy was he?!

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn around.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, touch the ground.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, climb the stairs.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, say your prayers.

Teddy Bear Teddy Bear, turn off the lights.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, say goodnight.

We had a wonderful time rowing our first book! After spending a little time doing some apple and Fall activities this week, we plan to start Goodnight Moon!

Be sure to check out what others are doing at the Preschool Corner!