Category: Books

Posted in Books, Kindercrafts

ee Tree

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

I just love it when I come up with a great lesson for my  Kinder class and it works well from start to finish!  Today I had one of those lessons.  One of the blogs I frequently follow is Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas and she has had a few great posts on activities to do with word families.  I have been wanting to try and work some fun word family activities in with my class and had a great opportunity today.

Our focus for the month of December has been around a great book: A Porcupine in a Pine Tree – A Canadian 12 Days of Christmas by Helaine Becker and illustrated by Werner Zimmermann.  We are doing some a great sequencing and counting activity that I will blog about later but from this book our focus has expanded to include all Christmas Trees.

I started today by reading the book The Little Christmas Tree by Karl Ruhmann and illustrated by Anne Moller.  This is a cute book about a tree that doesn’t feel special in the forest among the large majestic trees but knows that some day it will get it’s chance to shine.  As I read along with discussing key illustrations and themes in the story we pointed out words with the ‘ee’ sound, a sound that we learned in our Jolly Phonics program last week.  After we sang the song  “I’m a little pine tree”, to the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot”:

I’m a little pine tree as you can see,

All the other pine trees are bigger than me.

Maybe when I’m grown up I will be,

A great big Merry Christmas tree.

We circled all of the ‘ee’ sounds in the song and then I told them we were going to make a craft to learn more words with the ‘ee’ sound.

There was a bit of prep on my part for this activity, so it didn’t take all day.  I had already cut out for each student: a green tree, a star, and four circles with ee words (free, tree, see, and bee).  For each word there was a circle with the complete word, and a circle with the ee missing.

Students started by printing their names on the back of their tree and the ‘ee’ on their star.  I came around with a black marker and made their ee’s brighter.  This gave me the opportunity to help those students who struggle printing lower case e’s but they still had to make an attempt themselves.  Next we glued our stars at the top of the tree.  One word at at time students glued the word on the tree and then the circle with the part of the word (missing the ee) on top so they could ‘peak-a-boo’ under the circle to see the complete word.  After a few glue mishaps with completely cover the word most students figured it out and the trees were a success.

While they were in gym today I glued the “I’m a Little Pine tree” song on the back of the tree along with a small homework assignment.  I asked them to talk with their parents and see if they could list any other works with ‘ee’ in them.  Then they were to circle any that had the ‘ee’ and the end and therefore rhymed with the word tree.  I am interested to see what they come back with on Monday.

I will definitely be doing more activities like this one.  I am thinking ‘og’ words around Groundhog day, and ‘ar’ words when we are studying space in February (star).

Posted in Books

Mickey Saves Santa

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

Eileen was thrilled that our book on December 5th was her pick: Mickey Saves Santa from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse series.

Monday nights are busy for us so I picked a fun book with a fun simple activity.  This is no literary masterpiece but it is a fun themed book that Eileen loved.  You can easily tell that is is based on a television episode because the story is choppy and you can tell there are parts missing.  Mrs. Claus show up at the clubhouse announcing that Santa needs help or he will not be able to deliver presents.  They could have been more creative with his problem than simply a broken harness but Eileen didn’t seem to care.  Included in the book were over 25 stickers and two paper ornaments to stick them on.  The girls enjoyed making them and hanging them on the tree.

These ornaments were not the activity I had planned but I let them make them anyway.  After I put on Christmas music from a Disney CD I had picked up a couple of years ago: Disney’s Santa Time.  It is not an easy CD to find but it is one of our favourites.  My absolute favourite song is called “Stars” and I have never been able to find it anywhere but on this album.  I put the music on and let the kids dance for a few minutes before winding down for bed.

Posted in Books, Family Adventures, In the Community

God Gave Us …

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

Sunday’s book (December 4th) was God Gave Us Christmas written by Lisa Tawn Bergern and illustrations by David Hohn.

I decided to put this book on a Sunday for two reasons: first its has a religious theme so it is a good book to read before going to church and Sunday school, and second we have more time on the weekend and the activity I had in mind  would take a bit longer.

First thing in the morning I read the book to the girls.  It is a story of a little bear who asks his Mamma:

“Who ‘vented Christmas? Was it Santa?”

Mamma answers that God was the one who invented Christmas, that “God gave us Christmas”.  The next day Little Cub asks to go find Santa but Mama suggests that instead they go to find God. I really like how Mama Bear doesn’t exclude Santa but instead says:

“Santa Claus reminds us about many good things like generosity and care.  But is is God and Jesus that we celebrate most come Christmas.  We always want to thank God for giving us Christmas.”

This makes it easier for children to follow without abandoning their young visions of what they know of Christmas.

Little Cub and Mama set out to look for signs of God – and that is just the task I gave Kaitlyn.  I gave her my little camera for the day and told her to take pictures of things that God gave us.  She took it to church, and Sunday School, and with us as we went to get our Christmas tree.  The pictures may have been different if we did it for a week instead of just a day but I still think she did an amazing job!

She put all of her pictures together to make a collage.  I helped her a bit with shaping her photos and with spelling but she did the rest herself.  In case you have trouble reading she came up with: stories, friends, nature, family, trees, home and us.

Posted in Books, Family Adventures

Letters for Santa

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

Today’s book (December 3rd) was It’s Christmas David! by David Shannon.

Eileen got this for Christmas last year when it was very appropriate  for her. This year it is VERY appropriate for Michael.  This was a great read for both of the girls.  Kaitlyn was able to read most of the words so it was fun for her to read it to us, and because of the limited text Eileen was great at helping us read the pictures.  A very cute Christmas picture book.

One of the scenes in the book is David sitting with Santa showing him his very long Christmas list.  I thought this would be a great lead in to the girls writing their Christmas letters to Santa.  We were going to decorate paper for our letters but Kailtyn really wanted to do hers all by herself and I thought lined paper would be a big help.  I found some free printable snowman lined paper that was perfect.  I sat with Kaitlyn and wrote her letter as she dictated it to me, and I helped Kaitlyn with a few words (spellings).   I gave them some Christmas stickers we have to decorate their pages and envelopes.

Fortunately there were no surprises for Mommy and all of the items they asked for were the same they told Santa 2 weeks ago when we did our pictures.  It was tough getting Eileen to add anything other than what she wanted for Christmas but eventually I convinced her to add that we would leave Santa cookies, even though I think she only added it thinking she might get to eat some.  Kaitlyn was much easier and was very thoughtful and methodical with her letter.

We will drop them in the mailbox on our way to church tomorrow and hopefully will get a letter back from Santa before Christmas!

Posted in Books, Craft Thursdays

Reindeer Rebellion

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

Our book for December second was The Great Reindeer Rebellion.

This is a cute book I picked up on the discount shelf at Coles/Chapters.  From an adult perspective, and in light of all the labour unrest that has happened in the past year it is nice to see that there are some employees that just can’t be replaced – Santa’s Reindeer!  This story is written in rhyming verse and sounds similar to the traditional Night before Christmas.  There are a few times the rhymes could be more creative (up & up) but overall it is very nice to read aloud and easy language for kids.

We had Gord’s staff party so Gramma and Grampa watched the kids and did a reindeer craft with them, and after seeing what they came up with I am very happy I gave them this task!  They found an outline for Birch Branch Reindeer and adapted it for the kids.  First my dad went out to the field behind their house to find some appropriate wood.  They wanted to make small reindeer so he found the appropriate size branch but you could go larger to make a reindeer that could stand beside your fireplace.  He cut a body and head for each of the girls and then found twigs for legs and antlers.  He prepared them by drilling the appropriate sized holes for the legs and antlers.  They did suggest to me that if I was to do this again to cut them a few days in advance so the wood could dry out a bit easier, this would make it easier to stick together.  Dad also said you need to be careful where you drill the holes for the legs so your reindeer can stand easily and doesn’t do the splits!

With the girls they first glued on the legs and antler and then added the embellishments.  They added googly eyes and used pom poms for the nose and tail.  Mom found some gymp coring in my craft bin and used it to put the bell around the neck.  Kaitlyn decided she was going to make Rudolph’s girlfriend Clarice so she added a pink bow.  I think they turned out super cute!

Posted in Books, Family Adventures

24 Books until Christmas

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

I have so many thing to blog about both from my class and with my own children but I was so excited to find a book Christmas countdown over at Reading Confetti that I just had to do it at my house.  I will blog about our great migration unit and my weekend away soon but I want to try and keep up with blogging about each of the books we do leading up to Christmas.

First I gathered all my Christmas books together, and I also checked out our local discount book store (and one small trip to Chapters).  Next I created a table on my computer with all the days leading up to Christmas.  I starting by matching books to any special days or special events (eg. getting our tree, making the gingerbread house, and church events), and then I filled in the rest  based on activities I wanted to do with each book and how much time we would have on different days.

I search my house for some sort of basket to put them all in and ending up with a small laundry basket.  It’s nothing special but the size was perfect.

You can guess from the book right at the front that today we started with The Elf on the Shelf.  I managed to pick one up when I was shopping last week and thought we would introduce an elf to our family this year.  We opened our box to read our book and meet our Elf.  Have much debate and deliberation we decided to name him Frankie.  Kaitlyn actually suggested Frankenstein but we convinced her that Frankie was more an Elf name.  I think the big thing will be trying to keep Eileen from touching him.  Kaitlyn is right into it and has already registered him online and spent some time checking out the website, so far she is not too much a fan of the site (not that kid friendly).  The big thing is going to be for Gord and I to remember to move him every night.

The girls were excited to hear there was a television show on the book but I think that we may have already missed it this year. If anyone knows of where I can find it online please let me know.  It may be a big help in getting Eileen excited about Frankie.

I was impressed tonight that this adventure of ours seems to be a priority for Gord.  I told him that we were starting our book countdown tonight and I would like it to be something we do together as much as possible and he made sure to schedule his meeting tonight later so that he would be here for our book.

Tomorrow night is a reindeer book and a craft with Gramma.  Gord and I have his staff party but I am going to try and read the book before I leave.  If not I think it will be O.K. for Gramma and Grampa to participate in our little adventure.

Posted in Books, In the Community

Hockey FUN Day

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

Today was the big wrap up day for hockey – the annual Beginner Fun Day.  For the third year the Simcoe Learn to Play teams participated in the fun day.  Learn to Play is a unique program started by my father, who works a lot with Development in the OMHA.  The program is for 3 and 4 year olds who have never played hockey before, and most of them can’t skate when we start in September.  I have been helping my dad with the Beginner program for years (the level above LTP) and also helped him when he started up LTP 3 years ago.  The past two years Kaitlyn has participated in the LTP program and in the fall she will be graduating to Beginner.  We may put Eileen in LTP this fall but not sure right now.  All of these programs are part of the Canadian Hockey Initiation Program.

We love hockey in our house but we were very happy to see today come for two reasons: it is so much fun for the kids, and it means hockey season is over for the year.  Today was especially cool for us as it merged two of our favourite things: hockey and books.  Kaitlyn’s team played two 24 minutes games and they had a one hour break in the middle where they could eat lunch (hotdogs provided) and hang out in the fun room.  For the first time this year we had the people from the Brady Brady book series at the Fun day.  This is a great series of kids books for any child who loves hockey, and we had an arena full of them.  The illustrator Chuck Temple was there today and he was signing books for kids and drawing illustrations for them.  Of course each of my own three kids got to pick a book and we got them signed (Kaitlyn’s picked Michael’s for him).  There was a special treat for the two LTP teams.  The really Brady Brady (well it was a mascot costume) came on the ice with them.  He played goalie during part of their game and then he gave them their trophies at the end.  With the exception of one poor little guy who was terrified of Brady Brady, most of the kids were thrilled!  A great day and a great way to wrap up the season!

Posted in Books, Cooking with the Kiddies, Craft Thursdays

Happy Shamrock Day!

Posted on by Mrs. Malo

On St. Patrick’s Day morning my 5 year old Kaitlyn ran into my bedroom yelling “Happy Shamrock Day!”  I was thrilled, and not for the reasons you may think.  We had been learning about St. Patrick’s Day for a few days but she could never remember the word SHAMROCK.  When I asked her the symbol for St. Patrick’s Day she would draw one but could not remember what they were called.  I found pride in the fact that our activities throughout the previous two days finally reinforced the word “Shamrock”.

We started our exploration of St. Patty’s Day by picking up some books from our local library.  We live in a county that has many different library branches so before driving down to our local branch of the county I went online to request a few books that were at different branches.  We ended up picking up three books which I blogged about on my library blog.  Two of the books were fiction stories that probably would have been better for older children but the third,  Shamrock Days by Elizabeth McKinnon was filled with great ideas perfect for my aged children.

Our first activity was our craft for the week.  Normally we do crafts on Thursdays but we were going on a day trip this Tbursday so we did our craft on Tuesday.  First we explored the introduction in Shamrock Days and learned about the Shamrock.  With Kaitlyn (the oldest of my three) we talked about symbols for other holidays so she could appreciate that the shamrock is the symbol for St. Patrick’s Day.  I was reading my RSS feeds last week and came across a great craft idea on Teach Mama – Shamrock Sun Catchers.  This was a quick and easy craft that my girls loved!  Eileen is always ripping paper and was thrilled that I was encouraging her to rip up the tissue paper.  They turned out great and have adorned our patio door since Tuesday.

It was March Break this past week but Eileen still went to daycare on Wednesday.  She is a creature of routine and I din’t want to disrupt her too much.  We thought it would be fun to make some green treats for her to take and share with her friends.  I am guilty of trying to send really cool snacks with the kids on birthdays and holidays but I find that usually that they prefer the simple snacks and ones that they can take pride in helping make.  Gramma sent over her shamrock cookie cutters so we decided to make green shamrock sugar cookies.  You can use any sugar cookie recipe, we used one in my copy of Pillsbury’s The Complete Book of Baking.  The trick is to add green food  colouring to one of the liquid ingredients before mixing.  We added it to the milk.  By adding the food colouring to a liquid ingredient the colour is much more uniform than if you added it to a solid ingredient.  Sugar cookies are easy for kids to help with, I have a miniature rolling pin the girls use and they are in charge of the cookie cutters.  The one thing I did learn is that I need to invest in another kid sized rolling pin – it is one item they both really like to use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When learning one of the rhymes in Shamrock Days it suggested picking up a shamrock plant for the kids to grow an observe.  I wasn’t too sure how easy it would be to find one in a flower shop but Gramma found one for us and it only cost a few dollars.  It has become our perfect first plant for the spring.

Finally we had to plan our St. Patty’s Day feast.  We try to eat a healthy well balanced diet in our family but the trick for the day was to make it green.  Our main dish was Pesto-Stuffed Chicken Rolls from Rose Reisman’s The Art of Living Well.   This was a big hit, even Kaitlyn loved it (after being coaxed to try it) and she normally only eats mono-coloured food.  Our side dishes were Green Potato Pies (from Shamrock Days) and green beans.  We added one special treat with dinner and made Shamrock Shakes (also from Shamrock Days).

A great couple of days, some fun activities with the girls, and I think they understand a bit more about St. Patrick’s Day.