Dr. Seuss

Dramatic Play

Dr. Seuss Land

Truffula trees, decor, and stuffed animals and books. It was pretty open for the kids to interpret and play as they wanted, and they had fun! There were often animals and things in the blocks that wandered over to this forest. They also loved the Dr. Seuss stuffed characters.

Blocks

If I Ran a Zoo, Dr Seuss' Book of Animals and toy animals


McElligot's Pool and 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and fishing poles


Dr. Seuss' ABCs and ABC blocks


What Pet Should I Get? and pets (forgot a pic)

Art

Bartholomew and the Oobleck, and oobleck! (cornstarch and water)


Marble painting
They dropped the marbles onto the papers and rolled the marbles around in the tray.


Baking soda tray with colored vinegar and eye droppers. Fun science activity, and great fine motor skills with the eye droppers!


Glue and pom-poms

Small Manipulatives

Hat Matching, Cat in the Hat


Wikki stix


Circus puzzle, If I Ran the Circus


Horton Hears a Who and Horton Hatches the Egg and Horton counting links




Writing

Dr Seuss stickers, these were a hit!


Dr Seuss stamps


Reading Center


Snack

Cat in the Hat fruit kabobs (bananas and strawberries). They had fun making them and worked on their patterns, and strengthened small motor skills.

Colored goldfish, sorting and counting (1 Fish 2 Fish)

Green Eggs and Ham


Large Group

We learned the words author and illustrator.

Day 1, we read Cat in the Hat and painted our own hats, practicing patterns.

Day 2, we read Horton Hears a Who, and sorted pom-poms balls by color and size.

Day 3, we read My Many Colored Days and did an art project. I traced a person onto contact paper, then they got to stick colored tissue paper squares onto it.

Day 4, we played rhyming bingo to practice rhymes.

Small Group

Week 1, my group played rhyming memory.
The other group practiced counting with the Horton counting links.

Week 2, my group read Wocket in my Pocket, then made up funny rhymes in our journals and illustrated them.
The other group played with the pattern blocks pattern cards and made patterns.

Dr Seuss

Nothing beats Dr. Seuss week! The kids love it, and I love it, there are so many fun books to read and things to do. It's so hard to narrow down which books to choose.


Dramatic Play

We just played house because we hadn't in awhile. It's not necessarily themed, but they didn't seem to mind, and just enjoyed playing.

Blocks

Mega blocks

Stuffed pets


Art

Baking soda and colored vinegar. This is a favorite sensory experience. I only have 6 spots at the table, but the kids were so good at sharing since they all wanted a turn. The kids who didn't have a chair were able to stand a still get a turn to share a tray so they could play too. After all the colored vinegar was gone, I sent them off the play, dumped out the trays, and refilled them. The ones who had to stand got chairs first, then others joined and they got to do it again. This is such a cheap and easy, and fun, experience! They strengthen their small motor skills with the droppers, explore cause and effect with the baking soda and vinegar reaction, and mix colors.


 
Glitter and glue. The ONE day a year we'll do glitter, and now it's done! Sorry your child's backpack is still covered in it. It never leaves, but they love it and I had pictures drying on every spare space in the room.


Oobleck, with the book Bartholomew and the Oobleck. It's just cornstarch and water, which makes a non-newtonian goop. It's a solid if you're applying pressure, and a liquid if you let it go. It's super fun to play in! And for kids who have hated slime, they loved this.



Small Manipulatives

Horton the elephant cards with "trunk" links


Bristle blocks


Pom pom sorting with tweezers


I replaced the pocket charts with an alphabet chart for the rest of the year, so they can practice their letters and beginning sounds.


Writing

Dr Seuss stickers

Dr Seuss stamps



Snack

green eggs and ham, of course!

Outside

The snow is back (boo!) but the kids have loved it. I've made colored water in recycled bottles each day and they love painting the snow!



Large Group

We learned the word "illustrator" this week, and reviewed "author" too, since Dr Seuss and Jen Brett are bother authors and illustrators. We also learned about the unique things in Dr. Seuss's books, like rhyming, and his silly made up characters and pictures.

Day 1, we read Horton Hatches the Egg, then played a rhyming game. Each child had a card with a word, and they had to find the other child with a word that rhymed. We played it several times. They are great rhymers!

Day 2, we read Cat in the Hat and talked about patterns, like the red and white pattern on his hat, then they made hats by coloring a pattern.

Day 3, we read Horton Hears a Who and sorted our "clovers" or pom pom balls by color and size. They had to lift them with tweezers for added fine motor skills.

Small Group

I read "My Many Multi-colored Days," and one group made a picture together. I had different colored paints with people sponge stamps in them, and they worked as a group to make a big mural.

The other group did a fishing activity after reading "1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Blue Fish."  After fishing for magnetic fish, they put them in order, 1-10.

Friendship

Dramatic Play
Not really friendship related, but fun anyway. I got out the cardboard castle walls and fancy dress ups. Those of you who were here a few years ago may remember my bigger castle tower I had, but it kept falling apart, so we just went for the castle walls. I wasn't sure if it would be enough, but they loved it like this. I liked how portable it was, and when there were lots of kids in it, we made the walls extend over the block center too, so they all fit. And one of the days, they were building towers and things with blocks, so we moved the walls and made the castle smaller for a bit.

The important part is all the fun dress ups. I have costumes for queens, princesses, knights, fairies, a jester, king, and wizard. My dragon costume has disappeared, so that was sad. One of the days, they all wanted to be kings at the same time, so I got out construction paper and we made some more crowns for everyone.

They held many balls, and needed music, so Pandora's Disney Princess station came to the rescue. They are such adorable dancers! I even added the dancing ribbons for the last 2 days and they loved dancing with those too.





Blocks

Sometimes the castle was spread out into this area, but otherwise, we got down the foam blocks, brick blocks, and Megablocks this week and did a lot of building. I forgot pics :(

Art

Maybe it's because we didn't do anything extra special or unique, but I forgot pics of the art table both weeks! Here's what we did:

Spin Art. We used the salad spinners and coffee filters to make spin art. I especially like the fine motor strengthening that comes with using the eye droppers to get the paint on their paper. Some get frustrated at first, until I show them how to release it, then wait for it to fill up with paint. After they get the hang of it, we really have some soaked pictures! This center was busy all day.

Collages. I had a tray out with dried beans, sequins, feathers googly eyes, and pom poms. Just add glue, and they created to their heart's content.

Paint. Sometimes the kids just want to paint! And paint they did :)

Stamp markers. This was a simple art project, because we used the second half of the time using the art table to make our green eggs and ham for snack.

Small Manipulatives

Cookie sheets with small magnet builders

ABC lacing beads

Wikki Stix















ABC blocks (and yes, if you look at the box, these are straight from 1982 and still in great condition).
They actually really really liked these. I didn't expect that. I worked with them on beginning sounds and finding the block that matched the beginning sound of their figure. They also just liked hiding the figures from each other inside the blocks.




















Writing

ABC stickers

Stamps and ink pads

Snacks

The snacks were pretty typical this week, except we had cereal with milk one day. I didn't think it'd be a big deal, but they have asked if we're doing it again every day since.

On Dr. Seuss' birthday, we also made green eggs and ham. I let each child take a turn to crack an egg into the bowl. They did fairly well! I say fairly because some had more shells in the bowl than others :) It's hard to let little ones do this job, but they sure love doing it.They did great at remembering their color mixing, and referring to our color wheel, to know that we needed to add blue to our yellow eggs to make them green. I read Green Eggs and Ham to them as they ate. It was a detour from our friendship theme, but we couldn't skip this great holiday!

Also, I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before. The kids really work together during snack and take turns being responsible to hand out hand sanitizer, napkins, and cups. And they also now pour their own drinks and pass the pitcher around the table. They're doing a great with this big responsibility. We've had some spills, but they're rare and it's how they learn.

Reading
We had friendship books out, but I also wanted to share our Dr. Seuss day reading center. They loved having the characters down to play with!

Large Group
So, free play doesn't have as many obvious ties to our theme as others have had. It was more just free play time, so in large group we really focused our learning on friendship skills. We learned the word Cooperation. We also learned Raffi's Sharing Song and sang and acted it out each day.

Day 1, we read Mr. Rogers' book Making Friends. It asks great, realistic questions, so it took longer than usual to read and discuss. We also watched  Sesame Street video clip about cooperation.

Day 2, we read the Mine-o-saur, which is about a dinosaur who wouldn't share. After this, I ended up reading the book every day, several times each day, in the reading center. They really think it's funny. We then sat in a circle and took turns role-playing how to enter play, and how to accept others into our group to play. We used blocks as the example, and showed how the more kids we had, the more we could build together (cooperation!)

Day 3, we read The Crayon Box that Talked. This is one of my very favorite books. I gave each child 1 crayon, and we worked together to draw a picture with all the colors, then talked about how each person is important and needed in our class.

Day 4, we read Wanted: Best Friend. They then wrote and drew in their journals about the things they like to do with their friends.

We also fit in some Daniel Tiger video clips about sharing and taking turns.

Small Group

Week 1, my group did more sharing role playing. We are working on asking if we want to use something, and also WAITING for that person to be done. I think that's the hardest part of sharing, and I'm constantly reminding them that waiting is part of sharing. I get told many times a day, that so-and-so is not sharing, when what they mean is, that person is not giving them the toy they want. I do want the person who has the toy to be aware that someone else wants it so they can give it to them when they're done, but not think they have to give it away right when someone asks for it. That's not really sharing. It was good to talk about and role play, and I keep bringing them back to this as it comes up.

Miss Kim played a counting game with them.

Week 2, our small groups focused on Dr. Seuss games since his birthday was this week. Miss Kim's group had Horton the Elephant counting cards, and attached links to his trunk to match the number.

My group learned rhyming words and played a memory game with counting words. We are also practicing tracing their names in my small group.

Merry Christmas!

I wish this theme could last all month! There are so many fun Christmas-themed learning activities, that it was hard to narrow them down to just 3 days worth, but I think we got it all crammed in.

Dramatic Play
Christmas tree! I decorated the top half, and they added ornaments as they made them in art, so the bottom was decorated too.
I also have this random assortment of foam Christmas masks I inherited from a retiring teacher back in my public school days. They are a huge hit each year! I added presents under the tree, and we had kids dressed up as Santa, his elves, and reindeer. They turned the bean bag chairs from the reading center into their sleigh, and they spent the day delivering presents to the kids in class. They also went to the writing center to make cards to go with their gift deliveries. I loved watching them play and get along together, plus get creative in their gift giving and play.

 

Blocks
I had out a bean bag toss and bean bags. It was used a lot, but the bean bags also went into the presents for delivery by Santa and his elves.

We played with the magnatiles and jingle bells. They would use them around the blocks since they stuck to the magnets, and they also liked making houses to fill with the bells.


On the last day, I got out our trains and tracks. They loved them! My kids had actually gotten them out over the weekend, and although they weren't on my original plan, I left them out because trains around a tree just says Christmas to me.




Art
Day 1, we made ornaments. I had a variety of foamie ornaments and stickers. I wanted something that didn't have to dry and could be hung up immediately.



 

Day 2, we played with peppermint scented play dough. It made the whole room smell peppermint-y, and we also had the cinnamon smell from the salt dough for small group, so the room smelled extra Christmas-y and yummy! I love adding the smells into the sensory play.




Day 3, we painted our dried salt dough ornaments. When I look at the Pinterest versions, they're all perfect and cute and I want that, but I also want them to be the kids' creations, so they were not perfect, but I think they turned out pretty darn cute. Hope you enjoyed them as well! A few kids chose not to paint them, and a few missed school the last day, so some of you also got to enjoy them in all their natural color glory!
 


Small Manipulatives
Christmas tree and Santa magnets


I used styrofoam christmas trees with pipe cleaners in them, and the kids decorated them with beads. Its a great fine motor exercise for little fingers!

The next day, I used the same trees, but put thumb tacks in them and had small elastics for them to stretch over them, to make geoboards. This was my first year trying it. They each tried it at some point, but not many of them stayed for long. It was a pretty difficult skill, but definitely doable.

On the third day, we had Christmas tree print outs on cookie sheets, with magnetic pom pom balls to decorate them. This is a great fine motor skill, and also helps teach counting and number recognition.
 
On the table, I had out foam gingerbread men, with pom poms, bows, and gems they could use to decorate and re-decorate them. I had a lot of fun at this center with a group of kids, making silly gingerbread men. I added the tweezers to help with fine motor skills, but they mostly used their hands, which was easier.
 

Writing
The first and third day, I had out Christmas cards (thank you Dollar Tree!), and they were a huge hit. I think we went through 40. Some made some to take home for family, while others used them as part of their play in delivering, and I had quite a few delivered to me. It was just great watching them write and color as they dictated what they were "writing." This is such an important pre-writing skill.

The second day, I had out Christmas stamps. Some came home with the stamps also up and down their arms. We also had a lot of pretty pictures made and delivered to each other.
 
Large Group
Day 1, we read the Grinch who Stole Christmas, then talked about being kind to show love at Christmastime. We made hearts where they kids drew, and we wrote, what they could do to be kind at home, and what they could do to be kind at school. We sent the family ones home, and hung up the school ones on our wall to help us remember.

Day 2, we read the Polar Express. Then we made jingle bell necklaces. I wanted them to make patterns, and they were great at following and extending the patterns I made first. Some of them made patterns, while others would make 1 pattern for a bit, then switch to another one. Some didn't make a pattern at all, but that was fine. Threading the beads onto the string was a difficult, but doable, fine motor skill for them.

Day 3, was our Christmas party. Thanks to the moms who came and helped! We rotated between 4 different centers to learn about different holiday celebrations. Each read a book and did a craft.
Group 1 celebrated Christmas by making beaded candy canes on pipe cleaners. They worked on fine motor skills, as well as patterning.
Group 2 celebrated Saint Lucia Day from Sweden by making hats. The girls made wreath hats with candles like Saint Lucia wears, and the boys made cone-shaped star hats.
Group 3 celebrated Kwanzaa by weaving mats, called Mkeka. It was a great fine motor skill for them.
Group 4 celebrated Hanukah by playing the Dreidel game. They loved it! I sent home a bag of Hanukah gelt (chocolate coins) and a dreidel made from a pencil, if they wanted to try to play again at home.

Small Group
My group used cinnamon salt dough found here, to make handprint mittens, inspired by this. I loved how the smell enhanced the play. They really wanted to eat them since it smelled so good! I did cinnamon graham crackers for snack Thursday, since they wanted to eat cinnamon so much, and they tasted much better than the salt dough would have.

Miss Kim's group worked on spelling their names and putting the letters in order, by making name Christmas trees. It was a little difficult, making the names go vertical, but they got it with help. They got to decorate them with markers too.