Dramatic Play
We had a castle that was just too much fun. Thanks to my sister for all the dress-ups! The girls loved playing princesses. There were also costumes for fairies, jesters, knights, princes and kings. Everyone loved the swords and shields and horses, and I loved that the girls used them too. We even had boys wearing high heels. It's fun to see them get creative and bend the gender rules a bit.
The mirror was a hit with the dress-ups. It even had kiss marks left on it. Sad I missed who was kissing themselves. I forgot to get a pic of the inside, but there were pictures of different characters they could be on the inside walls, with the coordinating dress-ups in a box below it. We still had the kitchen inside too, since princesses need to eat!
p.s. the cheap spray paint at Wal-Mart is cheap. I'll be re-painting this one.
Ok, now on to the different stories we read:
The Gingerbread Man
We made sugar cookie dough and cut them into gingerbread men for snack today. I just don't like gingerbread, which is why we did the sugar cookies. Then, after clean up time and before snack, we read the story together. They enjoyed pitching in with the chant "Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!" We then decorated and ate our gingerbread men.
The next day, they did a floor puzzle of The Gingerbread Man and I was amazed at how well they remembered the story, as several of them gathered around the puzzle and re told it. I also read the book over and over again through out self-select time the next 2 days, because they just couldn't get enough of this story.
The Tortoise and the Hare
We read this story the first day in large group, and then acted it out. We did it 2 different times, so all the kids got turns. They were great at retelling it. We then learned about opposites (from the fast and slow in the story). We acted out opposites, sang a song with opposites, and put together some opposites puzzles.
The puzzle was in the small manipulatives area the next day and we reviewed a lot more opposites!
Goldilocks and the 3 Bears
Before snack, we gathered to read this story. We had porridge for snack (malt o meal hot cereal) and I was surprised that only 1 child didn't like it, but she did taste it twice to make sure, and I think that's great. Most kids had seconds and some had thirds. Who knew hot wheat cereal would be such a hit?
We also acted out this story with masks later. They loved doing the high and low voices.
Jack and the Beanstalk
This was a fun story to read because I have so many fun things to go with it. I picked up at activity box a few years ago at UEA and it was a huge hit! We read the story on the big story cards first. Then, I played the musical version on the CD player and they were dancing and singing along. They caught onto the chorus quickly! We then retold the story with wood figures and I barely had to ask what came next, they all remembered with no reminders! Some even knew the lines their characters said. They asked for the song version again, so we played it while they danced with their wood characters and said their parts. I was so impressed.
We then read a giant letter we got from the Giant! He left us some big outlines of his feet, and we used them to measure things around the room. We found things that were bigger, smaller, and close to the same size. It was a great math lesson that they really got into.
That was Wednesday, and the next Wednesday, I had this all in the small manips area. They put the cards in the correct order of the story (great sequencing!), retold the story with each other with the wood people (awesome reading comprehension!), and also just played with the characters with each other (great socializing!). They replayed the song version over and over, dancing and singing (so much learning!). I seriously watched them do these things, with very little prodding and help from me, and was again impressed at their comprehension and memory over a week's time.
We also did bean collages for art, where they got to glue different types of beans to their paper. They sure do love playing with white glue!
The Little Red Hen
We started the day making bread, which requires patience because of all the different stages of rising. They all pitched in and helped. We learn so many great math and science skills when we cook together, not to mention learning to take turns and a little patience. Before snack, we gathered to read the story of the Little Red Hen. I had wheat and wheat flour for them to feel (and they all had to smell it) and we talked about why it's important to help. We then ate yummy wheat bread I made before since ours was still rising, and most tried it with both jelly and honey. Can't have too much sweet, I guess.
3 Little Pigs
For large group, we read the story, then acted it out again. The kids all loved huffing and puffing and blowing. We only had enough time to do it once, but it was perfect because we had roles for everyone, as some kids were the houses.
I'll talk more about this in the next post, but during Nursery Rhyme week, we had a puppet theater, so I added the stick puppets and masks we had used to retell most of these stories (Tortoise, Jack, Bears, Pigs and Hen), and it was fun to see them retell them again. I said it too much already, but I am so impressed with their comprehension as they retold and acted out these stories. That's probably why I enjoyed this unit so much.
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