Is Your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten?Well, is he? The buffalo in this wonderful book by Audrey Vernick thinks he is ready and so does friend. Kindergarten does have some challenges for him. He doesn’t cut well with scissors. He does eat grass at recess and have trouble fitting on a swing. He can’t finger paint due to not having fingers. He can hoof paint though.
Other things he can do well. He can take turns and cooperate. He can keep his cool when called names for being clumsy. He can share with others. He is big enough for everyone to sit next to a story time. A buffalo has all the skills he needs to start and stay in kindergarten.
I love the humor in this both. Both the words and illustrations share ways that new kindergartners might find challenges in a way that will make them giggle. Being able to giggle when your anxious about something new is a very good things to be able to do.
What did we do to explore Is Your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten??
Painting with Hoof Prints
I took a sponge brush and cut out a triangle from it to make the brush look like a hoof print.
For some reason he started by layering single colors that were not brown first. Once he had established a foundation of black and white, he did add layers and layers for brown. All different shapes of brown ended up being created when he started to blend them.
When the pizza circle was completely covered, we set it aside to dry.
Cutting Practice
While the painting project was drying, we moved on to some cutting practice. One of the things JDaniel was supposed to have worked on this summer was cutting. His preschool teacher said we needed to work on it.
I drew the parts of a buffalo we were going to need to add to the pizza circle head to create a buffalo. There were ears,a nose, a beard, and a tuft hair. I drew them onto brown paper bag paper so, they would be easy to cut.
JDaniel did a great job of cutting out ear curves, an oval and the zigzagged beard and hair. There were a few slips of the scissors, but not many. I think he will be ready to cut out objects when he is given them at school.
Made a Buffalo Head
After JDaniel had cutout all the brown paper pieces, I add outlining if needed to them with a black marker. I also cut out some eyes, a smile, nostrils, and some horns to add to the facial features we would need to decorate the pizza circle to create the buffalo’s head.
Then arranged them on the circle to see how they would look. When we had the pieces just where we wanted them, we glued them onto the card board circle.
I think he can out well. He looks a little different than the main character in the book Is Your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten?, but not that different.
Counting Hoof Prints
Since we already had a hoof print brush, I thought it would be good to practice our number recognition skills. JDaniel was asked to put the correct number of hoof paint brush prints in to the space that had that number in it. The spaces were a little narrow and ended up with overlapping hoof prints in them.
He also had to push the brush down to make the pointed area of the brush show up on paper.
Conclusion
I believe that not only the buffalo in the book is ready for kindergarten JDaniel is too.
Really cute!!
JDaniel is a great cutter! We worked on that skill this summer too (for the twins) but they definitely aren’t where he is yet!
It’s cute and totally recognizable. 🙂
What a cute book and project! Your craft looks adorable.
I love your buffalo! I think we’ll need this book for the transition to kindergarten next year. For me and for her!
That looks like such a cute book!
He’s totally ready!!! I hope he had a wonderful first week!! –Lisa
yep.
he looks ready to me… he did great on the cutting 🙂
This is really cool. My son just started kindergarten and this book sounds like it would have been a great way to get him ready for his first day. I am definitely going to look for it at the library anyways to read it with him. Your son did a great job on that buffalo. 😀
A very impressive looking buffalo! Worthy of hanging on the wall. I have a feeling JDaniel is more than ready for Kindergarten. Hope Mom was ready too.
I loved the Buffalo too!
Oh my goodness I am completely in love with those hoof prints! How clever. P.S. Hope the start of Kindergarten went well.
I love that you are doing a craft along with the book! The buffalo turned out to be so fun!
My little guy Isaak seemed ready for Kindergarten. His preschool teachers said he was. He didn’t think he was though. He said, “I wish I was 4 again. I want to go back to preschool.” We’re on week 3 of Kindergarten. Minus a few little things, I think he’s doing great!
That looks like so much fun! JDaniel did an amazing job cutting! How is kindergarten going so far?
Haha! Now I know what hoof painting is! What a great activity to go with a lovely book.
That looks like such a fun book – I need to look for it at our library. And I love the craft you made to go along! Pinning =)
Thanks for linking up to TGIF. Hope to see you linked up again later today,
Beth