Read.Explore.Learn. Archives - Page 2 of 9

Math for Kids- Measuring Really, Really, Big Dinosaurs

August 2, 2013 By Deirdre

The Really, Really, Rreally Big Dinosaurby Richard Byrne is such a wonderful book. It is about a little dinosaur who has in his possession a jar of jelly beans that another bigger dinosaur wants. Actually he doesn’t want it, he demands it. He won’t settle for one jelly bean. No, he wants them all.

Math for Kids- Measuring

The little dinosaur tries to point out that they are not his beans. The bigger dinosaur doesn’t want to hear about them belonging to a friend. He struts around touting his strength and power.

In the end the little dinosaur draws him close enough to his friend’s mouth that the bigger dinosaur for the much bigger friend to clamp his teeth down on him. Thankfully the bigger friend is a herbivore who loves jelly beans.

In the end they all agree to share and the not be greedy. I bet he stop being a bully too.

What did we do to explore the book?

We did two math for kids measurement activities. One used non- standard measurement tools and the other used a ruler.

Non-Standard Measurement Tools

We measured three dinosaurs I created to resemble the big “greedy” dinosaur. Wooden cubes were used to measure each of the dinosaurs. The blue dinosaur is really a half a block shorter than we measured him, but we didn’t have half a block. I told my son we had to go up to the next number rather than go down to the number that would be a little short.

When we had measured the each dinosaur from the foot near its tail to the tip of its horn, we counted how many squares tall each dinosaur was.

Standard Measurement

A standard ruler was used to measure the dinosaurs. We used the inch side of the ruler rather than the metric side. It was much easier to measure using the ruler. The ruler had markings between the inches that allowed us to measure the dinosaur to the 1/2 and 1/4 inch.

We had an interesting discussion about non-standard and standard measurement. It was decided that the standard measurement was much more accurate. If we are measuring something and we want to know its exact measurement we will need to use a ruler.

Here are some more math for kids activities:

LEGO Fraction Games

Free Printable Interactive Math Sheet for Kids

Measuring in Farm Units

You will find more math for kids activities on my Early Learning Math board on Pinterest.

How did you explore books this week? If you have a post you would like to share, please link it up below. Once you have added your post, please visit at least three others.

Follow JDaniel4’s Mom on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Disclaimer: The book featured in this post was sent to me by Tiger Tale Books. This post contains affiliate links.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar- Read.Explore.Learn.

June 13, 2013 By Deirdre

I can’t believe I haven’t featured this week’s book The Very Hungry Caterpillar on Read.Explore.Learn. before. We have several copies of it in JDaniel’s room and I have read it to him a zillion times. He loves to count the fruits that the very hungry caterpillar eats as he prepares to build his cocoon.

If you aren’t familiar with the story, a little caterpillar hatches from an egg and then begins a daily inhalation of food. He starts his week of slowly and gradually eats more and more until he isn’t a little caterpillar any more. The caterpillar has digested enough to carry him through the time he is sequestered in a cocoon.

Each food he eats has a hole in the middle of it. JDaniel loves to put his finger into each hole as he counts the foods the caterpillar eats everyday. He learned to count as I read this book over and over again.

What did we do to explore this book?

Caterpillar Snack

I am not huge on snacks. JDaniel does enjoy them though. We had green grapes, tomatoes, and watermelon in the fridge. I decided to use them to construct the caterpillar from The Very Hungry Caterpillar for him. Half a grape was used for each of the caterpillar’s sections. except his head. Half a grape tomato was used for his head. The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s antennae and feet are tiny slices of watermelon.

The caterpillar’s eyes and nose also came from the fridge. I cut tiny circles out of a flour tortilla and colored them green with a food marker.

Measuring the Caterpillar

JDaniel has been very interested in measuring with a ruler lately. He wants to find the length of the tiles in the kitchen, my foot, and his shoes. Not everything he wants to measure is completely straight. I decided to show him a trick for measuring oddly shaped objects.

I made The Very Hungry Caterpillar out of construction paper. The caterpillar is simply a piece of green paper folded in half with connecting curves cut out of it. It front and back ends are reflections of each other.

Then we took yarn and organized it inside the caterpillar’s body to follow its curves. We lifted the yarn up very carefully and lined it up above a ruler. The yarn length of the caterpillar was longer than the ruler. We wrote twelve inches onto the white paper. I had JDaniel hold the remaining length of the yarn while I recorded the first length. We then measured the remaining yarn. It turned out to be eight inches. The caterpillar didn’t look twenty inches long, but that is what he turned out to be.

Sight Word Game

JDaniel has really gotten into learning to read. We have been working on six sight words a week. This week I thought we would play a game to help him review the words we have worked on. I made a The Very Hungry Caterpillar game board using a paint program.

He earned a red pom pom for the first word he recognized and a green pom pom for the remaining words he read. The goal was to review six words at time. I ended up having to print out two game boards. JDaniel remembered so many of the words and he loved earning pom poms for the caterpillar.

How did you explore books this week? If you have a post you would like to share, please link it up below. Once you have added your post, please visit at least three others.

Follow JDaniel4’s Mom on Facebook and Pinterest.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.

The Gingerbread Man Loose in School- Read.Explore.Learn

August 31, 2012 By Deirdre

Today is one of my two places at once days. The amazing Shell of Things I Can’t Say invited me to come and share something that is on my heart on Her blog. To say that I was thrilled to be asked doesn’t full explain how I felt.

Shell is a big blogger with her feet on the ground. Her blog posts are filled with heart, humor, and love. While I was just content to be a her friend, I am over the moon about sharing my words in her world.

If you get a chance, please stop by and read them.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

This week I am going to share a wonderful children’s book called The Gingerbread Man Loose in School by Laura Murray.

The Gingerbread Man Loose in School- Read.Explore.Learn

This wonderful tale of the gingerbread man searching his school for his class is such fun. He wanders the hall looking for them and gets to meet various school employees and see where they work. The school nurse, coach, principal, and art teacher are all visited.

Finally the gingerbread man finds them and finds that they were look for him.

This books is presented in a comic book style. There are multiple areas of text and illustrations on the page. JDaniel didn’t have trouble following this story though.

What did we do with the book The Gingerbread Man Loose in School?

Gingerbread Man Snack

A gingerbread man cookie cutter filled with bran cereal and a few items to decorate him with was JDaniel’s afternoon snack on his first day of school.

The raisins taken out of the bran cereal, a few candy corns, and a couple grapes were the decoration options.

JDaniel loved each and every item in this snack. He did not feel like creating a gingerbread man with the decorations though. He did inhaled all of the food. A few stray bran flakes were left on the floor, but that is all.

Reviewing Body Sections Game

JDaniel and I sat down to review four sections of the body using word/picture cards, a sandpaper gingerbread man, and some items to decorate with with.

I sounded out the words on each card after he told me what body part was pictured. When we had reviewed each card a few times and he had found that section on his body, he had decorated that section.

Here are some of my favorite Posts from last week’s Read.Explore. Learn. link up:

The Gingerbread Man Loose in School- Read.Explore.Learn and Viking Ships

Academy at Thousand Oaks linked up this amazing Viking boat after reading books on Vikings. JDaniel saw this boat and said, “Wow!”

This amazing Great Wall of China was created as a way to explore books Teach Beside Me had read on China with her children.

have you explored children’s books this week?

Madeline in London- Read.Explore.Learn.

August 10, 2012 By Deirdre

This week I am going to share a wonderful children’s book called Madeline in London by Ludwig Bemelmans. Madeline Visits London is a fun story takes on a trip to visit a friend in London. As with other Madeline tales, she has adventure and a little trouble while on her trip.

JDaniel was fascinated with the double decker buses more than anything in this story. He did like the horse that is given to Madeline’s friend as a gift. He gets into all kinds of trouble.

What did we do with this book?

We made a double decker bus out of a cracker box. I painted the box and cut out the windows. The box required a lot of coats of red spray paint to look red.

Once the paint was dry, I was able to cut out the windows and add a black outline to the double-decker box.

JDaniel was in charge of figuring out how to add wheels to the bus. His first idea was to use empty ribbon spools. While that was a great idea, we didn’t have enough spools available.

We then talked about what toys he had that had wheels. After discussing it for a few minutes, he remembered that the Bristle Blocks had wheels.

It took several attempts to find out how to spread out the wheels that needed to be on flat rectangular Bristle Blocks. He was so excited when he found a way to make it work.

JDaniel decided the double-decker bus needed an open level on top. He also decided that a rocket needed to ride there.

It was wonderful to see his problem solve during this activity.

Here is one of my favorite posts from last week’s Read.Explore.Learn. link up:

Following His Lead Today explored the book The Crown on His Head and her children made crowns to extend the theme of the book.

What activities have you been doing to extend the themes of children’s books with your family?

Please link them below.

Friendship: Stickfiggy and Lott Share

June 29, 2012 By Deirdre

Welcome to Read.Explore.Learn.! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie-in to children’s books. I look forward to seeing ways you have learned with and explored books.

I am participating in the MeMe Tales #readforgood Readathon 2012 this summer. During the Readathon, anyone who signs up on the MeMeTales site is given access to the books being featured for free. Each week the books follow a theme. The theme this week is friendship. The books being spotlighted this week are StickFiggy Makes a Friend, Lott’s Tea Party, and Arthur (A dog looking for a home.).

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

While MeMeTales featured three books on friendship on the Readathon this week, we are just going to look at two. Both of the books I am going to share with you feature stick characters that reach out and do something for friends.

StickFiggy Makes a Friend is a very cute story about StickFiggy and an egg. While heading out to play StickFiggy comes across an unattended egg. He decides to stop and watch it until its mom returns instead of going off to play. It takes awhile for the mom to come back. By the time she does it is no longer an egg, but a chick.

Lott’s Tea Party is the tale of a little stick girl that plans a party for her friends. Readers of her story see all that she has to do to get rid of the party and read what it happening in each stage of planning in a single word that is placed on each page. One word is all that is needed to share all that she does to get ready for her friends to come.

What did we do to explore the themes of the books?

Invited a Friend to Play

JDaniel has been missing his best friend from school. I decided to invite him over for a play date so both boys could spend time together.

Made a Friendship Bread

I found a great recipe for Friendship Bread online that didn’t require starter yeast. JDaniel and I had a wonderful time making it. JDaniel had a wonderful time decorating it. We worked on making a StickFiggy character with painted popsicle sticks and a cardboard circle to help us remember to share the story with his friend.

JDaniel and his friends ate one piece. My husband and I inhaled most of the rest. It is really delicious. Maybe it is the chocolate pudding you add to the mix that gave it that little bit of extra something.

Created an Outdoor Tree Play Area

There is a tree line that separates our yard from the next door neighbors. At the end of the tree line is a large magnolia tree that JDaniel and his friend love to climb and play under. The branches of the tree bow down and form a tree play area.JDaniel and I hauled out a blanket, some learning activities, and some toys out to the tree to fill the tree play area.

The area contained the following:

1. Chalk to draw on the tree with.2. A writing a drawing activity that was based on the StickFiggy Finds a Friend story.

3. A cardboard tube that could be leaned against the tree to create a ramp of different levels for a toy truck.4. Activity mats that could be illustrated with small sticks JDaniel and I gathered.

JDaniel decided that there were leaves all over the ground and that they would be fun to play with too. He thought we should reattach them to the tree with clothes pins. I thought was a great idea.

When his friend arrived, they explored most of the playthings and climbed the tree. It was a perfect place for friends to hang out.
What are your favorite books about friendship?Disclaimer: I have been given access to the MemeTales: Readathon books and will receive copies of the books. All the thoughts and information in this post about the books are my own.

Read.Explore.Learn.- Retelling The Five Little Ducklings Activities

June 22, 2012 By Deirdre

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

We have been reading a lot of the animal books that are being featured on MemeTales: Readathon 2012 this week. The one we focused on was The Five Little Ducklings.

The ducklings in this story one at a time keep heading away from home even with Mama Duck quacking they should return.

JDaniel and I did four retelling activities to go along with this book. We usually do a variety of different types of activities with a book, but different ways to retell the story kept jumping into our heads.

Retelling Activity One: Furniture Retelling

JDaniel decided that this chair on the deck would be a great place for the ducks to climb away from the mama duck. The ducks tucked easily into the various crevices in the chair. Notice the mama duck is at the bottom watching over them.

Retelling Activity Two: Water Table Retelling

We put the ducks into JDaniel’s water table. The section divider made a great hill for the ducks to cross as they went on their way.

Retelling Activity Three- Painted Ducks on a Cooling Rack

We painted some paper ducks and put them on clothespins. The clothes pinned ducks were then put on a cookie cooling rack.

We were able to move the ducks around the cooling rack as they went away and came back.

Retelling Activity Four- Pom Pom Ducks

The pom poms had been taken out for a different activity, but JDaniel thought they would be great to use with a clothes pin to retell the story.

He simply picked up a pom pom to represent a duck in the story and moved him far away.

Next week we will be looking at the MemeTales featured books on friendship.

Disclaimer: I am being given the MemeTales: Readathon 2012 featured books for free in exchange for providing a post about them. We are really enjoying them.

Read.Explore.Learn.- Roslyn Rutabaga and the Biggest Hole on Earth

June 1, 2012 By Deirdre

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

Roslyn in Roslyn Rutabaga and the Biggest Hole on Earth by Marie- Louise Gay loves to dig. One day she decides to dig a hole all the way to the South Pole to see the penguins.

I love what her father tells her when she announces that she is going to dig that far. He tells her to remember to bring a sweater because it is cold down there. He is such a great dad.

Once she tries to decide she is going to dig, she has to decide where to start digging. She can’t dig in her dad’s carrot patch and she finds she can’t dig where other animals have their burrows.

When we finally find a spot, she digs and digs. She would probably keep digging past lunch if her dad didn’t bring her a carrot sandwich.

There is a wonderful surprise at the end of this book. I hope you will seek out this book and find out what it is.

What did we do to extend concepts from this book?

Created a Sand Tunnel

We took a wrapping paper tube to a local playground’s sand table to create a tunnel for some of JDaniel’s cars.

Roslyn Rutabaga and the Biggest Hole on Earth- Building a Sand Tunnel in a Sandbox

It was a lot of fun covering the tube with sand and packing the sand down around it.

The cars tended to get stuck half way through the tube. JDaniel discovered that if he stuck the handle of the shovel behind a second car and shoved it into the tube both cars came out of the tube.

Practiced Cutting on Odd Shaped Lines

A couple of sections of newspaper stacked together and painted brown added depth to mom drawn lines once JDaniel had cut them out. I tried to draw a variety of lines to give JDaniel more experience in cutting different types of lines.

Roslyn Rutabaga and the Biggest Hole on Earth- Cutting Paper Lines

The cut out lines looked a lot like tunnels Roslyn might have dug in the story.

Roslyn Rutabaga and the Biggest Hole on Earth- Cutting Paper Tunnels

What have you been working on this week?

Read.Explore.Learn.- Big Bear Hug Based Activities

April 20, 2012 By Deirdre

Steps:

Link your activity below.

Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.

Please try to visit at least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

I love the Big Bear Hug by Nicholas Oldland. It is my favorite new library book. JDaniel likes it too, but it isn’t his favorite and I am not sure why. He loves to give hugs and so does the bear in this book.

Bear is a hugger. He hugs everything and everyone he comes across. He freaks out a rabbit by hugging him when the rabbit thinks he is going to eat him. He tries to hug a moose, but his arms don’t reach around him. He hugs small birds, smelly skunks, and scary snakes too.

Bear’s favorite things to hug are trees. He just loves trees. He hugs trees that are big, little, apple, peach or pear. He will hug trees of every kind everywhere around the woods.

One day a man came to the woods and tried to cut down a wonderful tree. Bear freaked out about the idea of cutting down a tree. At first, he wanted to kill the man, but he decided he is not that kind of bear. Bear ended up doing what he loves to best and freaked the man out. The man runs away after bear hugs him.

With the man gone Bear does what he loves best to the tree. He hugs it.

What did we do after reading the book?

Tissue Box Bear and Story Retelling

JDaniel and I found pictures on the internet that matched many of the things the bear-hugged. After printing them out, JDaniel used watercolors or markers to color most of the pictures.

When the pictures had dried we used them to retell the story. After our retelling time, JDaniel stored the stick puppets in the tissue box the bear is hugging.

Reviewed Items to Recycle

I found a wonderful chart on the internet that displayed the items that can be recycled and lists the ones that you can not recycle. We did two activities with the chart.

The first activity involved using chopsticks to pick up things that should be recycled and placing them in the bear tissue box. I am sure the bear would only want items you can recycle in his box.

The second activity was to go through one of the grocery store circulars that we get in the mail and circle the items that had containers that could be recycled.

What did you do this week?

Reminder: The Tissue Box Challenge will end on the 22nd of April. There is still time to add your own wonderful tissue box creations to the link up. The winner will receive a $20 Amazon Gift Card.

Read.Explore.Learn.- Squish Rabbit

April 13, 2012 By Deirdre

I look forward to seeing the ways you have learned with and explored books.

Steps:

- Link your activity below.

- Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. the badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.

- Please try to visit at least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

- If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

Squish Rabbit by Katherine Battersby has become JDaniel’s favorite book. He absolutely loves to have this book read to him.

Squish is a really small bunny that seems to be overlooked by everyone, because of his size. He has other troubles too. He can’t reach balloons that float by. He can’t get people to hear he wants to share. He is really lonely.

Finally, Squish sews a friend with a needle and thread. He has a great time with him at the beginning, but there is only so much a stuffed cloth friend can do.

He tries to play with a tree, but that doesn’t work. When it doesn’t work, Squish gets mad. He is so mad that he throws a tantrum and kicks one of the apples that has fallen from the tree.

A squirrel notices that the apple is going to all into the river and tries to save it. Thankfully before the squirrel can fall into the water Squish yells, “Stop!”

Thankfully the squirrel stops and decides to play with Squish instead. Yes, that means he now has a real friend and a stuffed one to play with.

The pictures in the book are amazing. JDaniel loves the emotions that Squish conveys with his eyes and his arms. This book could easily be told by the pictures alone, but I am so glad it has words too.

What did we do?

Homemade Playdough Play with a Friend

We had JDaniel’s best friend over on Tuesday after preschool to play. They have the best time together when JDaniel isn’t in charge of all the toys and when they are played with.

To avoid a lively discussion about toys and their play times I made a batch of homemade playdough with the recipe below. I have not been successful with other recipes I have tried, but this one worked out well for me.

The boys had a great time squishing the dough and using a variety of cookie cutters to create creatures of their own.

Here is the Playdough Recipe I used:

Homemade Playdough

1 3/4 of flour

1 cup of boiling water

1/4 cup of salt

4 teaspoons of vegetable oil

1 1/2 teaspoons of cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoons of food coloring

In a medium bowl mix all the dry ingredients. In a small bowl add the water, vegetable oil, and food coloring. When well mixed, add to the dry ingredients and let the mixture cool. Knead until smooth.

Please only link up posts that have children’s books related to them. All others will be deleted.

Read.Explore.Learn.- Easter

April 6, 2012 By Deirdre

I look forward to seeing the ways you have learned with and explored books.

Steps:

- Link your activity below.

- Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. the badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.

- Please try to visit at least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

- If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

We really enjoyed reading Easter by Gail Gibbons. It not only shares the Easter story but explains where the word Easter and many of the symbols we related to Easter came from.

The Easter lily and eggs both symbolized new life. The book explains that candles remind people of the light that comes with darkness.

Gail Gibbons’s book also covers many of the traditions related to Easter like dying eggs, egg hunts and rolls, Easter baskets with candy, and the bunny.

JDaniel liked learning more about Easter and the story behind it.

What did we do?

Paint Chip Basket

I cut out the parts of this basket and eggs for JDaniel and he helped me place the pieces and glue them down.

Handprint Lily

My sister and her boys came for a visit. She loves lilies. JDaniel and I made a handprint lily to put beside her bed in the guest room as a special gift.

Dying Eggs with Cousins