Search Results for: Read.Explore.Learn.

Read.Explore.Learn.-Valentine’s Day

February 3, 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 into children’s books.

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:

The little girl named Cornelia Augusta in The Day It Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond is amazing. She takes to the time collect hearts that rain down one day and she uses them to create wonderful valentines for each of her friends.

I love how Cornelia Augusta takes the time to send cards to the people she cares about not only the year hearts rained down but, every year after that.

The children in Anne Rockwell’s Valentine’s Day create wonderful valentines for a classmate that has moved far away. Each child decorates their card with a memory they have that is tied to the student.

What a wonderful way to share memories with a friend and let them know they are important.

I loved getting to see what each child picked and how they decorate their card to represent their memory.

What did we do?

Card Making

I cut six pink and two green hearts out of the tag board. JDaniel was able to push the pink heats up the lollipop stick to create a petal effect.

We added the green hearts as leaves with a Valentine message on the largest leaf.

This lollipop man is so easy to make. You just cut four small slits in the old playing card for the red pipe cleaner through. A simple heart is a head and a lollipop is placed in one of the hands.

Here are some of the cards we decorated. I colored in the robot and JDaniel put stickers around the heart on these cards.

Hearts 4 Kids

Our local radio station His Radio is sponsoring a program called Hearts 4 Kids. We sent our cards that didn’t have candy to that project. The project is open until Feb. 6th at midnight. .

Surprise a Neighbor

We took the cards with candy to the older lady that lives next door.

Read.Explore.Learn.-If You’ll Be My Valentine

January 27, 2012 By Deirdre

Steps:

- Link your activity below.

- Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. a 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:

JDaniel is very much into rhyming words. He loved the rhyming poems in

I love how the card is shown on one page of the book and the memory that inspired it is on the opposite page.

What did we do?

Craft- Valentine’s Day Cards

We received tons of political mailings right before the South Carolina primary. I decided they would be great for creating Valentine’s Day cards for JDaniel’s sleepy-time friends and robots.

I put out the mailings, markers, stickers, and crayons to make the cards.

Pretend Play- Valentine’s Day Post Office

While JDaniel was a preschool, I converted his McDonald’s counter into a post office. I placed post office signs on most of the McDonald-related ones and put some stamps (stickers) into the register.

One of our reusable bags was labeled as a mailbag. JDaniel was able to use the bag to deliver his cards to his toys.

Read.Explore.Learn.- An Orange in January

January 20, 2012 By Deirdre

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

This wonderful book An Orange in January follows the travels of an orange as it makes its way to a boy’s home. I love the warm pictures in this book and the opportunity to share how food gets to our table.

We really loved getting to read about how one of JDaniel’s favorite foods gets to our house. We also loved the boy’s brainstorming at the end of the book as to what you could use an orange to do ie: juggle with one.

What did we do?

Mapping

We took out our atlas and looked for Peru. Peru is the homeplace of the oranges we purchased from the grocery store

Craft- Making Orange Circle into Something

I put out paper with orange circles glued on them and had JDaniel transform the circles into something else.

Orange circles for the An Orange in January book extension

Orange circles randomly glued onto blue paper

JDaniel then was asked to create drawings with the orange circles. I loved hearing him tell me about what he was coloring while he colored.

This picture is a bouncy ball with green spikes on it. Besides the ball is a robot with his legs tucked up under him so you can’t see them. It is such fun to see what kids crate.

This picture is a worm and two bugs coming out of a hole that is beside some grass. It is a sunny day!

This is my idea of what a giraffe looks like.

Read.Explore.Learn.- Don’t Worry Douglas Craft

January 6, 2012 By Deirdre

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

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 who 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:

This week we read the book Don’t Worry Douglas! is given a new knit hat by his dad and he is asked to be careful with it. Douglas barely makes it out of the house when his hat snags on a tree and is destroyed. His hat is unraveled and he doesn’t want to tell his dad. David Melling’s Douglas is a lot like a lot of children who are afraid to tell their parents when they have done things wrong.

Douglas tries to seek advice on how to fix his hat from his friends. Most of them would just like the yarn for their homes but, they do try and tell him to talk to his dad.

In the end, Douglas does talk to his dad and his dad does understand. He does remind Douglas to be careful with the replacement hat he gives him right off his head.

Of course, he reminded him of that with the first hat too.

I love the reminders in this book to listen and be willing to share when mistakes happen. JDaniel and I talked about both of these concepts after reading the book.

What did we do?

Craft a Bear and a Mom Lesson

This craft was more about me listening than JDaniel painting his Don’t Worry Douglas! bear.

I cut out a bear out of a brown paper grocery bag and set out brown paint with a sponge to paint it.

JDaniel told me that he didn’t want Douglas to be brown. He wanted him to be blue, green, and black.

I thought about forcing him to paint him brown so that I could have a brown bear for this post and decided that it wasn’t that important. What was important was to listen to what he wanted to do!

When he had finished painting, I said it was time to add eyes, a nose, and a mouth. JDaniel declared the project as done. I said that it would be fine with me.

When he left the room, I seriously thought about adding facial features to the bear. Then I thought about what I would be saying to him about listening. If I had added facial features I might have been telling him that it wasn’t okay and that I had to sneak in a face to have it be right. That is not a lesson I want him to learn.

Sometimes crafts may need to be finished the way I see them. This craft did not have to be that way.

If you like this bear craft, here are some more bear activities.

Printable Bear About Colors Activities

Color Bear Bingo Printables

Bear Shape Activity

Read.Explore.Learn.- Singing and Reading to Tiger Tales Books

December 23, 2011 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. a 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 both of the books from Tiger Tales books. Veronica Vasylenko has beautifully illustrated both books based on Christmas songs with pictures that jump off the page. The books have glitter and raised pictures that really make the pictures pop.

In Jingle Bells, a mouse family is traveling to see their grandparents; in Deck the Halls, the grandparents are traveling to see them.

JDaniel loved it when I read and then sang the books. After a while, he started singing too.

What did we do?

I took the book Jingle Bells to JDaniel’s preschool classes’ Christmas party to read. When we were finished we did a craft and I planned a game to play.

Craft

I passed out foam bells and foam stickers and the class decorated them. I got the bells and stickers at Dollar Tree. The whole craft was $3.

Game

We ran out of time to play the game, but I wanted to share it with you anyway.

Jingle Bell Pass

Supplies:

Two Christmas stockings

Two jingle bells

Directions:

1. Have the class sit in a circle.

2. Put a bell in each stocking.

3. Have the students pass the stockings around the circle while singing “Jingle Bells”.

4. When the song ends the two children holding the stockings, get a prize.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until many or all of the children get a prize.

Disclaimer: I was sent Jingle Bells and Deck the Halls by Tiger Tales Books to review. All opinions are my own.

Read.Explore.Learn.-Special Christmas Trees

December 16, 2011 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 am featuring two very special Christmas books this week about Christmas trees. I love them both.

The first is called The Little Fir Tree by Margaret Wise Brown. It is an amazingly moving book about a tree that is dug up every winter just in time for Christmas to be taken to a little boy who is bedridden. When Christmas is over he is returned to the woods to grow and wait.

The tree looks forward to making this special trip be part of the celebration while the seasons come and go.

One year the man doesn’t come and the tree starts to worry and dislike the now frozen world around him. As Christmas nears the man comes with the whole family including the little boy walking on his own.

The tree gets to celebrate Christmas in his home this year bedecked with berries, apples, and cookies!

The second book is called Night Tree by Eve Bunting. One Christmas Eve as a family sets out into the woods to find a tree.

When they find the perfect tree, they decorate it with popcorn, apples, sunflower seed balls, and tangerines for the animals that live in the woods to feast on. They spread breadcrumbs beneath the tree as well as nuts and apples.

After the decorating is done the family spreads out a blanket and sings songs while sipping on hot chocolate.

When they finish, they pack up their things and leave the tree for the animals to enjoy!

Both of these books have wonderful illustrations and messages. I hope you get the opportunity to read them both during the Christmas season.

What did we do?

Decorated a JDaniel’s Tree

When JDaniel was six months, old my husband planted a tree for him. It is still small and so it is easy for JDaniel to help decorate.

I strung together a cranberry garland for his tree and JDaniel created decorated pinecones with peanut butter and bird seeds.

This post is linked to Feed Me Books Friday, Link and Learn, Let’s BEE Friends, La La Home Daycare and It’s Playtime.

Read.Explore.Learn. and My Visit to hands on: as we grow

December 9, 2011 By Deirdre

This year we put up our first full-size Christmas tree in the living room. I was so nervous about putting the ornaments from my Christmas collection up on the tree. JDaniel has a tendency to move things around or cause them to temporarily disappear.Rather than put up anything breakable that would be greatly missed if it ceases to de we decided to put up wooden or metal ornaments along with a bunch of homemade ones.

Today I am stepping away from the blog to visit hands on: as we grow and share three ornaments we made to hang on the tree.I would still love for you to link up your Read.Explore.Learn. post and hope you will visit me at hands on: as we grow. I will be back next week with two wonderful books from Tiger Tales to share with you.

Read.Explore.Learn.

Steps for linking to Read.Explore.Learn:

- 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.

Read.Explore.Learn.- Joey and Jet in Space

December 2, 2011 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:

JDaniel loves to have me read Joey and Jet in Space by James Yang to him. It doesn’t contain many words, but it is filled with amazing pictures.

Joey and Jet start the book floating in space exploring together. Jet sees his bone floating by and chases it. Joey is visiting with a boy in a floating space room and doesn’t see him disappear.

Joey spends most of the book asking spacecraft, robots, and satellites if they have seen his dog. He doesn’t seem to be anywhere.

Finally, he hears the squeak of his dog and heads towards it. Hooray! He finds Jet and just in time for Mom to call over a satellite to them to tell them it is lunchtime.

When you get to see them with Joey’s mom, you find that they have been playing in his room the whole time. The whole story is just in Joey’s imagination.

What did we do?

Created a Mosaic

I bought the My First Sticky Mosaics: Transportation for JDaniel to do on the plane trip we took for Thanksgiving. He wasn’t that interested in doing it on the plane but enjoyed working on the rocket mosaic when we got home.

Rocket Launching

JDaniel made this plastic cup rocket in science class at preschool. We have spent a lot of time at home launching it over and over again.

Supplies

Paper Rocket

Two Rubber Bands

Two Plastic Cups

Directions:

1. Color picture of a paper rocket.

2. Place Four Slits in one of the plastic cups. Each pair of slits will be across from the other.

3. Tie a knot at the end of a piece of rubber band thread it through the first slit.

4. Pull the rubber band across the cup and place the slit on the other side of the cup.

5. Tie a knot in the band.

6. Repeat steps 3-5 with the remaining band.

7. Place the cup with the rocket and rubber band on top of the plain cup and push down.

8. Watch your rocket fly.

Read.Explore.Learn.- The Firefighters’ Thanksgiving

November 25, 2011 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:

The Firefighters’ Thanksgiving by Maribeth Boelts is a wonderful story about firefighters that try to make a Thanksgiving meal on a day when they get many, many calls for help.

Lou volunteers to cook the meal if the others will pick up the food on the grocery list. By the time they get the food at 9:00 a.m. they get their first call.

They return to melted ice cream and a messy floor apparently they didn’t have time to put the food away.

Each time they seem to get ahead on the meal the alarm sounds and they are off again.

When they return, they get their equipment ready for the next emergency and try to work on the meal again.

During one of the fires, Lou is hurt and is taken to the hospital. The firefighters return to the station without Lou and to an unfinished meal. They call their families and get ready for the next emergency without hope of a Thanksgiving meal.

Something amazing happens while the firefighters answer the last call. Friends, neighbors and people they have helped arrive and set up a meal for them. They leave them a note saying they are thankful for all they do!

Some of that wonderful meal goes to the hospital to be shared with Lou.

This is an amazing book. Much of the story is told in vivid illustrations by Terry Widener. Terry does a wonderful job complementing Marybeth Boelt’s words by drawing you into the action and events.

The message of giving back to those that have helped you is truly inspirational. It left us wanting to help people that have helped us and our community.

What did we do?

Made Cookies

I am not much of a baker, but JDaniel loves to bake. We went to the store and selected the frozen sugar cookie dough for the firemen that work at the fire station near JDaniel’s house.

Created a Turkey Treat Bag

We worked together to make turkey treat bags to deliver the cookies in.

Delivered the Cookies

Our local fireman was excited about receiving the cookies.

This post is linked to Serving Others Thanksgiving a link up on this post and Feed Me Books Friday, Link and Learn, Let’s BEE Friends, La La Home Daycare and It’s Playtime .

Read.Explore.Learn.- Thanksgiving at the Tappletons’

November 18, 2011 By Deirdre

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:

Thanksgiving at the Tappletons’ by Eileen Spinelli reminds me of some the interesting things that can happen when you try to make a Thanksgiving dinner.

What could happen?

The turkey could slip out the door.

The bakery could be out of pies when you finally get in line.

The salad could be used to feed a pet.

The potatoes could be splattered all over the kitchen.

You could end up with a house filled with people expecting a meal.

They could end up being fed odd and ends from the kitchen.

That could be what happened at the Tappletons’.

This wonderful family of foxes learns through it all that family and not food is what is most important.

What did we do?

Crafts

We made two turkey crafts together. They ended up being so cute.