five little Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

Community Helpers Poem and Craft- Five Little Firefighters

October 10, 2014 By Deirdre

Creating a paper doll chain of firefighters to go along with the poem “Five Little Firefighters” would be a great way to celebrate these community helpers. Whether you are studying firefighters as part of a community helpers unit or exploring fire safety during National Fire Safety month in October, the “Five Little Firefighters” poem and craft would be great to do.

If your children prefer to do a coloring activity, you can have them color the printable below.

How to Create This Community Helpers Craft

I cut out the paper dolls by folding white construction paper into six equal sections. Yes, I said six. ( I couldn’t figure out how to fold the paper into fifths evenly.) After folding the paper, I drew the outline of a person wearing pants onto the top section of the paper. When the dolls were cut out, the extra doll was removed from the line of dolls and placed in our scrap box. (It will be used for another craft on another day.) By cutting six at the same time the dolls ended up a little frayed. The most extreme of the frayed areas were trimmed off.

With the dolls made, it was time to come up with firefighters’ clothes for our little community helpers. Firefighters need a fire suit, a helmet, and boots. Each of these was cut off construction paper in sets of six. To ensure the fire suits would fit the outline of the firefighters the neck, arms, trunk, and legs of one of them were traced on red paper. Then they were cut out. The firefighters’ boots were made by tracing one of the firefighter’s feet.

Once the five little community helpers had their clothes cut out, little details like tracing the outside edge of the fire suit and helmet with the black marker and adding yellow stripes were done.

Faces were left of our five little firefighters. You may want your children to draw facial features on theirs. I just wasn’t sure how they should look. I should have had my son put them on for me. He would have done a great job.

Five Little Firefighter’s Song

This song has several different versions. Some of the versions refer to the community helpers as five little firemen. Since firefighters can be men or women I went with this version of the poem I found on Preschool Education.

Five little firefighters (Show five fingers)
Sleeping in a row. (Rest cheeks on hands and close eyes.)
RING goes the bell–
Down the pole, they go. (Pretend to slide down a pole.)
They jump on the engine (Jump.)
And put out the fire. (Pretend to squirt with a hose.)
Now they’re back home–
My, but they’re tired! (Stretch and yawn.)

Retelling the Poem with the Craft

We stood our five little firefighters up when they were awake and laid them down when they were asleep. You could easily accordion fold the firefighters and retell the poem with them all stacked up. There really isn’t a right or wrong way to retell or say the poem with the craft. You may decide to cut out five separate firefighters put on sticks to make community helper puppets.

If you are looking for some more fire-themed crafts, you will want to check these out.

Fire Truck Craft with Flame Painting

Fire Truck Activity for Kids

Fire Ladder Learning Activities

Fire Roll and Count

Preschool Activities- Five Little Apples Rhymes and Craft

August 21, 2014 By Deirdre

Preschool activities that involve reciting rhymes like Five Little Apples and creating props to go with them are fun. This post shares several apple rhymes. There are really dozens of Five Little Apple Rhymes. I have selected just a few to share with you that I thought would go well with the apple tree craft I created.

While I created this apple tree craft, I totally think it is one of those activities kids or adults could do. It uses really simple items from my recycling bin and craft closet. I bet you have them at your house too.

How to Make the Preschool Activities Five Apple Tree

Supplies

Paint (red, green, and brown)

Paintbrushes

Cardboard cereal box

Paper Towel Roll

Cardboard egg carton

Pipe Cleaners Chenille (Green)

Scissors

Hole punch

Directions:

Cutting

Cut big cloud shape out of the wide side of a cereal box.

Cut two vertical slits in the paper towel tube. The slits should be across from each other. I made my slits about 3 inches long.

Cut five egg cups out of the cardboard egg carton.

Painting

Paint the big cloud shape green. It will be the leafy part of your apple tree. I painted using big swirling strokes.

While the leafy part of the tree is drying, paint the paper towel tube brown. The tube I used needed three coats of brown paint to cover the sticky rings on it.

Then move on to the egg carton cups. They will be painted red. I tried to cover some discolorations on the egg carton cups with paint, but they still made an appearance. I decided they would just have to be the bruised areas of the apples.

Assembling

Place five holes in the leafy part of the tree with a hole punch.

Place the leafy part of the tree into the tree trunk.

Place one hole in a side of each of the red apples. Holes that were close to the edge of the apples worked out best for me

Cut two chenille pipe cleaners into thirds. You will use one piece of the chenille to create a stem for each of the apples. Yes, you will have one left over.

Put one end of the pipe cleaner into the egg carton apple and bunch it up so it will stay in place.

Put the other end of the pipe cleaner through one the holes in the tree. Bend that end of the pipe cleaner into a hook to help it stay in place. You want it to stay in place temporarily so don’t bunch it up too tightly. You will want to be able to take the apples down to do the preschool activities rhymes.

Preschool Activities Rhymes

Five Little Apples In A Tree

Five little apples hung on a tree
The farmer didn’t care
So guess who came to eat?
A caterpillar…Munch, Munch

Four little apples hung on a tree
The farmer didn’t care
So guess who came to eat?
A Bird …Munch, Munch

Three little apples hung on a tree
The farmer didn’t care
So guess who came to eat?
A Pig…Munch, Munch

Two little apples hung on a tree
The farmer didn’t care
So guess who came to eat?
A Horse…Munch, Munch

One little apple hung on a tree
The farmer didn’t care
So guess who came to eat?
A Scarecrow… Munch, Munch

Now the tree is bare
There are no more apples there
But when next fall comes around
Guess who’ll be there?

The caterpillar, the bird, the pig
The horse and the scarecrow.

Five Little Apple Coming Down

Five red apples hanging in a tree ( Place five apples on the tree.)
The juiciest apples you ever did see.
The wind came by and gave an angry frown (Lift out of the tree)
And one little apple came tumbling down (One apple falls)

Repeat for apples four through one.

A.P.P.L.E. (Sung to the tune of B.I.N.G.O.)

I know a fruit that grows on trees,
An apple is its name, oh!

(Chorus)
A. P. P. L. E.
A. P. P. L. E.
A. P. P. L. E.
An apple is its name, oh!

In summer and in early fall
It’s time to pick an apple!
Chorus

It may be sweet or may be tart,
It’s red, or green, or yellow!
Chorus

A McIntosh or Granny Smith,
A Gala or Fuji!
Chorus

Make applesauce or apple juice
Or apple pie with apples!
Chorus

Apples Action Rhyme
(Take the apples off the tree and use them for the actions in this rhyme.)

Five little apples lying on the floor.
I’ll roll one away, and that leaves four.
(make rolling motion with an apple)

Four little apples hanging on a tree.
I’ll pick one off, and that leaves three.
(pick an imaginary apple)

Three little apples, I know what to do!
I’ll put one in my pocket, and that leaves two.
(pretend to put apple in pocket)

Two little apples sitting in the sun.
I’ll pick one up, and that leaves one.
(pretend to pick apple up off the floor)

One little apple waiting in my lunch.
I’ll eat it up with a crunch, crunch, crunch!
(pretend to take a big bite!)

Here are a few other preschool activities that feature Five Little rhymes or songs:

Five Little Turkeys

Five Little Christmas Trees

Five Little Firecrackers

Five Little Valentines

Five Little Shamrocks

Five Little Shamrocks Craft and Song

March 11, 2014 By Deirdre

Have you heard the Five Little Shamrocks song before? Have you ever made a hand print shamrock? We hadn’t done either until we started to work on this Five Little Shamrocks craft and song. We love Five Little… so much that I searched and searched until I found one for St. Patrick’s Day.

Five Little Shamrocks

One green shamrock, in the morning dew,
Another one sprouted,
and then there were two.

Two green shamrocks, growing beneath a tree;
Another one sprouted,
and then there were three.’

Three green shamrocks, by the cottage door;
Another one sprouted,
and then there were four.

Four green shamrocks, near a beehive
Another one sprouted,
and then there were five.

Five little shamrocks, bright and emerald green,
Think of all the luck
these shamrocks will bring.

While I think the Five Little Shamrocks is a super cute song that can be song all by itself, I love to try to come up with a craft to go along with rhymes and songs that we are working on. The crafts can be used as props while you sing the song. They are also great for retelling the song. When you have finished using them along with the song, they make wonderful crafts to display in the hallway outside of your classroom or on your kitchen fridge.

Our hand print shamrocks were so simple to make. We placed green paint on the palm side of a hand and placed four hand prints in flower petal design onto white paper. Then we cut out the hand prints and I added an outline around the shamrocks with green marker. A stem for the shamrocks was also drawn on with green marker. Finally two wiggly eyes are placed on each shamrock along with an orange pom-pom. ( I tried a green pom-pom on the shamrocks, but it really didn’t differ enough from the green paint and marker. ) Orange is one of the colors on the Irish flag and it added contrast so, we went with orange pom-poms.

You may notice that one of the shamrocks has tiny eyes. I didn’t have enough large wiggly eyes for all five shamrocks. It may look a little odd in the picture. I think it ended up being okay. Five is an odd number so, why shouldn’t the fifth shamrock be a little odd.

Here are some other Five Little.. Songs and Crafts we have done:

Deirdre Smith writes/owns JDaniel4’s Mom. After twenty years as a elementary school and technology resource teacher in Northern Virginia, she became a stay at home mom in upstate South Carolina. Her blog features ways she and her 5 year old are exploring learning, crafting, creating healthy meals and living life to its fullest. Deirdre can also be foundon her blog’s FB page. You can also check her out on Google+.