It's time....

...time for some Mosby photo action.

Hope your day is filled with happy thoughts and cute kitties.

Toddler Talk: Book Week

A few weeks ago the CCCC kicked off our Raising Readers program...encouraging young children to become lifelong lovers of the written word! In the Toddler Room, each child is assigned a week to bring in and share their favorite books from home. We talk about the names of the authors and illustrators, how to take care of books, and that words have meaning and can be read. They are so proud to show their friends what they brought and to have their book presented to the class (many times in the day...because we are toddlers and it's all about repetition!)

We wanted to start 'Raising Readers' off with a bang, so we planned our week's curriculum to revolve around some of the kids most favorite storybooks. We selected one book per day to highlight with fun activities and read the book many (many) times throughout the day:

Monday: 

AM activity- We gathered together to watch 'C' retell the popular tale with felt board pieces:

PM Activity- We made life sized strawberry and blueberry patches, a mud puddle and water for the toddlers to jump on (in small groups) as the teacher retold the story in the hallway. They each got several turns to be Pete...did they cry? Goodness no!:

Tuesday:

AM Activity- We used our little plastic safari animals to do some rockin' animal stamping in paint:

PM Activity- This was a fun one...we put pictures up from the story on the wall in our large motor space and turned off the lights. Then each toddler was given a flashlight and a set of keys (like the zookeeper in the book) to search for all of the escaped zoo animals!

Wednesday: 

AM Activity- We gave the kiddos a paper strawberry and some 'muddy' brown fingerpaint to 'hide it'...just like the little mouse:

PM Activity- Another Feltboard grouptime to go along with a book reading:

Thursday: 

AM Activity- Some traced 'Brown Bear' characters on a big piece of paper, a bunch of crayons...go to town, kids:

PM Activity- We have a set of 'Brown Bear' characters on sticks so we placed them down the hallway all spread out on the floor. Then, as we read the story, we would pause at each page and the kids took turns to run over and find the matching animal:

Friday: 

AM Activity- We color copied and laminated 4 sets of 'Very Hungry Caterpillar' fruits right from the book (with little holes punched out of each one) and gave the kiddos a shoelace to string them all through (as we practiced our counting and fine motor skills):

PM Activity- We tried out some eye droppers (which we had never done before and were not sure if they could do) with watercolor paints to make coffee filter butterflies...they totally figured it out and loved it:

It was a very successful week of loving and appreciating our favorite Books, Books, Books!

Sheesh, the cuteness.

It is a week of much to do and not enough time to do it...so I offer you this delightful snapshot:

What's going on here? Is he art, a football fan, deep in a prayerful moment? I don't know, but he sure is way too adorable for words. Happy Wednesday.

Toddler Talk: If you're gonna Scream, Scream into THIS!

There is an epidemic running rampant amongst my toddler students these days...a total scream fest! When one kid screams (either for attention or because they just can't contain the excitement of life), they ALL follow suit. It's quite loud and cannot be easily stopped once the scream train gets a-chuggin'.

What is a teacher to do? If I say,"Toddlers, that is too loud! Stop screaming in the classroom, please!"....they hear,"It's a good idea to scream louder. And also, grab three friends to join you. It's really fun."

If I ignore it, the uber-persistent attention seekers scream louder until I make eye contact. Which is usually followed by a smile, an unspoken understanding between us that they are winning this particular battle of wits and then a few more screams...just for good measure. And I don't want to send a message that screaming is an acceptable form of verbal expression. Gahhh! 

I picked the brains of our amazing office staff team to come up with a strategy to turn the scream train around. One wise friend suggested the kids might enjoy screaming into a cup or container. Ya know, give them a place to focus their vocal stylings. Yes...I think I can do something with this idea! Hence, the 'Scream Jar' was born.

Here's the plan...

1. A kid screams.

2. We state that we hear screaming.

3. We ask the screamer if they have more screams that they cannot contain.

4. They say yes 99% of the time.

5. We offer the scream jar...we can't let any of those screams get away! We have to catch them all!!

6. They like this idea and grab the jar many more times to 'catch those screams'.

7. We praise them for all of their hard work.

8. They start to learn to feel when the urge to scream is upon them and begin to gain some self regulation skills to hold it in until they can 'dispose' of it properly.

9. They forget that screaming just for screaming sake was once a fun game and they move on to more productive adventures.

Who knows how long it will last...but for now, it's slowing the train down just enough for me to feel hopeful for quieter days ahead!

Here's what you will need to make one (or one hundred) of your very own:

(Large yogurt container, roll of cute patterned contact paper, some 'screaming mouths' printed from the internets, clear tape, scissors, ribbon, white duct tape)

I first found some delightful screaming mouths in the land of Internet clip art and cut them out. Then I taped one mouth at the bottom of each container and secured it with clear tape on top:

Hahahaha...right. That's my favorite part. Continuing on. Next step was to make the outside look cuter (because cute things make my heart feel happy). I cut one long piece of the contact paper to wrap the outside. Since it's a curved container, I had to stick on small sections at a time so just cut the piece as I went. Then, just overlapped each small piece as I worked my way around:

Next step was to make 2 holes in the side of the container with a scissors to push the ribbon thru....BE CAREFUL! As I turned the tip of the scissors around to puncture a hole, my little finger was in the way when the scissors finally went through....ouchie. Just a little cut, but it wasn't one of my finest gold star shining moments in crafting.

Once all the holes were made, I strung ribbon thru so the kids could wear the jar around their neck...for easy screaming access:

I tied some knots on the ends of each ribbon on the inside and covered them with white duct tape to make them secure. Because, well, if a toddler sees something they can take apart, they will take it apart:

We introduced the concept to the kids this week and they took right to it:

One last housekeeping message about where the jars go when the screams are not freely flowing and in need of capture...just put them on the green dots, please:

I'm hopeful that this tool will help the kids to move forward from just screaming willy nilly and find it more delightful to contain the squeals in their fancy new jars...at least for a few days:)