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!