Thursday, September 20, 2012

Pre-K 9-20-12 Autumn!

Welcome, Autumn (on the 22nd)!  It's not quite cool yet here in AZ, but if I waited till it was I might never do my fall storytime.  This officially kicks off my favorite time of year!

Theme: Autumn

30 kids
3 younger siblings
32 adults

Memory Box:  Red squirrel from Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf



Books:

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert.  A child describes the growth of a maple tree from seed to sapling.



Sneeze, Big Bear, Sneeze! by Maureen Wright. Big Bear thinks that his tremendous sneezes are causing the leaves and apples to fall off the trees and the geese to fly away, but when the wind finally convinces him otherwise, he knows it's time to go to sleep.


Flannel:  Five Autumn Leaves (stand up and move rhyme)

Five autumn leaves hanging from a tree (five fingers)
I wonder if they'll fall for me (shrug)
The wind comes blowing wooooosh round and round (big arm movements)
And one little leaf comes fluttering down (flutter fingers down to ground)

 
 
Cube Activity:  Humpty Dumpty


Letter of the Day:  Ll

Lesley randomly opened the book A is for Autumn to L (which was perfect since we talked about leaves)                                                              
 
Music: "Bop Until You Drop"
We bopped, wiggled, moved in slow motion, floated, and spun in this song until it was time to "drop" for the lsat time when the song ended.
 
 

 
Activity:  Blowing leaves in the autumn wind
 
I played the song "It's Fall Again" while creating a wind storm with the parachute.  To surprise the kids I threw a ton of fall leaves in the middle and they flew everywhere.  Then the kids went under and when they looked up at the parachute over their heads they could see the leaves everywhere above them.  Pretty cool view.




8 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. It's been a trend on youth librarians' blogs... I don't even know who to give credit to. I used a square tissue box and cut / glued it back together so it's an actual cube (the tissue box as is is not a perfect cube). Wrap with colorful paper. Glue pictues on the six sides that indicate an activity you'll be doing. It can be a picture of a spider for "Itsy Bity Spider" or a row boat for "Row, Row, Row Your Boat". Roll the cube and sing the song it lands on. In my Pre-K I have another cube that I roll first. This cube determines if we'll do a yoga pose, read a poem, or sing a song. If it lands on the song side, I roll the second cube to determine what song we will sing.

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  2. Bop til you Drop? sounds adorable, who sings/plays it? Do you have the name of the CD?

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    Replies
    1. It's an older song from Greg and Steve.

      http://www.amazon.com/Kids-In-Action-Greg-Steve/dp/B0000A8XP8/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348515551&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=greg+and+steve+bog+til+you+drop

      You can watch some kids dancing to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x4WUUQAJvY

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  3. We did the leaves and parachute last week. It was sooooo much fun!

    My little ones loved shaking the parachute to make the leaves fly up into the air and fall to the ground while the music was playing. Then when I stopped the music, they had just as much fun scrambling around to quickly pick-up all the leaves before the music started again. Such a BLAST!

    I'll have to checkout your suggested song. What CD is "It's Fall Again" on?

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    Replies
    1. I love the leaves and parachute idea & also need to know where that song is from. LIKE NEED TO KNOW NOW. ;)

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    2. Agree with Anne! We are doing Fall this week and I am so "borrowing" this. :)

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    3. It's from The Learning Station and the CD is Seasonal Songs in Motion. I can't promnise the other songs are good bcs I don't remember if I've even listened to them, but I really like "It's Fall Again" because it's about leaves falling on you and about grabbing them. You can totally do this without a parachute. Just toss a bucket of fake leaves in the air or give each kid a handful and throw them up together. Cath them as they're falling or pick up off the ground and keep throwing them up and letting them flutter down.

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