This month, our Preschool Book Club was hosted by our friend Brooke - who I'm thrilled to present as our guest poster today! The kids had a blast this week and it was full of fabulous ideas. Brooke has two super fun (and adorable!) kiddos and a twin sister who's also a part of our book club! Can I just say these 2 gals make me miss my sisters big time - and as cheesy as it sounds, it's really fun knowing identical twins as an adult! Read more about Brooke in her bio at the bottom of this post!
With Dr. Seuss's birthday just around the corner and no shortage on books or activities, this months book club theme was easy and fun!
We started our time reading
Dr. Seuss's ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book! by Dr Seuss (Google Affiliate Ad). While reading I had uppercase and lowercase sets of magnetic letters spread out on the carpet. On each page, the kids took turns finding the corresponding letter in both the uppercase and lowercase versions. It made the reading longer than usual, but they seemed very engaged when finding their letters or watching their friends look. It was great visual discrimination and letter identification practice as well!
I then mixed up a set of ABC flashcards and they worked together to get them put back in order. More letter identification practice as well as sequencing and working together.
After all that hard work, they were ready for a Seuss snack. We layered strawberry and vanilla yogurt in fancy plastic cups to resemble the Cat in the Hat's hat. We also stacked sliced strawberries and bananas on a graham cracker to make a fruit version of his hat. I tricked them into some patterning and fine motor practice while eating!
During snack, I read aloud
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by Dr Seuss/ Ring (Google Affiliate Ad). Then they each got a fishing pole and went fishing in our pond for colored fish. The fish were cut out of cardstock with numbers written on one side and a paperclip attached to the tail. The fishing poles were made out of a popsicle stick, yarn, and a round magnet. Our pond was a blue plastic disposable tablecloth. Once each kiddo caught 4 fish, they worked together to order them 1-20.
We didn't have time to read A Wocket in My Pocket as I had hoped for the next activity, but we had discussed Dr. Seuss's silly rhymes with the other books. I spread out a set of large word family picture cards on the carpet and had the kids wait for their turn on the couch. I told each kiddo a word, and they had to stand on the picture that rhymed with that word. Example: one kid was told the word "mall" and had to go stand on the "ball". They loved finding the rhyming pictures so we played several rounds of this game!
Our hour was nearly up, so we ended with some sensory fun. I re-capped the Dr. Seuss story of Bartholomew and the Ooblek since the book is more advanced than our age. We talked about the funny feeling of ooblek, and then they explored (some more than others)! They each had their own container of Ooblek, along with a set of plastic silverware and cups.
Ooblek:
2 c cornstarch
1 c water
food coloring
Despite our busy morning, we could have filled an entire day with Dr. Seuss activities. The books lend themselves so well to early literacy skills and fun! So go check out some Dr. Seuss books from the library and come up with activities your own kids will love as well. Afterall....
"Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!" ~Dr. Seuss in Oh The Thinks You Can Think
{Brooke Vaske is a former kindergarten teacher/reading specialist turned stay at home mommy. Lucky for her, she has 2 eager students (ages 4 and almost 2) at home and a 3rd on the way to participate in her crazy lessons! Together they love to spending their days reading, playing, visiting parks, doing puzzles, cooking, and cleaning (ooblek is not usually part of their daily routine!).}
