Integrating Holidays: Halloween Fun

This time of year is very long for parents, at least for me. Every day I get the question, when is Halloween? In schools they talk about Fall and Halloween for quite a while.

A favorite book to read:

To help with sequencing and comprehension skills, you can:
 enlarge items from the book, color them, lamenate them (for durability), and have your child put them in order of how they arrived in the story.

We read the book then I had her put them in order from what she remembered. After that, we checked the book to see what she got correct.
Once they were all in order, we made the noises of the two shoes going "clomp, clomp" and the other noises as well.

It was a fun activity and one we can revisit again and again. After a while, I am going to see if she can draw the items in order and create her own scarecrow.

Here is a link with tons of Old Lady activities for this book: Afraid of anything


Also fun Fall activities remember Leaf Man from a previous year?

Integrating Authors: Old Lady

We all love the "There was an Old Lady." She swallows everything. For the Holidays, she swallows a bell.

You can then have your kids draw each item from the book. The next day, see how many they can put in order before re-reading the story again.

There have been sites that even create the Old Lady. The belly is a plastic bag and you can have her "swallow" all of the items.

Integrating Feelings: Llama llama

These books are so cute. I love the way they rhyme. The illustrations are great. The author, Anna Dewdney does a good job with the stories. It explains just how little ones feel as they begin school, want to leave the store, or need to go to bed. What I love about these books is that the Little Llama grows up in each book. You can read them in order and have your little one explore that.

All ages can read and enjoy the books, but the activities and website are geared toward children ages 2-9.






They are just easy reads. I bet your older children could write their own Llama llama book. You should challenge them to try.
Teacher vision.com has great ideas for teachers and parents to use to get their children thinking.

For Comprehension it is suggested that:
• Ask your readers to make predictions about the text. They should focus on the characters’ feelings, events in the plot, and problem/
solution situations.
• Readers can become involved in the story by visualizing the scenes that take place throughout the book. Ask students to draw their
own versions of the story action before seeing the real illustrations.

CHARACTER ANALYSIS
Values & Decision Making
Explain the concepts of values and personalities to your students. Ask students to think about things they personally value: their families,
friends, toys, etc. Get to know Llama Llama by reading Llama Llama Red Pajama, Llama Llama Mad at Mama, Llama Llama Misses
Mama, and Llama Llama Holiday Drama out loud to your class.
• Little Llama grows older with each book. Read the books in order and discuss how he changes.
• Use the text and pictures in each book to find examples of Llama’s values and personality traits.
• As a class, make a list of Llama’s favorite things and words that describe his personality.
Do the same for Mama Llama. Compare and contrast your lists. How are your students similar
to and diff erent from little Llama?
• What does he learn at the end of each story?

For more information, see the website above.

You can also visit the cutest website ever: Llama Llama Homepage

There is even an APP for that!!

Integrating Holidays: Fourth of July

Explaining what the 4th of July is to a 2 1/2 year old is quite interesting.

Upon seeing the bags of decoratins, plates, etc. the conversation goes something like this:
Toddler (T): We are going to have my birthday party.
Mom (M): No, honey , we are going to have a party for America.
T: Yeah! It's 'merica's birthday. Where does 'merica live?
M: We live in America, the United States of America. We celebrate where we live because we have freedom.
T: (Looking up in deep, deep thought). Where is she? I want to see America.
M: Well......forget it honey, let me find a book about the 4th of July and America's birthday.

What a concept that we take for granted. We know what it means to be free, what liberties we have, and how far our country has come. This year, let's not forget the little ones who are still trying to grasp this concept.

A new website I love that sends weekly updates each Sunday with activities is imom.com. This week, it was chuck full of actvities for the Fourth. Check out the objective this week: Operation Red, white, and blue

A few books that you can order or find at your library to read each night to your children are:




I also have one in Spanish to read called: Celebra el cuarto de julio by Alma Flor Ada and F.Isabel Campoy. Reading in a different language to children helps their comprehension and you can ask questions like:
What do you think the book is about?
What do you think they are talking about on this page? How do you know?
By using pictoral cues, children are still reading and using a higher level of thinking.
For the babies, a book I found is:


Of course, you can always google some activities to play in your backyard, but some activites that I am personally using for our party on Sunday game from Disney's family fun website. We will be playing the flag tag relay.

Have a safe and happy 4th of July!!