Read & Learn Fireflies

Glow in the Dark Firefly prop

"Firefly Fly" sung to the tune of "Three Blind Mice" by Miss Meredith.

Fly, fly, fly,

Fireflies fly.

Fly over here.

Fly over there.

They fly up high, and they fly down low.

Around and around and around they go.

They fly fast, and they fly slow.

Fireflies fly.

The theme of the week was fireflies and crickets, but I love fireflies too much to split the attention. I read Ten Flashing Fireflies by Philemon Sturges and The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle. We sang "Firefly Fly" with the light on a couple of times flying around the firefly props.

Glow in the Dark Firefly prop

Then, I slowly turned out the lights, so the children could see each firefly magically light up.


 "Little Firefly" sung to the tune of "This Little Light of Mine" adapted by Miss Courtney.

See a little firefly,

Flying in the midnight sky.

See a little firefly

Flying in the midnight sky.

See a little firefly

Flying in the midnight sky.

With a light, oh so bright, oh so bright.

For the craft, we made the band-aid firefly. We used stickers for the glow part.

WMCIR: The Greedy Python

Bobo's favorite book from this round has been The Greedy Python by Richard Buckley with illustrations by Eric Carle. The greedy python is hungry and gobbles up everyone he comes across. He eats a rat, a monkey and even an elephant. Then, the python begins to feel ill when all the animals start jumping around in his belly. After the animals escape, the python finds an even better treat, his own tail. He's so greedy, he eats himself right up and disappears. Bobo's favorite picture is the greedy python's swollen belly after he's eaten the elephant. This book is part of a new series of easy readers, so the text has simple structure with vocabulary that can be identified by the illustrations. So far, I've really enjoyed what I've been seeing.

As I've said in several other posts, I adore Mo Willems' books. I finally coaxed Bobo into telling the Pigeon, "No!" He gets it, now, and thinks telling him no is really funny. He did say, we'd have to let the pigeon stay up a little later because he said Please. If we ask for something nicely in our family, we try to say Yes. After a couple of seconds, he told the pigeon to go to bed now.

From the author of the Do Princesses... finally comes a book for boys and girls. This is my favorite of this series because a super hero can be a girl or a boy as shown in the illustrations of a boy and his little sister. The rhyming text and colorful illustrations make this a fun read aloud. Bobo loved that the teddy bear and dog were both dressed like super heroes. His favorite part of the book was the very end where the boy is looking at his father and asking if there is a difference between regular heroes and super heroes. 

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Vertical learning without the easel

The Invitation:
Old rug

Newspaper taped to window
Paper taped to newspaper
Paints

Real paint brushes

I read recently that 3-year-olds should write, paint or create on a vertical surface every day. It helps with pre-writing skills. We don't have an easel, but the window works just fine.

Flannel Friday: Ten Flashing Fireflies

Miss Meredith made the velcro firefly story board this week and I added the rhyme.

"Ten Flashing Fireflies" by Miss Courtney

Ten flashing fireflies flying in the night

One's bright light

Went night, night

Good-bye, sleep tight!

(count down to one)

No more fireflies flashing in the night

They are all gone, good night!

The velcro story could also be used to replace or re-tell the book Ten Flashing Fireflies by Philemon Sturges. See what the rest of the Flannel Friday group has been up to this week at Read, Rhyme & Sing.

365 Days Outdoors: Why always keeping a bathing suit in the car is a GREAT idea!

You never know when you may come across a great place to jump in!

Run wild...

get your hair wet...

and cool down!

Laser Light Show

As soon as the laser came up, Bobo shouted, "COOL!"

We learned the science behind a laser light show. The laser is a concentrated beam of light. When you move it really fast, faster than the eye can see, you can create shapes.

The same science is behind televisions, by moving the light very fast, the eye detects motion.

If you use lots of lasers at once, you can make letters and words.

We enjoyed a laser light show with music and characters we recognized.

Bobo loved when the lasers bounced off mirrors and reflected all over the room.

Towards the end, he stood on my lap and tried to reach the lasers. After the show when the Laser People asked for questions he said, "Can the lasers hurt you?" The Laser Man said that if they shine directly in your eye, they can hurt your eye. Even the tweens were impressed with this show as were the parents. I re-iterate, "So cool!"

 

Read & Learn Outer Space

Memory Box- Moon Sand

For our first week of storytime, we went into outer space. I've added a  new element to our storytime to replace our matching game. I always have more children coming in the summer and different people each week, which makes it difficult to do the same routine I do during the school year. I made moon sand for our Memory Box, original idea from Abby the Librarian. I hid a star under the sand and had the children guess.

We read some outer space books like Goodnight Moon 1, 2, 3 by Margaret Wise Brown and Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle. I found out my summer group loves counting by the enthusiast shouts for rhymes and the counting book.

"Ten Little Spaceships"

by Robin Currie

from 1, 000 Fingerplays & Action Rhymes

One little, two little, three little spaceships,

Four little, five little, six little spaceships,

Seven little, eight little, nine little spaceships,

Ten little spaceships go.

Countdown? Ready?

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0

BLAST OFF!

We pretended to be comets, then spaceships with rainbow streamers. Their favorite rhyme of the week was  the one I shared, "Ten Little Spaceships".

Last, we made name rockets with squares and triangles. We embellished with glow-in-the-dark glitter glue and star stampers.