Tuesday 22 July 2014

Weekly Book Talk Tueday

July is the month of monsoons in India and everybody is waiting eagerly for the rain gods to bestow some rain and cool off the 113 degrees heat that we bear every year . So while we wait for the rains, I love taking out the book "Rain"by Manya Stojic to read to my sweet peas. And it goes perfectly with the five senses theme which we do during this time.
The book is based in the parched African Savanna and talks about the beauty and necessity of rain for the animals.
The animals use their five senses to see the lightning, smell the rain, feel the drops of water, hear the thunder and taste the water.





The illustrations are bright and the wordings are simple. The book is always a hit with the kids and they make an immediate connection with the story.

I often follow it up by making a rain stick.
You can get step by step instructions on how to make a rain stick from pinning with purpose.

As i said earlier, the book works perfectly with the five senses theme and you can use it to talk about animal senses. I made a freebie for five senses which you can download from here:
Five Senses Freebie

It is a great book to read. Rain or no rain !


Monday 21 July 2014

Back To School

Alright ! The procrastinating phase to get myself to write a post has come to an end and i am back with a bang. It wasn't too cool on my part to ignore my little blog but it was also becoming increasingly urgent to overcome my languid demeanor for exercise and adopting a healthy life style. Hence the disappearing act ! Ya , I know.....work on my new year resolution has started just now. But i am being really true to myself and have been making a sincere effort to exercise though portions of sweets and breads are still not under control. But i am in no hurry and will take baby steps in making this change permanent.
Moving on, i am happy that i finally completed my 'Back To School Books' pack. Kids came in two weeks ago after a two month long vacation and even though it wasn't really a start of a new school year, technically speaking it had all the crazy elements of one. I can see fellow educators who are gearing up for this time nodding their heads in agreement for the crazy times ahead. Really, i don't understand the logic of starting a new year for one month and then closing off for two months. Obviously the kids come back with amnesia and forget all the important things/routines they had learnt before the break. But anyways, when has whining helped anyone ? 

I was happy to have the kids back and i made a little 'Back To School' take away for them. 

It is a paper pouch in the shape of a pencil. I added two pencils and a lollipop for each child and wrote them a little note.
The note and the template for the pencil can be found here: Back To School Freebie

It also has an activity sheet asking them to describe how they spent their summer.
Back To School Freebie

I also made activities for the popular back to school books like The Kissing Hand, David Goes To School, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Chrysanthemum and Pete The Cat.
The pack has craft templates, retelling cards and name recognition activities.

                                            Back To School Books Pack
The pack is available on my TPT Store.
Enjoy and see you soon !



Tuesday 8 July 2014

Weekly Book Talk Tuesday

The book that I am going to talk about  this week is called "That's what Friends Are For " By Florence Parry Heide. It's a delightful book about friendship and teaches children that lending a helping hand to their friends is always a good idea.


The book has lovely illustrations and repetitive text which is great for building reading skills in little kindergartners. I personally love books with repetitive text as it allows children to anticipate words and helps beginning readers to decode difficult words. Such books also gives children an opportunity to participate in read aloud sessions and kids love that.
So if you are doing a unit on friendship, this book is a must. The book revolves around an Elephant who gets hurt and is feeling sad because he can't go and meet his cousin who lives at the other end of the forest. His friends give him all sorts of advice which he really can't use until an Opossum talks some sense into the heads of other animals and asks them to actually help the Elephant instead of just giving advice.




I made some story sequencing cards to go along with this book which you can download by clicking on the link below:
Story Sequencing Cards

The link up is with Mrs Jumps.