Summer Virtual Book Club - July

Toddler Approved is hosting a virtual summer book club. Each month this summer will feature a different author. Bloggers will choose and read a book by this author and then plan a fun, educational activity based on the book. Here was our activity for June with featuring The Pigeon Has Feelings, Too by Mo Willems.

July's author(s) were Don and Audrey Wood.  We chose to read Silly Sally because we already have this book at home!  

When I taught kindergarten, Silly Sally was part of our Shared Reading curriculum.  We read the book daily for a week for repetition.  We planned an activity to go with the book that changed each day.  I taught half day kindergarten, so I read this book 10 times for a week per year that I taught.  I can recite the book by memory and it is a favorite!  

This activity is one we did in my class which I adapted for E.  In kindergarten, I asked the students to write their name and an adjective to describe themselves that started with the same letter (like Silly Sally).  Then they would draw a picture of themselves walking backwards, upside down.  

For E, at age 2 1/2, I wrote her name in highlighter.  She was to trace over it, but as you can see she completed it instead!

Then together we drew a picture of her upside down (just by flipping the paper over).  While drawing, we had a discussion about HOW to draw a person, which is extremely important at the pre-writing/drawing stage that she's in.  

Before I taught kindergarten, I used to think I was stifling a kid's creativity by talking about how we draw, but it's really just thinking out loud about how I draw, so the creative freedom is still there.  We just discuss details, such as how many eyes we have, where our mouth should be, what color hair E has, etc.  We do the same thing when we think out loud about how to form letters and numbers correctly.

Capital E formation, in Handwriting Without Tears speak, which we will be using to homeschool pre-school in the fall:  Big line down, frog jump up, little line across at the top, little line across at the middle, little line across at the bottom.

To add to the fun, Momma and Daddy did a page each, too!