April 8, 2015 Story Time - April

If you missed this weeks story time here is what we did:

*marks the books we read

April/Abril  by Robyn Brode*
Splish, Splash, Spring  by Jon Carr
What a Mess!  by Stephen Krensky*
April Foolishness  by Teresa Bateman
You Can Help  by Jennifer B. Gillis*
April Fool!  by Karen Gray Ruelle
Word Bird's Spring Words  by Jane Belk Moncure*
Arthur's April Fool  by Marc Tolon Brown

For our craft we colored a picture of a girl dancing in the rain, then glued a paper umbrella over her

Extra activities:
The Itsy Bitsy Spider
The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout
down came the rain and washed the spider out
out came the sun and dried up all the rain
and the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again

Five Little Dandelions
5 little dandelions
growing by my door
whoosh went the wind
and then there were 4
4 little dandelions under a tree
whoosh went the wind
and then there were 3
3 little dandelions
I picked them for you
whoosh went the wind
and then there were 2
2 little dandelions
blowing them is fun
whoosh went the wind
and then there was 1
1 little dandelion
standing in the breeze
whoosh went the wind
and scattered all the seeds!

Color Umbrellas
(we played a color recognition game with paper umbrellas)
Here are some umbrellas
just for me and you
can you name their colors?
red, yellow, blue

Here are more umbrellas
the prettiest we've seen
now let's name their colors
purple, orange, green

Early Literacy Extras:
*Talk about the word "puddle", sound out the different parts of the word "pu-dle"- say them separately and then together again, first slowly and the faster. Clap once for each syllable of the word. Do the same thing with words like: water, umbrella, rainbow and lightning.
*Help your child think of words that rhyme with "rain" like: train, stain, plane, drain, cane - make up silly rhymes with these words.
*Help your child think of other words that start with the "r"-"err" sound like: rice, red, read, rug, radio, roll.
*Help your child think of other weather words like: thunder, lightning, wind, shower, storm
*The sense of rhythm obtained from listening to songs and rhymes will help your child to identify patterns, like rhyming words, which will help them learn to read. Because songs automatically break down words into smaller sounds through tones, singing with your child is one of the best ways to develop early literacy skills.