The 3 Best Dr. Seuss Books for Preschool Plus Activity Ideas for Each One!

This was my first year doing a Dr. Seuss theme in my preschool classroom.

Dr. Seuss books are tons of fun with all the weird rhymes and crazy happenings. 

For a preschool audience, they do tend to be a bit long, however.  

We often found ourselves splitting a book into two separate story times.  

We also skipped over certain sections if it didn't impact the story too much.  

(Sorry about that Dr. Seuss!  Our particular group could definitely not sit through a full Cat in the Hat reading without things going sideways!)

The three most successful books we shared with our class were:

Book #1 - The Foot Book

This one is not too long, and has a really cute storyline about "all the different feet you meet."

This book could be followed by making some painted foot "prints" at an art station.

Here are the steps we used to do the prints:

• paint child's foot with a paint brush
• help them place their foot on paper to make a print
• foot immediately gets dunked in a bin of warm water
• kids step on a towel to dry off

No mess!  And the kids love it!  (Especially the part where the paint brush tickles their feet!)

Book #2 - Green Eggs and Ham 

Probably all teachers are familiar with this one.

  And of course we served some lovely green scrambled eggs at snack time afterward!  

Book #3 - The Cat in the Hat

The children loved the storyline, but this book is quite long. Reading half the story one day and half the next, made it work fine.  

After the story we made a cute Cat in the Hat mask!

Here's what you need to make this craft:

• paper plate with the center cut out
• black whiskers
• black ears
• tall white hat
• red stripes to decorate the hat
• large popsicle sticks to glue onto the back of the mask to make the handle
• black paint for painting the plate (but this is optional - leaving the plate white looks fine too and it's one less step!)

Our Cat in the Hat bulletin board features our One Fish, Two Fish craft.  (I'll talk about some different fish bowl crafts next time!)

So there you have it!
  3 Dr. Seuss books that work well for a preschool crowd!

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Need some Song Ideas for Your Mother's Day Performance? Check out these Songs and Crafts!

We love to do performances for the parents in our class. 

 And no matter how the show goes, parents always seem to LOVE watching the kids perform. 

 Whether the children all sing or don't sing -- doesn't matter!  
Whether the children all remember their lines or some of them forget -- not a concern!

  Parents don't even seem to mind misbehaviour.  

In fact, sometimes a child doing "his own thing" is the most amusing part of the show - unless of course, it is your child who is "doing his own thing!"  
Then it is not so amusing!  :)

So, with our Mother's Day Tea Party coming up, of course we are planning for the children to perform a few songs.  

One pick for this year will be the song Skinnamarink.

If you're not familiar with this one, just check out the words below.  The tune you can easily find on You Tube.

I have written some possible actions for the children beside each of the lines.  
Hopefully you can figure them out with no visuals!  

Skinnamarink

Skinnamarinky dinky dink 
(arms out with elbows bent like a genie on "skinnamarinky"
then one elbow bends so that right hand goes in the air and wiggles fingers on dinky dink)
Skinnamarinky do,
(arms back down like a genie on "skinnamarinky" and then switch to bend other elbow and have left hand in the air with wiggling fingers on "do")
I love you!
(hands to heart and then point towards the moms)

Skinnamarinky dinky dink 
(same actions as above)

Skinnamarinky do,

I love you!

I love you in the morning,
(hands touching to create a circle down low)

And in the afternoon
(raise the circle to waist level)

I love you in the evening,
(raise the circle above head)

Underneath the moon…

Skinnamarinky dinky dink
(repeat chorus actions)

Skinnamarinky do,

I love you!


And for another song option...

A song that is familiar to most, but still a big hit with the moms, is "You Are My Sunshine."

We usually just sing the first verse below.

You Are My Sunshine

You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy 
When skies are gray
You'll never know, mom
How much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away.

While performing the song, the children hold up a sun that they have made.

When the song is finished, the children each take a turn coming up to the front.

We ask each of them, "Why is your mom your sunshine?" 

Then the child flips his sun around and holds it high in the air.
Written on the back of the sun is the reason that they chose.

The children can either say their reason out loud, or the teacher can read it for them. 

If you read it for them, it is helpful to record each child's reason onto a master list so that you don't have to try to read from each child's sun.

It was a couple of years ago that I performed "You are My Sunshine" on Mother's Day.  

But I remember the laughs, giggles, and even a few happy tears being shed when the moms listened to the reasons why they were loved by their kids.    

I do like to bring out people's sentimental side!

Below, I have a copy of the directions and worksheets (2 options) to make the sun craft if you'd like to try it with your class.

To pick up your FREE copy, just visit my Teachers Pay Teachers shop by clicking
HERE

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Wondering What to Make for this Year's Mother's Day Gift? Here's Some Ideas!

Mother's Day is fast approaching and teachers everywhere are trying to decide how to celebrate this special day.

If you are looking for ideas, too, I have a couple of suggestions!

1. Magnet Bar to hold artwork on the fridge

This is an idea we used for Christmas gifts to the parents, but it would make a great Mother's Day present, too. 

 We had lots of positive feedback from the moms on this one!

To see the full post on how it was made, please click HERE

2.  Painted cork heat pads/trivets (used to protect your table from hot dishes, etc.)

 My daughter gave me this painted trivet for a gift years ago and I still use it today!  

Materials required:

• Round cork heat pads (these can be found at IKEA, local dollar stores, etc.)  
• Acrylic paint (I like to buy the small containers for $1.50 at the dollar store)
• Paint brushes
• Optional - items to make prints on the heat pad - i.e., sponges shaped like hearts, flowers, circles, etc.

2.  "Custom" Oven Mitt 

 We used fabric paint for the handprint and fabric paint in a squeeze bottle for the writing.

And of course no gift is complete without a card to go with it!

Here's the Mother's Day card we made this year. 

(If you're holding a party for the mom's this year, you may also want to check out some ideas for a Mother's Day Tea Party at my post HERE.)

In our classroom, we are currently deciding upon some song options for our Mother's Day performance.

In case anyone else out there is also looking for song ideas, in my next post I'll share our picks for this year, as well as some ideas that we have used successfully in the past!

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Looking for Some New Doodle Borders? Pick Up this FREE Set from Chirp Graphics!

I love creating products to sell from my two shops on Teachers Pay Teachers including:

my clip art shop, Chirp Graphics

and my resources shop, Teach Easy Resources

I love it so much that I'm thinking it might just be 

"my calling!" :)

Over the weekend, I hit my first milestone of 20 followers on Chirp Graphics!

And just as promised, I want to offer everyone a FREE clip art set to celebrate!!  

I tried to think of something that everyone could use.

And here's what I created...

A set of 10 different doodle borders for your classroom worksheets and projects!

This set contains 19 images in all - 10 doodle borders with a transparent background and 9 with a white fill.

It's so much fun creating freebies to thank my blog subscribers and shop followers that I'll be doing it regularly from both my stores on TpT.

  I have some new offerings in the works already!

If you'd like to be notified whenever I add these and other goodies to my stores, just click on the Follow Me button underneath the store name on my shops!

To link to: 

Chirp Graphics just click HERE

(This is also where you'll find my free doodle borders to download!)

Teach Easy Resources just click HERE 

Thanks so much for your interest!

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Looking for a Fun Easter Party Game?

It was raining outside today, but that didn't stop us from playing a little golf --  

indoor Easter Golf, that is!

This bunny has his mouth open and he's ready for some "snacks!"

Bunny golf can be played with plastic golf balls 

or

with plastic eggs like you see in the photo.

The eggs don't roll as well as the golf balls,

 so they are great for players who want an extra challenge!

The ears for the bunny were cut from the bottom of the box.

Once they are painted, just slide them into the opening at the top.

A fun way to involve the children in creating the bunny is to have them help with painting.  

We often hand out a set of small foam paint rollers when we have a project that needs paint.

Our students love it and it saves us teachers time, too!

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Cute Easter Egg and Easter Basket Crafts for Preschoolers

Hippity Hop, Hippity Hop, Easter's on it's way... 

At least I think that's how the song goes!

With Easter coming up in a hurry, I wanted to squeeze in a few Easter craft ideas before it's too late.

Today we dipped some plastic Easter eggs in paint and created some neat marble effects on our paper eggs.

The class was BUSY today, so unfortunately I did not get a chance to photograph the craft in action.

Sometimes that's just the way it goes, I guess!

But the steps are easy and listed below:

• Place a paper Easter egg cut out in a shallow bin or box
• Dip plastic Easter eggs in paint (you can find these at any Dollar store)
• Place the plastic eggs onto the paper Easter egg cut out in the bin or box
• Hold the bin and tip it around to get the plastic eggs to roll and create tracks
• Repeat with as many Easter colours as desired

To see images of this process (although with marbles), just click on my Valentine's Day post HERE 

At our other craft table we made Easter baskets for today's egg hunt.  
(Did I mention today was a busy one? :))

This Easter chick has his mouth wide open.  
I think he's saying, "Happy Easter!"

The children glued all the following parts to the bag:

• oval body/head piece
• wings
• accordion legs
• googly eyes
• folding triangle beak
• feathers

If you have a purple,yellow, or blue bag it would be particularly cute, I think!

Once the bag was finished, the children put in a handful of Easter grass.
The teachers then stapled on a pink bristol board handle.

As you can see, each bag turned out a little differently.  

We're never worried about having "cookie cutter"crafts!

As long as the kids are having fun with their creations, that's what matters! 

Now it's time to find some eggs!

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Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses - Great Ideas to Extend the Fun of this Popular Book

Warmer weather is here!  

Now is a great time to pull out the book, 

Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses 

by Kimberly and James Dean!

In this latest Pete the Cat book, 

Pete suffers from a case of 

"the blue cat blues." 

And the book shows us just how he deals with it!

Pete's such a cool kitty with so much to teach, I decided to feature him in my latest unit below.

In this unit I included 10 different images for re-telling

Pete the Cat and His Magic Sunglasses to your class.

 Just print the pictures on cardstock and add magnets to the back! 

   This unit also contains: 

 Pete the Cat Feelings Cards  

(These come with 3 different game ideas!)

Colour and B&W Poster for your classroom

Student Mini-books

5 page Class Book with worksheet

Centre time game

Additional Magnet Board Story

Art Project with templates

Art/L.A. Worksheet

58 pages of fun for under $7!

If you're interested, please check it out in my 

Teachers Pay Teachers shop HERE!  

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Cats and Dogs in the Classroom? Yes! All "Stuffed" Versions Welcome!

This past week we had a bring your "stuffed" pet 

to school day. 

We had quite a variety of creatures - everything from giant snakes, to monkeys, to your every day puppies and cats.

The children all had a chance to introduce their "pet" to the class at circle time.  It was interesting to note how the pets names changed throughout the day. :)

At the craft table, we made collars and name tags for the pets.  

Here's our friend, Twigs the giraffe, with his sparkly new collar and tag.

The supplies I put out for this activity included:  

• strips of bristol board for the collar (I created long strips that could be cut to size for each stuffy)
• oval and/or heart shaped tags cut from bristol board
• piece of pipe cleaner for attaching the tag to the collar (I created a hole in the tag with a hole puncher)
• stickers, sequins, and felts to decorate the tag and collar
• round sticky velcro dots to attach to the ends of the collar (optional, but it's a nice touch when the collar can open and close)
• pieces of yarn for a "leash" to attach to the collar

After the pets were all suited up, the children took them for walks (i.e. slides) around the classroom.

They also stopped at our Pet Shop (see post HERE) to buy them treats.

And they made little homes for them with blankets and boxes. 

At the end of the day, we dropped all the pets on top of our parachute for a trampoline ride.  The stuffies tended to bunch in the middle as we bounced them, but the kids didn't seem to mind.

Then we treated the pets to a parachute game of ring around the rosy.  

Did you have a fun day at preschool Bunny?  I think so!

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