Mouse and Mole: A Perfect Halloween

Participate in Halloween activities Mouse and Mole style!

Yee, Wong Herbert.
Mouse and Mole: A Perfect Halloween.
September 2011.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Review copy provided courtesy of publisher.

In this latest edition of the Mouse and Mole tales, Mouse and Mole partake in four Halloween adventures - decorating for Halloween, carving pumpkins, a jack-o-lantern contest, and dressing up in costumes for trick-or-treating. As they prepare for all these fun Halloween adventures, the duo have a lot of fun, but not without scaring each other a little along the way!

This book is perfect for beginning readers, or for younger children, if the "chapters" are broken down over four nights to make the story shorter and easier to comprehend, as it would appear to be quite choppy for little ears that aren't used to the way chapter books are written. Definitely a fun read this Halloween season!

Reading Activities:

• Decorating - spend some time as a family making (or using store bought) decorations to spruce up the house for Halloween. You might even be able to find a relatively cheap CD of Halloween music to help bring about the spirit!
• Head to the pumpkin patch and choose the perfect pumpkins for each member of your family. Have your child(ren) use descriptive words to tell about their pumpkin!
• Ask a neighbor to "judge" the jack-o-lanterns. Be sure to have as many categories as you do jack-o-lanterns, so everyone will win a 1st place prize!
• Rather than heading out to buy Halloween costumes, be resourceful! Use things you have at home or head to the local thrift store to see what kind of creative costumes your family can come up with!
  

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Halloween Mice

Halloween isn't always about the candy - much of it is about the act of warding off roaming ghosts, so why not experiment with moonlight shadows this Halloween and see if you can't scare some of those ghosts away!

Roberts, Bethany.
Halloween Mice!
September 2011.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Review copy provided courtesy of publisher.

The infamous holiday Mice return in Bethany Roberts' board book edition of Halloween Mice! The mice are out having a party in the pumpkin patch, enjoying their friskiness when they suddenly stumble upon the Halloween Cat. Needing to outwit the cat, the mice quickly come up with a plan to save their Halloween that involves scaring the cat away by making scary moonlight shadows. When they finally frighten away the cat, they head back out for more Halloween adventure before heading home to receive a fright of their own!

Reading Activity:

• After reading Halloween Mice!, break out the flashlights and head into a dark room. Take turns holding the flashlight to see who can make the scariest "moonlight" shadow to scare away any roaming ghosts!
  

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If you're interested in finding out more information about any of the books reviewed or if you'd like to purchase the books, click the cover image for a link to Amazon.com. I am an Amazon Affiliate, so any purchases you make after clicking these images will result in my receiving a small percentage of the sale price!

Little Football

Delight your sports lover with these rhyming riddles about all things football!

Herzog, Brad.
Little Football.
Sleeping Bear Press.
February 2011.
Review copy provided courtesy of publisher.

Through the use of rhyming riddles, children will learn about the vocabulary related to the game of football. The book introduces basic vocabulary and in a sense, gives child friendly definitions of all the terminology.

The book is a wonderful springboard to introduce children to football, as well as the act of listening to language as a means of discovery and thought. This book would be a delight for little ones longing to join "Dad" for Sunday football and to help them gain and understanding of the sport!

Learning/Reading Activities:

• Encourage your child to develop a love of the sport if he/she is showing an interest! Any of the following products would be wonderful to encourage playing football!
  * Youth Football Goal Posts Set
  * Diggin Jr. Squish Football
• Some Other Football Books to Enjoy:
  * Gunner, Football Hero by James Ransome
  * Footballs and Falling Leaves: A Fall Counting Book by Rebecca F. Davis
  * Football Feet by Sandra Brug
  * The Football that Won... by Michael Sampson
  

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If you're interested in finding out more information about any of the books reviewed or if you'd like to purchase the books, click the cover image for a link to Amazon.com. I am an Amazon Affiliate, so any purchases you make after clicking these images will result in my receiving a small percentage of the sale price!

Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band

Expose children to a new musical genre with the help of Kwame Alexander's Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band.

Alexander, Kwame.
Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band.
August 2011.
Sleeping Bear Press.
Review copy provided courtesy of publisher.

Wishing to enter and hopefully to win the Barnyard Talent Show, Acoustic Rooster has been practicing strumming his bass guitar all summer long. Unable to join one of the other teams, Acoustic Rooster opts to start his own jazz band and calls upon Duck Ellington (pianist), Bee Holiday (singer), Poncho Ernesto Cruz aka Pork Chop (percussion) to help him claim a title at the talent show. While Acoustic Rooster's band doesn't win first place, compliments from one of their competitors leaves Acoustic Rooster feeling proud that he's got the world's best band!

With "rollicking, rhyming and rhythmic" text, this story is sure to appeal to children and capture their interest! Parents will take delight in the humor and takes on names that make the story fun for children, yet allow them to relate to the musicians just a bit more personally. The additional information provided at the back of the book (jazz glossary, musical vocabulary, and information about the musicians, characters and music, and jazz timeline) will help children to better understand the genre and how it came to be.

Reading/Learning Activity:

• Use this book as a springboard to introduce children to jazz music.
  
• CDs/Music for Children: Jazz for Kids: Sing, Clap, Wiggle and Shake or Jazz Chants for Children: Teacher's Edition.
• Other Jazz-themed books for children ages 3-5: The Jazz Fly by Matthew Golub or Jazz Baby by Lisa Wheeler
• For children ages 6-8: Jazz by Walter Dean Myers or The Sound that Jazz Makes by Carole Boston Weatherford
• And for older children (9-12): Sophisticated Ladies: The Great Women of Jazz by Leslie Gourse or Jazz ABZ: An A to Z Collection of Jazz Portraits with Art Print by Wynton Marsalis
  

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If you're interested in finding out more information about any of the books reviewed or if you'd like to purchase the books, click the cover image for a link to Amazon.com. I am an Amazon Affiliate, so any purchases you make after clicking these images will result in my receiving a small percentage of the sale price!

Guidecraft's Universal Book Display & Storage Review & Giveaway Link

Each month, the Guidecraft Educators will share our honest feelings about a Guidecraft product(s) and how these products would fare in an early childhood classroom. This month's selection is the Universal Book Display & Storage, a display unit for traditional sized children's books on one side and a storage unit for big books on the other! I was super excited to see this, as I've been looking for a good way to store big books to get them off the closet floor.

What Did We Think?

The unit itself was fairly simple to put together, as the directions were easy to follow. I did have a problem with the last step, as according to the directions received in my unit, had me putting in a piece between the two side pieces that contained pegs. I had to unscrew the top several screws on one side of the unit in order to get that piece in. It wasn't a huge ordeal, but it did consume a bit more of my time than I had anticipated!

The unit is quite big in depth, but definitely ideal for the dual usage! My only wish was that the big book display contained slings that the books could rest in as they would on the traditional display side, so that children would have easier access to the titles available for browsing, whereas it is a bit difficult to display the books easily when they are slung over the bars.

When the unit finally made it's way into the classroom, it immediately caught the childrens' eyes, as it was new furniture that hadn't been there at the beginning of the school year! And they were super excited to see the big books find a place in the classroom where they would be accessible to little hands! As for displaying the traditional sized children's books, we (my team and I) decided to put a twist on this usage. The books we have out for the children have taken a beating, as we've discovered the children need a bit of an education in book handling! So... we decided to dedicate this shelving unit to store classroom-created books (books featuring pictures of the children in the room, engaged in a variety of activities, as well as books that we created together focusing on educational concepts - colors, shapes, numbers, etc). We thought the children might take more pride in these books that were created by themselves, while at the same time exposing them to books to gain an appreciation for appropriate treatment of books! So far, it is working! The children are enjoying seeing themselves in the books and they are readily accessible at many points throughout the day.

Find Out More:

You can find out more about the Universal Book Display & Storage on the Guidecraft website. The Universal Book Display & Storage is available for purchase at Amazon.com and also through the Guidecraft website.

For a chance to win your own Universal Book Display & Storage unit, visit:
Andrea at MommyPR,
the host of the October Guidecraft Educators giveaway!

You can also check out the reviews of the Universal Book Display & Storage unit from the other Guidecraft Educators:

Candace at Mamanista!
Maureen at Simply Stacie
Deborah at Teach Preschool
Carrie from Huppie Mama
Jody from Mommy Moment

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If you're interested in finding out more information about any of the books reviewed or if you'd like to purchase the books, click the cover image for a link to Amazon.com. I am an Amazon Affiliate, so any purchases you make after clicking these images will result in my receiving a small percentage of the sale price!

Wanna Get "Ooey-Gooey"????

We're going to get "Ooey-Gooey" in UPK this year!

At the very end of August, I attended a mandatory training for work - Ooey Gooey - presented by Lisa Murphy. It was by far the best pre-service training this year! The lively, personalized presentation easily held the attention of all that attended and there was so much shared that is going to be useful in the classroom this year - ESPECIALLY with this active group! Many suggestions that were made throughout the training have already been implemented in our classroom (although not necessarily obvious to the children at this point) and I have plans to incorporate many more throughout the year.

After the training, I decided to spend some of my hard-earned money to purchase 2 of the resource books authored by Lisa Murphy.

With over 65 hands-on art, science and outside play activity ideas for creating engaging environments both at home and at school The Ooey Gooey® Handbook is a MUST READ for anyone who spends time with children. This is the best book to start with if you are just getting exposed to the Ooey Gooey® way. It has a nice overview of how it all started followed by many activities to get your gooey juices flowing.

Each activity includes the "wolf" words (concept words) to explain to the skeptic in your midst what the children are learning.

Ooey Gooey® Tooey is the highly anticipated sequel to The Ooey Gooey® Handbook. No matter what age group you work with, this book will be a valuable addition to your resource shelf. With 140 activities for you to do with children, Ooey Gooey® Tooey is chock full of art ideas and sensory tub concoctions, and is sure to become an early childhood classic!

Sooo, to make a long story short... during the first full week of UPK, just as I was beginning to feel frazzled and as if there was no hope of getting the children into a routine, I decided I'd break out one of my new resources and give one of the recipes a try...

The Best Playdough Ever

Combine in a bowl: 3 cups flour, 1 ½ cups salt, 6 tsp cream of tartar, 6 TBS oil, 3 Cups water (color optional). Mix together. Cook over low heat until a ball forms. Cool. Knead. Store in Ziploc bag.

Having never made playdough before, I was a bit skeptical heading into this adventure. I'm not a fan of cleaning up big messes and I feared this was going to be just that... I must say, I was pleasantly surprised! The mixture came together very easily and cooked way faster than I had even begun to expect. Clean-up was fairly easy, as only a small amount of the concoction remained on the bottom of the pan. Hot water and Dawn detergent soaking for a few minutes cleaned what was left very easily!

AND... It just so happens I was able to catch the attention and pull my students into their "small groups," helping them settle into the program "routine" and me feeling a bit more at ease with the impending group of students that I'll be spending LOTS of time with over the next nine months! The playdough seems to be the hit of the different areas during "work time" and on any given day, there are at least 12 children crowded around the table mixing it and working it with the playdough toys. In their first exposure to the playdough this year, the little guy on the left built a "snowman", where as the little girl on the right opted to make a "frog in a nest"! Gotta love little imaginations at work!

I'm definitely looking forward to experimenting with the other playdough recipes this year (my next recipe of choice is likely going to be the pumpkin bread playdough)!!!



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If you're interested in finding out more information about any of the books reviewed or if you'd like to purchase the books, click the cover image for a link to Amazon.com. I am an Amazon Affiliate, so any purchases you make after clicking these images will result in my receiving a small percentage of the sale price!