Thursday, November 6, 2014

Alphabet Soup Presents the letter F




Every month I do one program that focuses on letter sounds. It is part of the Early Literacy initiative that was established in my branch before I arrived. Planning activities, books, and crafts based on a single letter can get a little dry at parts. So I tend to go at it like my own personal episode of Sesame Street.

Learning and letter sound recognition are the goal, but I like to throw in a physical activity as well as a felt board activity. So we can get off our seats and jump around. I hate to be bored and I hate for the kids to be bored.

That is why I may have bitten off a little more than I could chew with our letter F program this week. I knew that I wanted to make a felt board story out of Fall is Not Easy by Marty Kelley. I love how the tree keeps trying to get his leaves to come out right. And, as stated by Abby the Librarian on her wonderful blog, it works reaally well as a felt story.




The kids were all staring blankly while I went through winter and spring. But as soon as I busted out the rainbow leaves, they broke into peels of laughter.




This is one of the many reasons I LOVE WORKING WITH PRESCHOOLERS! They have a sense of humor. And there is nothing funnier to them than finding a treetop that has turned into a cheeseburger...


Or the earth....


Or a jack-o-lantern...


So now that I had their attention, it jumped into the physical activity portion. Now this is where I may have gotten a bit too ambitious...or completely lost my mind. Take your pick.


syndetics-lc



Yes, Ylvis made a children's book based on the Youtube video What Does the Fox Say? Originally, I was just going to read the book. But then a coworker suggested that I play the song for the kids first. Then that degraded into a downward spiral, where I thought "Hey, this is a good dance song! Why don't we dance to the song while I read the book?"

Well the good news is, we mostly had fun. Many of the parents facepalmed when they saw the cover of the book. Which I chose to take as an amusement rather than a clue.When I told the kids that they could dance, many of them did.

But a lot just stood there confused. Were we reading a story or dancing to a song? And then Youtube decided it did not like my ipod dock. So I lost a lot of interest just in trying to get the thing back up and running. All in all, it was a learning experience.

We discussed what other animal names started with the letter F and read The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister.



We did an activity where we fished for paper fish with words printed on them. I attached paperclips to the ends of the fish, and we had a dowel rod with a magnet stringed onto it for a fishing pole. I got them to line up by designating a child to go first and telling them to "put their feet behind someone else's feet. The parents had to help a bit, but they got the idea fairly quickly.

TIP: When using this method, always keep track of the fishing pole. The kids don't have the spacial recognition to see that they are about to whack someone with the pole.

Some of the words started with F and some did not. So I asked the kids to show me their fish. I would read the word on the fish to them and ask if it started with F or not. The whole group can join in to sound it out and to answer. Then they got to put their fish on the felt board. (I have a blue sensory bin and a blue felt board to keep the ocean theme going)

Then we went to the craft table. Paper plate fish were easy enough and the kids had a lot of fun choosing the colors for their fins, tails, and eyes. We used googly eyes and paper plates for the bodies, but all the fins were precut from construction paper by me and some library staff, the week before. (Thanks, Brittany and Suzanne!)

I briefly toyed with the idea of letting the kids color the fish with markers. But I decided that the fishing activity took up too much time for that. So I told the kids they were welcome to color at home.

By the time I handed out stickers for their nametags at the end, they had forgotten our lining up skills. But I figure it is a work in progress.