Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

Little pigs, little pigs-LET ME COME IN!
We have had a lot of good times with some traditional stories and their not so traditional counterparts. We started with the MWF classes last week. We read 'The Gingerbread Cowboy' and 'The Gingerbread Girl'. We discussed how they were the same and different with the original story.

This week was 'The Three Little Pigs'. There are many non-traditional versions of this classic children's tale-'The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark', 'Piggie Pie', 'The True Story of the Three Little Pigs' and my personal favorite-'The Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig'. Note that several of the books have words we don't use in the classroom like 'dumb'. When I come across these words in children's literature, I skip over them or substitute an appropriate word for young children.

So we read the stories and had a chart labeled THE THREE LITTLE PIGS. The chart was divided by book and several questions. Three pigs? One big bad wolf? House of straw, sticks and bricks? Happy ending?

After we read the story, we answered each of the questions YES or NO and spelled YES and NO as I wrote on the chart. 'The True Story of the Three Little Pigs' created a little discussion about the wolf. Was he big and bad? Did it have a happy ending? Good discussion for you and your child.

Our highlight was a 'special snack' which always is very exciting! We ate straw, sticks and bricks and had a Three Little Pigs snack. Very yummy! Not so much you say? Well, if you pretend potato sticks are the straw, pretzel sticks are the sticks and chocolate chunks are the bricks, you get a super duper sweet and salty snack. Combine 1 can potato sticks, 1 bag pretzel sticks (we broke them into bite size pieces) and one bag chocolate chunks in a large bowl. Mix. Store in an airtight container.

We also have some fun dramatic play in the nursery with a house of straw, sticks and bricks for the children. There is a lot of huffing and puffing and blowing down of houses! They are very animated in the dramatization of this story.

What else can you do? See if you and your child can come up with your own version of the Three Little ??? and the Big Bad ??? Read the books at home. Talk about how they are the same and different. These books are available at most libraries or they can request them for you. Remember reading is more than just a recitation of words. It is also discussing what we have read together.

Sculptures

Your child will be bringing home their sculpture. They are quite excited to be taking them home. This is quite a project for our little artists. First, we glued the pieces together.
The children picked pieces and showed me where to place them and I hot glued them together. They had very definite ideas about where pieces went and what they were creating.
The next step was paint. It was really interesting to listen to them while they were painting. Many just painted but again many had very specific reasons for choosing colors for their sculpture.
Finally, we added bling! Lots of bling!
We glued poms, playing cards, bows, cotton balls, beads, fun foam, chenille stems, poms, feathers, Popsicle sticks and googly eyes. They also added stickers and used markers.


What can you do at home? Let your child continue to work on their sculpture. They say Leonardo de Vinci never finished the Mona Lisa! So let them continue to create! Give them paint, markers, stickers, glue and collage items to glue on their sculpture.
Many of the children have a story that goes with their sculpture. This is the one thing we do not have time to do in the classroom (15 kids and 15 stories-YIKES!) Have your child dictate to you the story of their sculpture. Type it up and use clip art for picture clues and put it with the rest of their stories.

Eric Carle

'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Erik Carle http://www.eric-carle.com/ was published in 1969. Forty years later it remains a children's classic. 'The Grouchy Ladybug' was published in 1977 and still a children's best seller. Timeless message combined with vivid illustrations make them irresistible to children.

We have had a lot of fun with both books. The VHC is a wonderful counting book plus it leads to great discussions about all the fruits and different foods. The GL is all about time on the o'clock and a variety of animals that grow larger and larger as the lady bug travels looking for a fight.

We created two crafts this week-the caterpillar and the lady bug. We also read about butterflies, insects and ladybugs. During the VHC, the children helped with the storytelling telling by counting, naming the fruit and saying, 'but he was still hungry." For the GL, they said, 'hey you, want to fight?' We also graphed which story was our favorite. We counted and are introducting words like greater and less.

Want to do more? Get books from the library on insects. If you really want to do more-go to http://www.amazon.com/ and seach 'butterfly pavilion'. You can raise your own butterflies!!! How fun would that be this summer? Very! Prices range from $15-$30 plus tax and s/h.

Sculpture

Is your child talking to you about their sculpture? Good! You can create sculptures with your child at home with Legos, blocks, wet sand, sticks, seashells and clay (maybe not all at the same time). Tap into your child's imagination. Here is a simple recipe for clay-

4 c. flour
1 c. salt
1 w/2 c. warm water
Mix in a bowl and knead for about ten minutes. Add color! Divide the clay and add food coloring and knead into the dough. Store in air tight container.

To harden-bake sculptures in a 325* oven for about 45 minutes or more. Paint with acrylic craft paints.

This is also a recipe you can use for cookie cutter Christmas ornaments.

Bubbles!

I take love the fact that with all that is available for young children to do, they still take great delight in blowing bubbles. Don't you love it? I am getting ready to make a new batch of bubbles for school and wanted to share our recipe with you. You can make this in small or large batches and it is so much better than store bought bubbles.

3 cups water

1 cup Joy dish washing liquid (not ultra)

2 tablespoons glycerin (found in your Walmart, Target, Walgreen's, CVS, etc.) near the band-aids

Your Summer Playbook

The Peoria Park District http://www.peoriaparks.org/ had an insert in the Peoria Journal Star http://www.pjstar.com/ There is so much for you and your family to do this summer. Many of the classes and camps are for six years old and up but if you look there are a lot of opportunities for summer fun. Here are just a few things going on this summer. Check out the Peoria Park District website for more information and online registration.

***Peoria Zoo*Peoria Zoo Camp K-8*Fine Arts Camp 7 y/o-12 y/o*Performing Arts Camp 6 y/o-13 y/o*Band Concerts all ages Glen Oak Amphitheater Sundays and Wednesdays FREE*Skating Stars 3 y/o-6 y/o Owen Center*India Fest*Louie Louie Fest BYOK (bring your own kazoo)*Erin Feis*Forest Part Nature Center lots of activities for all ages*Pioneer Days @ Sommer Park last Sunday of the month*Songs from the Woods @ Forest Park Nature Center FREE! Saturdays beginning May 8th at 7 p.m. Check the website for additional dates***

Sculpture

This week our MWF classes started our unit on sculpture. This is a massive project in our room. The concepts we work on are two dimensional and three dimensional (your child should be able to explain the difference). We talked about television, movies, paintings and pictures are two dimensional. They are 'flat'. We talked about 3-D movies (boy, timing is everything). What happens when you put on the glasses? It looks like things are popping out and you could touch them. Sculptures being three dimensional can be viewed from many different sides. You can see and feel a sculpture. Very very basic ideas.

We also looked at some photos in some books from the library. We learned sculptures can be made from just about anything-wood, rocks, mountains and even a telephone and a lobster! We looked at sculptures that were realistic and modern. We learned modern art sometimes requires a lot of imagination.

Each child is creating a sculpture. We are using abstract cardboard shapes and lots and lots of paper towel and toilet paper tubes.

Over the weekend, try to take some time and look at some local sculptures.