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Whole Child Development

Everybody Does the Monster Boogie!

by Filed Under: Celebrate!, Learning through Play and Experience, Music and Movement Leave a Comment

Laurie BerknerLaurie Berkner has a great monster song that just compels your little monsters to get up and dance!  You can download Monster Boogie on iTunes, and you can listen to it with a little animated video on YouTube here.  One of the great things about Laurie Berkner’s music is that you almost instinctively know how  to dance to it just from the elements she uses.  At the beginning, the music is staccato, and so we march with our scariest monster faces.  Then during the boogie/wiggle chorus, we dance and wiggle as only a silly monster would.  Often the roar at the end is the favorite part!  Music and movement activities are great for transitioning, building large motor skills, as well as enjoying the creative and interpretive aspects of music.  As an extension, you can have the children create drawings of a monster party with all their favorite monster characters boogying down!

For more favorite fall activities, click here!

Book Activity: Big Pumpkin

by Filed Under: Building Readers, Celebrate!, Create, Get Outside, Learning through Play and Experience, Positive Guidance and Social Skills Leave a Comment

big pumpkin

Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman is a fantastic Halloween book!  (In fact, it just might be my favorite!)   It’s written in a pattern style with consecutive characters (a witch, a ghost, a vampire, and a mummy) each larger than the first, approaching the same problem – a giant pumpkin, stuck on the vine- in the same way.  There is repetitive text and a definite pattern, which preschoolers really respond to, and which also builds pre-literacy skills.  In the end, it is not the larger characters, but a tiny bat who, through cooperation, comes up with a solution.  A great social skills lesson! [Read more…]

Book Activity: Piggy Pie

by Filed Under: Building Readers, Celebrate!, Get Outside, Learning through Play and Experience, Positive Guidance and Social Skills Leave a Comment

Piggie Pie!Piggie Pie by Margie Palatini is the perfect non-Halloween, Halloween book.  It’s not specifically Halloween themed, but it is a creative combination of a grouchy, hungry witch and some sly pigs who use costumes to avoid becoming ingredients.  As you read this story with your little ones, really play up the voices and point out the details in the pictures.  With particularly young children, you may need to explain that the pigs are dressing up in order to trick the witch.  From there, you can easily make connections with their own dress-up experiences, on Halloween or otherwise.

I would make a note of two things here.  The end of the book ties this story in with the Big Bad Wolf from the Three Little Pigs.  Very young children will have a hard time making that connection.  You can help this connection by being sure that the children are already familiar with the story of the Three Little Pigs through previous activities, or you can just glide over it.  It’s not a critical element in the story.  Secondly, the witch does get upset several times in this book and basically throws a tantrum.  Take the opportunity to teach social skills by pointing out her behavior and what is and isn’t appropriate behavior.  It’s easy to point out undesirable behavior in a witch because, afterall, she is a witch.  Don’t detract too much from the story, but if you’re seeing some similar behavior in your own children, you might give them the opportunity to be the expert and make suggestions for a better course of action for the witch.  They may later realize these suggestions work for themselves as well!

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Do Pumpkins Sink or Float?

by Filed Under: Celebrate!, Get Outside, Learning through Play and Experience 4 Comments

wet pumpkin ckolezal

Sink or float is a classic preschool activity.  You gather an assortment of items and have the children guess which will sink or float, and then test their hypotheses.  (It made me laugh not too long ago when David Letterman added a gag segment called “Will it Float” with a huge pool of water and random items for the members of the audience to make predictions about.  I’m guessing he’d been to his little boy’s preschool the day he came up with that one!) 

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Who Has the Pumpkin?

by Filed Under: Celebrate!, Get Outside, Learning through Play and Experience Leave a Comment

mini pumpkinsChildren love to be sneaky….or sometimes just to think  that they’re being sneaky.  Here’s a play on a sneaky old guessing game that is perfect for a group of youngsters in the fall!

This is a variation of “Button, Button, Who Has the Button”.    Have the children sit in a circle.  Have one child stand in the center and close her eyes.  Hand a mini pumpkin to one child and have him hide it behind his back.  Have all the other children sneakily pretend to hide a pumpkin by putting their hands behind their backs also.  When everyone’s ready, the child in the center opens her eyes and the whole group says, “Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Who Has the Pumpkin?”  The center child guesses and if it’s an incorrect guess, that child lifts up his empty hands to show there was no pumpkin.  At this point, you can have the center child just keep guessing, or you – or the child she chose- can give a clue about the person who does have the pumpkin.  “A girl has the pumpkin,” or “This person has on a striped shirt.”  It all depends on your group and whether or not they’re ready to give or use clues.  Once the pumpkin is discovered, choose another person to be in the center and another to hide the pumpkin and start again.  Try to give everyone a turn!  And just enjoy playing together!

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Pumpkin Scoop

by Filed Under: Celebrate!, Get Outside, Learning through Play and Experience 1 Comment

pumpkin seed

While exploring pumpkins with young children, you can’t miss the opportunity to examine the insides of these fascinating gourds as well as the outsides!  Cut open a pumpkin and place it in your sensory table with scoops, spoons, tweezers, and magnifiers.  Provide cups as well, for collecting the seeds.  You can air dry them and use them to grow pumpkins next year!  (Read more about saving seeds here.  Pumpkins are really quite easy to grow if you have the space.  Saving and reusing seeds also ties in very nicely with the book, Pumpkin Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington.)

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Surprise Pumpkin!

by Filed Under: Building Readers, Celebrate!, Create, Get Outside, Learning through Play and Experience 11 Comments

Children love good storytelling!  When the storyteller engages them with facial and voice expression and tailors the story to the young audience, even the most boisterous young children can be found sitting with rapt attention!  Listening to storytelling has much of the same benefits for young children as being read to.  There isn’t the print corrolation, but there is tremendous building of language and listening skills and the concept of story structure.  Here is a fun and engaging storytelling activity perfect for this time of year!  You should practice it and get comfortable with it before “performing” for children.  Let your own creativity take over and change it up any way you like to make it your own story!  I actually heard this story as I was sitting in a library story time with my sons and tweaked it a bit to make it mine.  I’m sure you could put your own spin on it and make it even better!

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Book Activity: Runaway Pumpkin

by Filed Under: Building Readers, Celebrate!, Get Outside, Learning through Play and Experience 1 Comment

Runaway PumpkinRunaway Pumpkin by Kevin Lewis, is relatively new, and completely new to me this year!  It’s a delightful story about what happens when two mischievous boys start a giant pumpkin rolling down a hillside.  One by one,  family members envision delicious pumpkin treats, as the pumpkin continues on it’s destructive path.  Finally, the pumpkin is stopped and well-used on a Halloween night.  The text on the page seems to bounce right along with the pumpkin, a great feature for building phonological awareness.  The children (OK, so did I) really get a kick out of seeing the whole family in their Halloween costumes!

Follow up this book by making a favorite pumpkin treat, like Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread!

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Fall Favorites!

by Filed Under: Celebrate!, Unit Themes 4 Comments

fall

 Fall is my favorite time of year.  It just appeals to all of the senses.  You can feel and smell the changes in the air, hear the leaves under your feet, see the colors blazing, and even taste the fabulous fruits of fall.  This time of year is a great time to talk about changes, seasons, pumpkins, apples, and trees.  Of course you can always throw in some Halloween fun as well! 

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