First Grade CCD 2014-2015: All Saints Day Lesson: Meet the Saints (10/27/14)

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Flannel Friday: What’s On Your Plate?

It’s hard to believe, but I haven’t participated in Flannel Friday since June! Though I have used flannel boards a few times in story times for my mothers groups, I’ve been relying on old favorites and haven’t had much time to come up with new ideas. But with Thanksgiving coming up, I’ve been looking for fun ways to incorporate the holiday into Little Miss Muffet’s playtime, and inspiration struck!

This “flannel board” is a piece of cardboad with felt stapled to either side of it. On it is a set of clipart from KizClub.com which makes up a single place setting. With older kids, setting the table properly could be a flannel board activity unto itself. Preschoolers could help you figure out where each item goes and correct you if you make a mistake. With an almost-toddler, though, I’m lucky to keep the pieces on the board for more than 5 seconds!

Once the table is set, either choose a piece of food or ask a child in your audience to make the choice. Say, “2-4-6-8, tell me what is on your plate!” Call out the name of the food as you set it on the plate, and then sing this song from Sharon, Lois, and Bram. (In the Sharon, Lois, and Bram version, they repeat each meal at the end of every verse, but that seems a bit tedious, so I’d probably skip that part, even with kids who were old enough to remember them all.)

This flannel board works for Thanksgiving because of the food connection, but it could really be used any time of year to accompany food-themed books.

This week's host for Flannel Friday is Linda at Notes from the Story Room. For more about this weekly round-up of story  time ideas visit, the official website.

Learning Activities for Favorite Children's Books: Caps for Sale

Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina - a Russian woman - was published in 1938. Though she wrote other books, this is her best-known work. In the story, a peddler carries the caps he sells on his head in a particular order. One day, when he dozes off beneath a tree, a bunch of monkeys snatch the caps, and the peddler must find a way to outsmart them and get them back. Here are four games to play to enrich your child's reading experience with this book.

Sort the Caps 

Each of the caps in the printable set below has a different three-letter word printed on it.  Ask your child to sort the caps according to different criteria - same first letter, same last letter, same middle sound, rhyming words, etc. Younger children can also sort the caps by color.

Click here to print the Sorting Caps game.

Monkey See, Monkey Do Game

The nine cards in this printable document have instructions for making different monkey-like movements. Have your child select one card at a time from the stack of cards (or from a bag or basket), read the instructions, and act them out. 

Click here to print the Monkey See, Monkey Do Game.

Monkey, Monkey, Where's My Cap? 

In this game, your child must discover behind which monkey a cap is hidden. The printable game includes 8 monkeys, each labeled with a capital letter, and four caps, one in each of the colors mentioned in the book. The pieces can be cut out and laminated for use on a flannel board or magnet board, used as models for your own felt pieces, or used on a flat table top.

Click to print the Monkey, Monkey, Where's My Cap? Game

When it is time to guess, say this simple rhyme:

Monkey, monkey, where’s my cap?

I know you took it. Now give it back!

Then ask your child to call out which monkey he thinks has taken the cap. The game ends when the cap has been found. For a bigger challenge, hide multiple hats and ask your child to guess which color hat is hidden where.

Which Cap is Missing?

Using the caps from the games above, play a memory-building game. Show your child an array of caps on a tray or tabletop, then have her hide her eyes while you take one away. When she opens her eyes, ask her to tell you which cap is missing.

14 Kids' Novels Illustrated by Beth & Joe Krush

 

Beth and Joe Krush are a husband-and-wife team of children's books illustrators, both born in 1918. (Beth Krush died in 2009.) They illustrated a variety of children's novels, mostly in the 1950s and 1960s. Here is a selection of some of their best-known work.

The Borrowers Series

 

This series by Mary Norton tells about tiny people who live in secret hiding places in a house in England, where they borrow things from humans in order to furnish their own homes. There are five titles in the series:

• The Borrowers (1952)
• The Borrowers Afield (1955)
• The Borrowers Afloat (1959)
• The Borrowers Aloft (1961)
• The Borrowers Avenged (1982)
  

Books by Beverly Cleary

 

The Krushes illustrated five works by beloved author Beverly Cleary: her sole historical fiction novel (Emily's Runaway Imagination) and the four titles in her young adult "first love" series:

• Fifteen (1956)
• The Luckiest Girl (1958)
• Jean and Johnny (1959)
• Sister of the Bride (1963)
  

Other Novels

 

Miracles on Maple Hill (1956)
by Virginia Sorenson
This Newbery Medal winning novel tells of a young girl's year in Maple Hill with her family as her father deals with post-traumatic stress disorder associated with his experiences as a prisoner of war.

Gone-Away Lake (1957)
by Elizabeth Enright
In this 1958 Newbery Honor book Portia and her cousin Julian discover an abandoned lakeside community and make friends with a pair of elderly siblings who still inhabit two of the rundown houses.The Krushes also illustrated the 1961 sequel, Return to Gone-Away.

All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown (1972)
by Sydney Taylor
This series, about a charming family of five girls and one boy living in early 20th century Manhattan, has had a number of illustrators. The Krushes provided the drawings for just this one volume.