Lots of Ladybugs! Counting by Fives

 

Lots of Ladybugs! by Michael Dahl is a children's book that emphasizes counting by fives to fifty.

  

Throughout the book, as it introduces the numbers by five, it has them hidden in the picture.  The above picture shows five to the right of the ladybug.  

  It also has the number words in the book to help with number recognition.  On each page the ladybugs have five spots so you can add or multiply by fives.  

The end of the book had some fun ladybug facts! One fact was the colors of the ladybugs.  We looked up pictures of ladybugs that are pink, orange, yellow, gray, black and blue. 

Below you will find our sight words and reading rule that we worked on throughout this book.  

Sight words: 

It's an easy reading story that your beginning reader can help you read.  Some of the sight words are like, on, my, of, the, red, etc.  

Reading Rule:

If you are working on words with silent e, your can help your child decode the words.  

Silent e rule: Silent e at the end of the word makes the vowel say it's name.  

Examples of words: like, line, five, race

Click here for a ladybug craft.  

Click here for another poem by Jean Warren (Preschool Express)

LADY BUG, LADY BUG

Lady bug, lady bug, crawl, crawl, crawl.
Lady bug, lady bug, on the wall.
Lady bug, lady bug, look out don’t fall!
                                    Jean Warren

A House for Hermit Crab

I can't believe summer is almost over and school will officially start five days a week next week.  In a state of panic, it makes me realize that I have only one more year at home with my 'baby'.  She's growing up way too fast.  In my attempt to soak up as much of her awesomeness as I can, I am going to attempt to blog about more of her last year in preschool with me.

Today, we read an Eric Carle book titled A House For Hermit Crab.   We discussed title, author, front, and back of the book. 

We found all the months of the year throughout the book and talked about our current season of summer and described today's weather.  

After reading the story, we discussed a crab's habitat.  Click here for crab facts.  

We wrote a sentence by sound about a crab.  We used our handprints and circle sponges to make our artwork for our picture.  

Raileigh: Four years, twenty seven days old

This activity not only connected reading and writing, but also worked on other skills: directionality of print, capital and lowercase letters, phonics, sight words, first and last word on a page, spaces between words, and punctuation.  

We counted the number of words in our sentences, the spaces in our sentences, the number of bubbles in our picture, eyes, mouth, and our fingers shown in our picture.   


We also learned a new fingerplay.  It's from Preschool Express by Jean Warren.  Click here for more of her amazing stuff!

CRAB FINGERPLAY  (Math/Language)
One little crab by the sea so blue, (Hold up one finger.)
Along came another crab, and that made two. (Hold up two fingers.)
Two little crabs swimming in the sea,
Along came another crab, and that made three. (Hold up three fingers.)
Three little crabs playing on the shore,
Along came another crab, and that made four. (Hold up four fingers.)
Four little crabs so glad to be alive,
Along came another crab, and that made five. (Hold up five fingers.)
Five little crabs just having some fun,
Crawling on the sand in the hot summer sun. (Wiggle fingers.)
                                          Liz Ryerson

We made a list of our rhyming words and pointed out our sight words that we already know.  

To connect this book even farther, If you have a puppet theater, you may want to make these puppets to go along with your book.  Click here for Puppet Patterns to the story.  

Happy Anniversary!

Five years ago today, we were strolling the streets of Vegas without a care in the world.  We were hand in hand one day from getting married.

Five years ago tomorrow marks one of the most memorable days of my life! In some ways it seems just like yesterday and in other ways it feels like we have been together forever.  Patrick, I am prouder now to call you my husband than I was five years ago! I love you with every beat of my heart!

Happy Anniversary!

Minnie Mouse Birthday Party

In March, we took our mini to Disney for the first time.  The magical moments were amazing. She was so over the moon for princesses and it was so magical to see her quickly fall in love with Mickey and Minnie Mouse.  She decided in Disney, that her fourth birthday would be a Minnie Mouse pool party.  Well her birthday is in July, in Texas and gosh it's soooo hot here, but she wasn't having any other  party than a Minnie Mouse pool party.  Fast Forward to July, it started raining and didn't stop.  Even the morning of it poured down rain so we had a Plan B just in case.  Magically right before her party it stopped and the sun came out, so she got the best of both worlds  She got the swampy yard pool party and the games inside. At first she wanted a red and white party and later decided she wanted to throw some pink in.

I first started by making Minnie and Mickey Mouse hats for all the guests.  I got some black foam sheets from Hobby Lobby and straight edged one side and glued them on party hats that I picked up from Dollar Tree.  The Minnies had cute little red and white bows that I just tied a knot in the center and hot glued on.  VOILA! The girl hats were silver and gold and the boys were red and blue.

Inside the goodie bags are bubble baths.  I used pink bubble bath inside clear containers and added Minnie and Friends stickers.  They also had some candy

. 

The boy hats

The girl hats

Next I made a Happy Birthday banner.  I got Mickey Mouse scrapbook paper from hobby lobby and used the black foam to make the banner.  The scrapbook Paper says Happy birthday and the ears say Raileigh. 

 

This was the Minnie Mouse Timer Game.  I took a brown lunch bag and glued the Minnie Mouse ears to the front of it(like pictured above) and put a timer inside.  They passed it for ten seconds and whoever had the bag when the timer went off was out.  They went from here and got to choose their ears and played the Say Cheers for Hopping Ears Game.  They put their ear hats on and raced down our hallway in potato sacks.  I Can't believe I don't have any pictures of the hoppers!

The Minnie Mouse Timer Bag

The starting circle ages one and up. 

The last two in the timer game.  It was SERIOUS!

We then played a bean bag toss game. i  took a red bucket and glued Minnie ears on it and they got to toss in four bean bags, two red and two black.  

The red basket with Minnie ears for the bean bag toss.  

We then played pin the bow on Minnie.  I took the red and white ribbon and made little bows and cut out a minnie head from black construction paper.

 

There were balloons everywhere the the long Happy Birthday balloons because a balloon sword fight.  

The cakes, Thanks Debbie!

Silly Faces with Party Hats

The Birthday Kiddo Crew

And I mentioned it was a pool party, here's some pool pics!

balloons!

The birthday princess

 

Happy Birthday Raileigh!

Enjoying cake

Presents Time! Thanks to everyone who came out and made her day special and to those that sent gifts in the mail. We love you all!