Animal Songs & Rhymes

We learned LOTS of fun animal songs and rhymes in January. We focused on one song a week (sometimes two) and sang them all multiple times throughout the month. Each time we learned a new song we made fun finger puppets to act out the song. Those finger puppets were VERY popular!



5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed

The Tues/Thurs class learned this song the very first week. The Mon/Wed/Fri class learned this song back in November when they learned about Doctors and Nurses. We still get requests for this song during circle time.




5 Little Monkeys Swinging in a Tree

This is a really fun version of the original song. The Mon/Wed/Fri class learned this one instead of the other and they just love it. The version the kids learned is slightly different than this one. They sing in a really quiet voice "...along came Mr. Crocodile as a quiet as can be" then really loudly "...AND SNAP!" Instead of the last monkey being snapped he teases "Missed me, missed me now you gotta kiss me! SMOOCH!"




5 Green and Speckled Frogs




Hey Diddle Diddle





Little Bunny Foo Foo

The words we sing to this one are slightly different. Instead of the good fairy turning Bunny Foo Foo into a goon, she warns him that she will turn him into a frog.




Elephants Have Wrinkles

This has become VERY popular in both classes.




I Wanna Be a Dog

Another great Charlotte Diamond song, this one still gets requests at last circle time too. We get down on our hands and knees like a dog on all fours and we act out the lyrics. Very fun and silly.

Outrageous Opposites in October

I fell behind with updating our classroom blog, so bare with me as I do a bit of catch up. Here's how we finished out our Opposite October:

Big & Small/Black & White - The children were really good at giving me examples of what things are really big, and what things are really small. We also learned "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and a new verse to the song, The Big Big Spider.

At the art table we did two really fun crafts. The first was making spiders out of egg carton cups.

The second was making beautiful black and white splatter paintings using chip can tubes. We rolled up a sheet of white paper and put it inside the tube. We squeezed a little bit of black paint into the tube, dropped in a bouncy ball, put on the lid and shook the tube. The ball picks up the paint and splatters it all over the paper in a beautiful pattern.





The results were so striking!

Rough & Smooth - We talked about how something feels when it is rough and when it is smooth. We felt different examples of these textures and made textured trees to illustrate it:

I had brown tree trunks cut out along with leaves cut from many different materials - sandpaper, kitchen scrubby pads, plastic, shiny wrapping paper, flannel, tissue paper and cardstock. The kids got to glue the colorful textured leaves onto their tree and feel the textures as they worked.





Loud & Quiet - Circle time was noisy as we showed each other what LOUD meant, and then we whispered to show quiet. I read a story called "The Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything". This is an interactive book allowing the children to make noises, claps and swishes and the children told me which noises were loud and which ones were quiet. It also gave me a chance to talk to the children about Halloween coming up and why we shouldn't be afraid and scared of the things we might see. At centers, the children made music shakers:

I had a variety of jars and plastic containers and each child filled one with beans to make a shaker that was LOUD when we shook it, and they filled one with pom poms and Styrofoam pieces to make shakers that are QUIET when we shook them. We taped the lids on and the children decorated their shaker with stickers. Music shakers always go over well in our class :)

We had a funeral that day, so we couldn't go outside or to the gym for gym time. Instead the children got a bit of a treat and we watched a Veggie Tale movie for 15 minutes. It seemed fitting that we watched "Where's God When I'm S-scared?" It gave us another opportunity to talk about things that might scare us at Halloween (or anytime) but to remember that God is bigger than anything else.

Up & Down/Hot & Cold - We had a day filled with many different opposites. We learned the rhyme Jack & Jill and talked about UP and DOWN. The children really enjoyed this rhyme:

Jack and Jill went up the hill (point up)
to fetch a pail of water (touch 3 fingers to your lips making the w sign)
Jack fell down (point down)
and broke his crown (grab your head)
and Jill came tumbling after (roll your arms over each other)

The science center had a large pumpkin, some yarn and a scale. The children guessed how much they thought the pumpkin would weigh and how big around it was. They then measured it around with some yarn and we weighed the pumpkin on the scale to find out what it actually measured. We liked guessing.

The water table had a tub with really warm water, and a tub with really cold water for a sensory experience.

Gym time was fun as we did opposite actions: we'd run really FAST and then SLOW. We got ON the benches and then OFF. We stood up HIGH on our tippy toes and then crouched down LOW into a ball. The children really liked the action game and even gave me some opposites to call out.


We had a fun and busy month as we talked about Opposites, Thanksgiving and finished off with our Hallelujah Party.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

Yesterday we continued our study of Opposites with the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" poem. I was so impressed with the children's knowledge of the poem and their great spider actions. I asked the children what things were small and they said spiders, pumpkins and earrings :) I then asked what kinds of things are big, and I had a lots of children calling out "cars!", "elephants", "giraffe's" and "my house." We have a group of really sharp kids! We are really getting to know our opposites.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider poem is great for showing opposites because the spider is so cute and small. We said the poem once through while whispering to show how tiny it was. We then recited the poem changing the lyrics to the "Big Big Spider" and we all had to use our big, deep spider voices. So fun! The poem also uses opposites of the spider going UP the water spout and the rain coming DOWN.

Here's a video of the rhyme to jog your memory in case you forgot :) The only difference is we call it "Itsy Bitsy" while the video says "Eensy Weensy".


Our centers consisted of all things spiders. We made spiders out of an egg carton that I cut into single cups. The kids painted them and I glued on googly eyes and pipe cleaners for legs. We also had factual spider books at the Science Table, plastic spiders in the Sand Table, fun spider stories at the Library and an Itsy Bitsy Spider game at the Puzzle Table. We also did a fun art activity using a pringles chip can, bouncy balls and paint. This was to show the children how black and white are opposite. We rolled up a piece of white paper and placed it in the tube, dropped it a blob of black paint along with a bouncy ball, put the lid back on and the child shook it up. The ball rolls around in the paint creating a really cool piece of art we are going to hang on the wall. It was sheer coincidence that they ended up kind of looking like spider webs...so cool!

We will be continuing to recite the Itsy Bitsy Spider this week with more fun learning activities as well.