Cindy Moo

Our activities this week were inspired by the book Cindy Moo by Lori Mortensen. 

Gathering-Cow Spots 
(One to One Correspondence and fine motor skills)

We printed off plain white cow coloring pages for each child, and drew 10 circles on the cow. 

We gave each child 10 black buttons to place in the circles. 

We did not glue down, because we wanted to let them take the buttons off and then do it again. 

Our Circle Time and Book Review

Cindy Moo by Lori Mortensen is a beautifully written and illustrated rhyming book.  It tells the story of a cow who is determined to follow in her ancestor's footsteps, and jump over the moon herself.   She tries and tries again.  Others tell her to give up, but she refuses.  In the end, she finds her own unique solution to her problem and achieves her dream.  I love the life lessons it teaches.  I love the flow of the language.  And I am absolutely IN LOVE with Cindy Moo with her pink bow and her positive attitude.  This is one of those books that the Mommies enjoyed as much as the children.  We checked ours out of the public library, but it is one I would not hesitate to purchase and add to our home library. 

We had learned the poem “Hey Diddle Diddle” previously at Mommy and Me, so we sand this again today. 

Art: Cindy Moo Clothespin Cow Craft 
(artistic exploration, fine motor skills, following directions, literacy connections)

I loved this cute cow craft I found at Busybee Kids Crafts. You can head there for complete directions.  We made our own, and added a pink bow so they would look like Cindy Moo.  

Don't you love our cute herd?  

Snack: Cow jumped over the moon snack & milk

We were inspired by this cute idea at Meet the Dubiens and created our own with tortillas, meat, and cheese! 

Activities

1-Jumping Over the Moon: 
(Gross motor skills, jumping, balancing, taking turns, cooperation)

I have a large white exercise ball and we allowed the children to take turns jumping over the pretend moon.  

2-Milking a Glove Activity
(fine motor skills, real life connections, sensory development)

This was one of my favorite activities when I taught kindergarten, and my little Mommy and Me friends loved it, too!  

We used white paint and a latex glove.  We poked small holes in each fingertip of the glove.

 We had three children share each glove and squirt the paint onto a plate.  It was messy and fun!

Farm Fun & Children's Bookshelf

This is our second week participating in the Children's Bookshelf.  I hope that you will take a moment to share some of your favorite activities based on a favorite book. 


I loved all  the fantastic blog posts that were linked up last week!  Did you get a chance to see this fabulous Preschool Unit based on the book The Year at Maple Hill Farm by Alice and Martin Provensen by Frugal Fun 4 Boys?  I love farm units in the fall, don't you?  Make sure to head over and see all of the fun activities she did with her boys.

Last Fall, we had a lot of fun with a unit based on The Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown. I loved how these spray painted Big Red Barns turned out!

The Little Red Hen was another favorite farm book with our little ones.  They helped us make bread and made their own Little Red Hens with red feathers.

So, now, it is your turn to share with us all of your kid lit inspired posts this week. Please link up any children's book posts below and don't forget to follow The Children's Bookshelf on Pinterest or visit TCB's co-hosts: What Do We Do All Day?, No Twiddle Twaddle, Smiling Like Sunshine, Mommy and Me Book Club, My Little Bookcase and Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.

By linking up you are giving permission for any of the co-hosts to pin and/or feature a photo from that post on a future The Children's Bookshelf post. 

 

The Big Red Barn

The Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown

Gathering Activity: Barnyard Toys

The kids played with toy barns and animals.  They also read farm themed picture books with their moms.

Circle Time: The Big Red Barn

Sing “Here We Are Together”

We read The Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown.

 

Songs and Finger Plays:

“Old McDonald Had a Farm”- We allowed each child choose an animal to sing about.

“I’m A Little Scarecrow” (sung to the song of "I’m a Little Teapot”)

"I’m a little scarecrow filled with hay.  Here I stand in the fields all day.  When I see a crow I like to shout!  “Hey, you crows, you better get out!”

Art: Big Red Barn Spray Painting

Materials Needed: poster board, washable red paint, water spray bottles like you find at the dollar tree (one per child, outdoor space or  drop cloth for an indoor space (like a kitchen floor) 

BEFORE CLASS
1-Cut out 7 large pieces of poster board into a farm silhouettes.  Make each barn very large.  It isn’t very fun to squirt onto a small piece of paper.  
2-Fill water bottle with water and mix with red paint.

  


DURING MOMMY AND ME
3-Allow the children to spray the barns red. 

This was so much fun...and messy!  It was raining during art time, so we did this activity in the kitchen with tarps.  It stopped raining when it was time to leave. 

Snack: Haystacks
The story includes a haystack on the farm where the children play.  So of course we had to make haystacks for our snack!

Here is the yummy recipe we used. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Haystacks

Activities: Animal Round-Up and Animal Sound Game

1-) Animal Round-Up:
We decorated a large box to look like a barn.  We hid several stuffed and plastic farm animals.  The children pretended to be farmers and gathered all the animals and placed them safely back into the barn.  

2-) Animal Sound Game: 
We gave each child a set of farm animal Popsicle stick puppets.  We had downloaded a super cute app called I Hear Ewe.  We played a sound and let them hold up the matching animal.   The kids were way more interested in the iPad app than they were with the planned game.  So we let them take turns pushing farm animals and enjoying the noises!  Flexibility is the key to success with two year olds!

Ten Red Apples

Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchens



Gathering Activity: Apple Pie Play Dough Exploration 

This play dough smells soooo good!  We used the recipe found here at The Picky Apple.
The children had fun exploring with the play dough and fall cookie cutters. 





Circle Time: Ten Red Apples

We open each week by singing “Here We Are Together”



We read Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchens.  This is a colorful rhyming book that counts down from ten apples to no apples as the farmer's animals each come and eat one of the apples.  In the end, they discover another tree filled with apples for the farmer's wife to use to make a pie.

While I read the story, the children took turns coming up with their moms and picking an apple off of our own apple tree.  Together we counted down with the story.

 Fingerplay:  

“Way up high in the apple tree, (point to the sky) 3 little apples smiled at me. (show three fingers)  I shook that tree as hard as I could, (pretend to shake the tree) down came an apple. (fall on the floor)  Mmmm, it was good.” (rub your tummy)



Art: Fingerprint Apple Tree

Materials Needed: construction paper, green paint, brown paint, glue, and red hots.

1-Use brown fingerpaint to create a tree trunk with thumprints.

2-Use green fingerpaint to create the leaves on the tree with thumbprints. 

3-Glue 10 red hot candies on the tree.  

Snack: Red Apples


We enjoyed red apple slices, of course!  We added three special dips: chocolate, peanut butter, and whipped topping.

Activity: Apple Hunt

We scattered paper apples outside on the ground and let the children hunt for them and place them in their basket.  

The idea was inspired by an idea found on Chasing the Goose.



Closing: Good-bye Poem  

The Little Red Hen

Gathering Activity:  Barn Fun

We played with the Fisher Price Little People Barn and animals while we waited for our friends to arrive.

Circle Time:  The Little Red Hen

We read the traditional version of the story of The Little Red Hen.  The kids enjoyed the story.  We had a good talk at the end of the book about how it wasn't very polite for the red hen to offer the bread, if she knew she wasn't going to share. 

We sang Old McDonald Had a Farm. 

We also sang this song to the tune of "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush."
"This is the way we plant our seed...so early in the morning."
"This is the way we water our plant....."
"This is the way we reap the wheat...."
"This is the way we grind the wheat..."
"This is the way we make the bread..."
"This is the way we eat the bread..."

Snack and Activity: Making Biscuits

We made biscuits together with the kids from scratch.  Just use your favorite biscuit recipe.  We also ate some of our jam from last week! 

Art: Little Red Hens

While our biscuits were baking, we made these adorable hens we found on Making Learning Fun.  We made them our own by painting them red and gluing red feathers and googly eyes.  I LOVED the way these turned out! 


We had planned on playing Animal Sound Bingo with the children when we were finished with snack and art, but they all wanted to go back and play with the Little People Barn.  So...we let them!