TELL ME A STORY - others

The second part of our holiday programme:

www.speakaoos.com/story/the-elves-and-the-shoemakerCached

The Elves and the Shoemaker - a classic story by the Grimm Brothers. Besides learning about different types of shoes, we discussed feet and why it is important to keep them clean.  We made elves, did a shoe print art  and also  learned to lace and tie-up shoelaces.

Louder Lili - an interesting book that teaches about having the confidence to speak up, respect for friends and taking care of pets, in this case it's a hamster.  Lili is a very quiet and shy child and nobody really takes notice of her.  She befriends Cassidy, a loud-spoken girl, who often takes advantage of Lili's shyness.  One day, Cassidy wanted to harm the classroom pet, and Lili gathered enough courage to speak up and told Cassidy not to do so. 

Lili in the snow.

The  hamster - great for practising cutting skills!

We made the hamster as well as surrounding Lili with 'snow' to celebrate Christmas!


Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss - Who doesn't love Dr Seuss' books?  I know I do and so do the children!

http://youtu.be/12x_vUd1nYo

A persistent Sam-I-am tries to convince the sceptic to try green eggs and ham.  Lots of rhyming words and silly story line to humour the children.  At the end of the story, we teach the children not to give up easily in their endeavours. Also, to try many types of food as it's good to eat a variety and we may like them just like the sceptic.  We talked about different ways of cooking eggs, the life cycle of a chicken, cooking green eggs and ham and making green egg jelly.

Green eggs and ham



Making the life cycle of a chicken



The life cycle of a chicken



Ingredients for our green egg jelly

Putting the green yolk into the egg shells.

Our happy, delicious green egg jelly.

This is how they look!

Different ways of cooking eggs - a booklet by the children.

And the last book was How the Grinch Stole Christmas, also by Dr Seuss. This book is about the Grinch who hated Christmas and how he attempted to steal away all the material things related to Christmas.  However,  the Whos celebrated Christmas joyfully regardless of all the things and the Grinch realised that the magic of Christmas comes from within his heart.  When he realised the true meaning of Christmas, his heart grew three times bigger!


The children made a Santa Claus as well as a special card which shows their hearts growing three times bigger!

The adorable Santa Clauses

One of the cards.

The special card that shows the heart growing three times larger its regular size!

Some of the worksheets

 The holiday comes to an end with a Christmas party on the last day.  It was fun and we enjoyed ourselves very much.  At the end of the programme,  we put all our holiday 'treasures' into a paper bag made from the old Scholastic Books order form - very apt for our theme, don't you think so?

The bag of treasure, with all our holiday programme crafts and projects inside.

TELL ME A STORY - WE ARE GOING ON A BEAR HUNT

We did a special holiday programme during the last three weeks of school - TELL ME A STORY.   The stories covered were :

1. We Are Going on a Bear Hunt
2. The Elves and the Shoemaker
3. Louder Lili
4. Green Eggs and Ham
5. How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

These stories were chosen as they gave us the opportunity to explore many genres, at the same time there were many interesting activities that we can do with the children.  Lots of hands-on activities, laughter and experiences that we shared.

The first story was We Are Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen.  It was about a family that went on a bear hunt, overcoming many obstacles, finally finding a bear in a narrow cave and then running for their lives!  Illustration by Helen Oxenberg is beautiful and the animation brought the story to life!  Wonders of the internet .....The link to the youtube video is below.  Look out for the story retelling by Michael Rosen as well - the children, even the 2-year olds, loved to read along with him.

http://youtu.be/hb-nTnriTP8


Below are some of the activities which we did in line with this book:

The main theme board that sequences the journey of the family on the bear hunt.
 Children of Little Beans helped create this beautiful board.

Our illustration of the family minus the elder sister and dog - beautiful, isn't it? 
Thanks to Teacher Ang and Justin who drew and coloured them.

The description of each part of the journey.  Note the adjectives as well as the onomatopoeia
of the sound the grass makes.

The cold river made with blue and white cellophane paper.  The children randomly stuck the
paper onto the river, making it alive with the splashing of water.

The yucky mud made with plasticine!

The big dark forest - the children painstakingly cut the leaves and glued them onto the branches.
The effect was beautiful and so spontaneous!

The snowstorm made with cotton wool and Christmas snowflakes.

The cave made from newspaper and a teddy bear!

That's the theme board.   We also created two versions for the children to make.  The booklet for the 3 and 4 year olds:





  





  

And, for the 5 and 6 year-olds, their booklet is more detailed with a simple sentence to reinforce their reading skills.  They also made their own storyboard where they can move the child and bear along the strip of places.

We walked through the grass.

We waded through the river.

We tromped through the mud.

We tripped through the forest.

We shivered through the snowstorm.

We peeked into a cave and we saw a bear!



The storyboard.

We had fun watching the animated book and the retelling of the story by Michael Rosen. 

Following the action to the story.

See the delight on the faces as they follow the reading by Rosen.



And to end off the activities to We Are Going on a Bear Hunt, we made bear cookies!  Though not really delicious, we had a good time baking and wrapping the cookies.

Moulding and decorating the bear cookies.

The big bear cookie.

The baby bear cookie.

Baking in the oven.



Wrapped and ready for home!

BON APPETIT!