Thursday, July 27, 2017

Kindergarten & Preschool Index

Sample pictures of artifacts listed below.
       Kindergarten, a word meaning child garden, is applied to a special kind of school for small children. The first kindergarten was established by Friederich Frobel in 1840, and schools modeled on his are now common in both European countries and American States. Interest in the education of young children is not of recent origin, however, the vivid interest of child life and the responsive quality of childhood has always made their training possess much possibility among many nations of the earth. The Greeks, for example, planned for definite care of children under seven and their  Roman predecessors invented methods of instruction which should tempt any little beginners into paths of learning. After the establishment of Church schools throughout Christendom, children became proficient in even wider studies early in life.
  1. Early Childhood Education
  2. Power to Explore
  3. What Is Play?
  4. Getting Ready to Read
  5. The Means & Ways of Occupation In The Kindergarten
  6. About Bloodborne Pathogens
Teaching Aids and Centers:
  1. Play-Doh Mats for Early Learners
  2. The Building Block Center
  3. Working With Pattern Blocks
  4. Trace, Cut and Paste Developmental Leaning Activities
  5. Name Recognition Encourages Early Reading
  6. B is For Button and Also CORE
  7. Four Easy Ways to Develop Small Motor Skills in Early Learners
  8. Develop Small Motor Muscles with Clothespins and Paper Plates
  9. Use a Light Table to Teach About Colors and Shapes
  10. How to arrange objects according to size?
  11. Eating Should Be a Happy, Healthy Experience!
  12. Counting Monsters for Fun!
  13. Pinchers Not Grippers!
  14. Developing a Seating Chart for A Rug
  15. Stringing Beads at The Early Learning Center
  16. Illustrated Poetry For Young Children
  17. DIY Apple Card Games for Early Learners 
  18. Handwashing Must Be Taught in Preschool
  19. Ed Emberley's Children's Books
  20. The "Act" of Tearing Develops Small Muscles 
Kindergarten Crafts:
  1. "Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom" in My Classroom 
  2. Paint, Cut and Paste Your Own Bumpy Little Pumpkins 
  3. Craft a Half-Eaten Home! 
  4. Wad, Wrap and Tape A Fall Pumpkin Craft 
  5. Craft your very own butterfly kite! - two patterns 
  6. Craft a Little Valentine Garden 
  7. How to Make "Pumpkin Spice" or "Pumpkin Pie" Playdough  
  8. Sunflower Craft Using Beans and Hands 
  9. Craft an Apple Lacing Card from a Paper Plate  
  10. Paint Fall Foliage With Hugs and Kisses - x's and o's 
  11. "Spooky" Tree Watercolor Painting 
  12. Pumpkin and Jack-O-Lantern Number Books 
  13. Craft Three Age Appropriate Clover Mosaics for St. Patrick's Day 
  14. Craft a Fall Landscape Using Leaf Rubbings 
  15. Cut & Paste Popped Corn On the Cob 
  16. A Fall Leaf Craft for Two and Three Year Olds 
  17. Tear and Paste Falling Leaves 
  18. String a Wormy Apple Craft  
Poems About School:

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

DIY Apple Card Games for Early Learners

Alphabet Apple Cards made from die cuts.
The alphabet apple cards, just right, are made from die cut apples and precut alphabet letters.

Alphabet Apple Card Questions:
  • Spell out simple sight words like: GO, MY, ME, AT, TO, BE, NO, YES
  • Put the alphabet cards in order and recite the letters out loud.
  • Find a specific letter or remove a specific letter.
  • Identify the vowel letters?
  • Which letter is at the beginning of your name?
  • Pick out a letter and make it's sound. 
  • How many letters are in the alphabet? Count them to find out.
The Seriation Apple Cards: are cut from red construction paper and shaded with crayons or colored pencils. Young students can line these apples up, starting with the smallest apple and ending with the largest, or vice versa. 
Homemade Seriation Apple Cards.
The Whole & Half Apple Card Set: For this next apple card set, cut four of each design: four cut apples of yellow, lime green, dark green and bright red and then four uncut apples of yellow, lime green, dark green and bright red. There should be thirty-two cards altogether.

Questions for this card game:
  • Match the pairs, each pair should share the same color and include one cut half apple and one whole apple
  • Display four apples, three alike and one different. Which apple doesn't belong?
  • Display five or six cards and ask the child to identify specific colors, specific cut halves, or whole apples.
  • Spread out all the cards face up and ask the child to make a book, four matching cards exactly alike.
  • Spread all the cards face down in the pattern of a grid and have the children take turns turning two cards face up. If the two cards each player turns face up match they can take the matching pair and put it into their own personal stack. If the two cards do not match, the player must return them face down to the grid. The player with the most pairs by the end of the game wins. Players must turn cards over until none are left in the grid.
Pictures of the Whole & Half Apple Card set. Far left, Match the pairs., Next, count the red apples.,
Center, make a book., Far Right, Which apple doesn't belong.
More Apple Games: 

Counting Monsters for Fun!

       Moms and Dads, teachers and tutors, babysitters and grandparents can make all kinds of fun flash cards using free fonts and bright, imaginative cut-outs from their local teacher's store. 
       I picked up these funny monster die cuts to enhance the set of number flash cards you see below. This set was on a discount table and they only cost me fifty cents. 
       Then I visited a free font website and downloaded a little monster font to print number flash cards. I embellished the cards with green construction paper and the monster die cuts before laminating the finished flash cards. 
       My young students enjoyed counting the critters! They were able to check themselves for the correct miniature monster count by turning over the card to read the numerical symbols.

Left, I made counting cards using a free monster font. Then I dressed these
up with monster die cuts. Right, the correct number of tiny monsters found
on each card was then labeled on the back of each card.

More Homemade Flash Cards to Craft:

How to arrange objects according to size?

Animal stacking blocks for
 developing seriation skills.
       Arranging objects or pictures according to size is important for cognitive development. This process is referred to as seriation skill in the early learning classroom environment. There are a number of advantages for learners who excel at this skill:
  • Students are better prepared for learning mathematics such as: the order of numbers, fractions, addition and subtraction.
  • Processes in logical thinking become developed, such as: predicting outcomes, understanding relationships between objects, and making assumptions that can be analyzed.
       Toy companies have been making products for babies for years that encourage even infants to practice seriation skill sets. I've included photos here of an animal box set that I keep among the toys in my home.
My alphabet, animal stacking blocks are stacked according to size.
These elephants with big tusks and long trunks were fun for little ones to arrange from large, to larger, to largest etc...
         Above and below are black and white prints of elephants and rhinos of varying size that I printed, cut and laminated for my classroom several years of ago and these are still in great condition. The laminated surfaces allowed me to wipe them off with a cleanser of some sort before using them over again during many different class periods. Pre-k teachers can make multiple sets of images such as these for youngsters to line up in order of size with only a bit of pocket change.
Students practiced arranging rhinos according to size in my classroom several years ago.
       Below are wild animal clip art samples that visitors may use to make their own personal sets like the projects shown above. Pull the clip art into a Word Document and shrink or enlarge the beasts in order to have prints like the ones you see in my examples. I managed to print six different sizes using standard 8 1/2 x 11 inch typing paper. Start with the largest size and then scale the images down by dragging the corners of each image down to a slightly smaller version of the same image.
A tufted ape clip art image.
A giant sea turtle clip art image.
A striped zebra clip art image.

       "A preschool student stacks cups to organize them by size. View more at earlymath.erikson.edu
       Focus on the Child videos are taken from one-on-one interviews with individual children. The interviews are designed to elicit evidence of children's mathematical thinking. They are not teaching episodes or formal assessments."

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Paper Cuts of Children With a Pony

A girl and a boy lead a pony through a pasture.

A boy balances on a chair, a pony nips and pulls away.

A boy rides a pony and a girl greets him.

Sunday, May 14, 2017

The Train by C. H. Crandall

The Train
by C. H. Crandall

Hark!
It comes!
It hums!
With ear to ground
I catch the sound,
The warning courier-roar
That runs along before.
The pulsing, struggling, now is clearer!
The hillsides echo "nearer, nearer,"
Till like a drove of rushing, trampling
cattle,
With dust and wind and clang and 
Shriek and rattle,
Passes the cyclops of the train!
I see a fair face at the pane,--
Like a piano string
The rails, unburdened, sing;
The white smoke flies
Up to the skies;
The sound 
Is drowned--
Hark!

The Woodpecker

The Woodpecker
by Elizabeth Madox Roberts

The woodpecker pecked out a little round hole
And made him a house in the telephone pole.
One day when I watched he poked out his head,
And he had on a hood and a collar of red.

When the streams of rain pour out of the sky,
And the sparkles of lightning go flashing by,
And the big, big wheels of thunder roll
He can snuggle back in the telephone pole.

Woodpecker feeds here babies, well one of them anyhow.

The Sea Gull by Mary Howitt

The Sea Gull
by Mary Howitt

Oh, the white Sea-gull, the wild Sea-gull,
A joyful bird is he,
As he lies like a cradled thing at rest
In the arms of a sunny sea!
The little waves rock to and fro,
And the white gull lies asleep,
As the fisher's bark, with breeze and tide,
Goes merrily over the deep!

The ship, with her fair sails set, goes by,
And her people stand to note
How the Sea-gull sits on the rocking waves,
As if in an anchored boat.
The sea is fresh, the sea is fair,
And the sky calm overhead,
And the Sea-gull lies on the deep, deep sea.
Like a king in his royal bed.

The Caterpillar

The Caterpillar
by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Brown and furry
Caterpillar in a hurry;
Take your walk
To the shady leaf, or stalk.

May no toad spy you,
May the little birds pass by you;
Spin and die,
To live again a butterfly. 

This beautiful child has learned her caterpillar poem!

The Plains' Call...

The Plains' Call
by Arthur Chapman

I must ride out on the plains again,
With a horse 'twixt knee and knee,
Where the wolves howl and the winds growl,
And the clouds drift fast o'er me;
I must ride out on the plains once more,
On the Westland's broad and level floor.

I must ride forth on the plains at morn,
Where the cactus flowers are,
And the lark calls, and the white walls
Of the mountain loom afar;
I must ride out, when breaks the day--
Ride where the gods of outdoors play.

I must ride out on the plains at night,
And smell the dew wet sage,
When the moon glows, and the late snows
Gleam like a book's white page;
I must ride out on the plains again,
And quit this haunt of pygmy men.

Saturday, May 13, 2017

Rain In Summer

Rain In Summer
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!
How it clatters along the roofs
Like the tramp of hoofs!
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!

Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!

This is absolutely adorable!
A baby girl and her father in the rain.

Thursday, May 11, 2017

When Winter Comes

Two squirrels gather nuts beneath a large oak in the forest.

When Winter Comes
by G. H. L.

When winter comes, the squirrels find
Some shelter from the winds unkind;
Some hollow tree where nuts they store,
Enough to last 'till winter's o'er;
There, safe from harm, they build their nest
And settle down to take a rest,
Their larder full of nuts and wheat,
All that they do is sleep and eat;
When winter comes, Ah me! I find
Some thoughtless ones of humankind,
Who never build a cozy nest, 
Prepare for time to take a rest;
Who when they strong north wind blows cold
Are friendless, helpless, hungry-old.

The Snow-Bird

Snowy pine or fir trees and a squirrel eating nuts.

The Snow-Bird 
by Williams Cullen Bryant

The snow-bird twittered on the beachen bough,
And 'neath the hemlock whose thick branches bent
Beneath its bright cold burden, and kept dry.
A circle, on the earth, of withered leaves,
The partridge found a shelter. Through the snow
The rabbit spring away. The lighter Track
Of fox, and the raccoon's broad paths were there,
Crossing each other. From his hollow tree
The squirrel was abroad, gathering the nuts
Just fallen, that asked the winter cold and sway 
Of winter blast, to shake them from their hold

This version was shortened and illustrated for school children. Read the original in it's entirety at the poetry foundation.

Paper cuts of sports and social occasions...

The following paper cuts depict everyday life during Jane Austen's era Ladies and gentlemen are dressed in Empire waist gowns and top hats with canes.
People play croquet, a lawn game using wickets, mallets and a wooden ball.

Gentlemen in the field for a hunt with their sporting dogs and rifles.

Ladies and gentlemen greeting one another with a curtsy and bow.

Two lovers sit on a park bench kissing while another vignette shows a mother with children approaching a column in a park setting.

Don't Belittle Little Things

Picture includes a puppy, bee, garden, flowers, cloudy day etc...
"Don't Belittle, Little Things"

A pup on a lark with a joyous bark,
In the clover was fanciful free.
He scampered amuck; stopped very abrupt,
When he chanced on a big bumblebee.
Now the bee looked up at the lazy pup,
The pup thereupon showed his teeth;
"I've got teeth too," said the bumblebee,
"Tho' I may be little and hard to see."
So he stung the pup with an angry buzz;
Now the pup's not so cocky as he used to wuz.

Old-fashioned figures in profile...

Below are old-fashioned silhouettes (paper cuts) of ladies and gentlemen from the Victorian era.
The greeting.

In mourning.

The argument.

A Wise Old Owl

Picture of an owl sitting on an oak tree limb with a moon and night sky behind him.
A Wise Old Owl
by Le Roy Newark

A wise old owl
Lived in an oak,
The more he saw
The less he spoke, 
The less he spoke
The more he heard;
Why can't we be
Like that old bird?

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Polish Gwaizdy Paper Templates

       Here are some paper stars from old Poland, these designs may be used for personal crafts. Visit few other web sites for now to see how they were cut. (links for folding below)









More Gwiazdy Paper Cutting:

Monday, May 1, 2017

Song to The Violet

SONG TO THE VIOLET
by James Russell Lowell

Violet! sweet violet!
Thine eyes are full of tears;
Are they wet
Even yet
With the thought of other years;
Or with gladness are they full,
For the night so beautiful,
And longing for those far-off spheres?

Loved one of my youth thou wast,
Of my merry youth,
And I see
Tearfully,
All the fair and sunny past,
All its openness and truth,
Ever fresh and green in thee
As the moss is in the sea.

Thy little heart, that hath, with love
Grown colored like the sky above,
On which thou lookest ever,
Can it know
All the woe
Of hope for what returneth never,
All the sorrow and the longing
to these hearts of ours belonging?

Out on it! no foolish pining
For the sky
Dims thine eye,
Or for the stars so calmly shinning;
Like thee, let this soul of mine
Take hue from that wherefor I long,
Self-stayed and high, serene and strong,
Not satisfied with hoping, but divine.

Violet! dear violet!
Thy blue eyes are only wet
With joy and love of Him who sent thee,
And for the fulfilling sense
Of that glad obedience
Which made thee all that nature meant thee!

On May Morning

On May Morning
by John Milton

Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger.
Comes dancing from the east, and leads with
her
The flowery May, who from her green lap
throws
The yellow cowslip, and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire ;
"Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song.
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

The Coming of Spring

THE COMING OF SPRING.

THE birds are coming home soon;
I look for them every day;
I listen to catch the first wild strain,
"For they must be singing by May.

The bluebird, he'll come first, you know,
Like a violet that has taken wings;
And the red-breast trills while his nest he builds,
I can hum the song that he sings.

And the crocus and wind-flower are coming, too;
They're already upon the way;
When the sun warms the brown earth through and
through,
I shall look for them any day.

Then be patient, and wait a little, my dear;
"They're coming," the winds repeat;
"We're coming! we're coming!" I'm sure I hear,
From the grass blades that grow at my feet.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Thanksgiving Holiday Index

Sample artifacts from the Thanksgiving Index below.
       Thanksgiving Day in the United States is an annual festival of thanksgiving for the blessings of the closing year. It is fixed by proclamation of the President and the governors of states, and ranks as a legal holiday.
      The earliest harvest thanksgiving in America was kept by the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth in 1621, after the gathering of the first harvest, when Governor Bradley made provision for a  day of thanksgiving and prayer. This custom was repeated often during that and the ensuing century. Congress recommended days of thanksgiving annually during the Revolution, and in 1784 for the return of peace. President Madison issued a proclamation of the same import in 1815. Washington appointed a similar day in 1789, after the adoption of the Constitution, and in 1795 he appointed another day as Thanksgiving Day for the general benefits and welfare of the nation. Since 1863 every appointing the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day. 
Artifacts & Art for Enhancing Lesson Plans:
  1. Squanto, The Native American Hero of Thanksgiving
  2. Coloring Pages of Pilgrims
  3. Color a Chef Presenting The Thanksgiving Turkey!
  4. Rotating Library Selections for Thanksgiving in 2015
  5. Doodle a candy corn turkey, landscape, birds, butterflies etc...
  6. Craft a Goldfish Turkey Collage
  7. Craft a Pretzel Turkey Collage
  8. Thanksgiving from The American Sunday School Union
  9. Craft a Funny Gobbler From Paper Plates
  10. "When The Frost is On The Punkin"
  11. The Turkey's Lament by King Gobbler
  12. Widdy-Widdy-Wurky
  13. Scrumdiddlyumptious Apple and Quince Treats and Recipes!
  14. Thanksgiving Silhouette Puzzle
  15. Stuff The Turkey Puzzle
  16. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
  17. How To Make "Pumpkin Spice" or "Pumpkin Pie" Playdough
  18. How did the turkey reach safety?
  19. Picture Puzzle: find the pilgrim
  20. Giving Thanks at Thanksgiving: A Curious History
  21. Shape a pinch pot acorn
  22. Wad, Wrap and Tape A Fall Pumpkin Craft  
  23. Paper Cuts of Thanksgiving Turkeys
  24. Vintage Paper Cuts for Fall 
  25. Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving Stencils
  26. When Thanksgiving Comes... 
  27. Craft a moving squirrel cut out... 
  28. Boy Pilgrim Pattern for Thanksgiving  
  29. Thanksgiving by Anonymous

Monday, April 24, 2017

Break! Break! Break!

Break! Break! Break!

Break, Break, Break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on,
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that it still!

Break, Break, Break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Song for All Seas, All Ships

Song for All Seas, All Ships

TO-DAY a rude brief recitative,   
Of ships sailing the Seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal;   
Of unnamed heroes in the ships, Of waves spreading and spreading, far as the eye can reach;   
Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing;   
And out of these a chant, for the sailors of all nations,            
Fitful, like a surge.   
 
Of Sea-Captains young or old, and the Mates - and of all intrepid Sailors;   
Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise, nor death dismay,   
Pick'd sparingly, without noise, by thee, old Ocean - chosen by thee,   
Thou Sea, that pickest and cullest the race, in Time, and unitest Nations!     
Suckled by thee, old husky Nurse - embodying thee!   
Indomitable, untamed as thee.   
 
(Ever the heroes, on water or on land, by ones or twos appearing,   
Ever the stock preserv'd, and never lost, though rare - enough for seed preserv'd.)   
 

Flaunt out O Sea, your separate flags of nations!     
Flaunt out, visible as ever, the various ship-signals!   
But do you reserve especially for yourself, and for the soul of man, one flag above all the rest,   
A spiritual woven Signal, for all nations, emblem of man elate above death,   
Token of all brave captains, and all intrepid sailors and mates,   
And all that went down doing their duty;     
Reminiscent of them - twined from all intrepid captains, young or old;   
A pennant universal, subtly waving, all time, o'er all brave sailors,   
All seas, all ships.

by Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Alphabet Index

Sneek-a-peek at artifacts and art exercises under this ABC resource.
       Alphabet, al fa bet, (from Alpha and Beta, the first two letters of the Greek alphabet), the series of characters used in writing a language, and intended to represent the sounds of which it consists. The English alphabet, like all those of modern Europe except the Russian, is derived directly from the Latin, the Latin from the ancient Greek and that from the Phoenician, which again is believed to have had its origin in the Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Alphabet Artifacts & Art for Enhancing Lesson Plans:
  1. Hieroglyphics or Picture Writing
  2. "Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom" in My Classroom
  3. Create a Manuscript to Cursive Chart
  4. Restored Antique Alphabet Prints
  5. Illuminate Your Initial
  6. Alien Name Cursive Exercise
  7. What's In a Name?
  8. The Alphabet 100 Ways
  9. A Terrible Horrible Cursive Exercise
More Links to The Alphabet:
Index page last updated  April 26 , 2017