W is for.. Watermelon and Watches!

     The past couple weeks in Indiana have felt like summer!  Yes, we wake up and it’s a bit chilly, but by lunch time, it’s been between 70 and 80 degrees outside and I LOVE it!  Although I am a Hoosier through and through, I can’t stand Indiana weather so it was nice to get a mild winter and unseasonably warm temperatures early in spring.  With all of this summer-like weather, it was easy to use watermelon for our letter craft this week.  When it gets warm outside, nice, cool, refreshing watermelon is what I crave!

Materials:  Index card with capital W, green crayon, pink W cut from paper, watermelon seeds, and a glue stick.

Front of card

Back of card

1)    Color the capital W green.

2)    Trace the upper and lower case Ww on the back of the card.

3)    Glue the pink W on the inside of the green W.

4)    Glue seeds to pink W to make it look like a watermelon.

     As for our second craft, well, my library recently came across our old die cut machine in the basement.  Apparently everyone knew it was down there but me!  I found the cutest watch die-cut and decided it would be quick and easy to create.  When you are making 24 of anything, you definitely want to keep in mind the process of creating as well as the intended outcome.  This craft was the best of both world and I thought the kids would really like it! 

All from a die cut machine!

     This is the part where I always delve into my book choices and how easy or difficult they were to find.  This week, I didn’t choose the first book, Miss Suzanne did!  I was a little under the weather (rotten sinus infection) and called in sick!  Like a champ, Miss Suzanne stepped in for me and did my Monday programs.  The book she chose was Watermelon Day by Kathy Appelt.  After discussing this choice with Miss Suzanne, and reading it myself on Tuesday and Wednesday, we each decided it was a little too long and needed to be shortened for the attention spans of our listeners.  This was actually REALLY easy to do with this book without losing any of the important content.  Miss Suzanne did also say that it was difficult to find a good watermelon book! HINT HINT… authors and publishers... get on this!

     I thought a book on watches would be easy to find.  Instead of watches, most of the books at my library were about clocks!  So I went with it when I found a great book by John Archambault entitled, Boom Chick Rock.  This book is great.  The beat is great.  The mentioning of dances, including the Electric Slide, the Tango, and the Bunny Hop, is great! And the pictures are great!  Can you tell I really liked this book?  My kids also like being able to participate in the reading of the book when the line “Everybody rock! Around the room! Boom chicka rock, chicka rock, chicka boom!” came about.  The more times we read this line, the louder it got!

     I also want to take just a moment to brag about my good friend Carolyn Mueller, and this seems like the perfect place to do it!  My roommate Carolyn is going to be a PUBLISHED AUTHOR!  That's right.. a PUBLISHED AUTHOR!  When she told me about a month ago, I felt like a proud mom.  I was there with her senior year of college when she would hole herself up in her room for hours on end working on her senior writing thesis.  She worked so hard and I am so happy that it is soon to pay off.  So why am I just now blogging about her book?  Well, not only does it come out next month and you can pre-order it here, but my library just purchased it!  I have no idea what a dwarf zebu is, but I am super excited to get it and perhaps have it signed?  Don't worry, I definitely plan on reading it in my Story Time class sometime soon so we can all find out exactly what this mysterious animal may be!

     I didn’t introduce any new and fun music this week.  Like I mentioned, due to my missing of Monday, I didn’t have time to throw anything new together and I like to keep all of my classes on the same schedule.  I did, however, add an old favorite to my Story Time classes.  It’s another alphabet song, but this time you use a bean bag to act out the different letters.  The song, “Bean Bag Alphabet Rag,” by Hap Palmer, is an old favorite and I can’t believe I have put it on my YouTube channel before now!  I hope you enjoy it as much as my kids do!

     That seems to be all for this week.  I can’t believe we are almost to the end of our Alphabet Adventure.  It seems like yesterday that I started this blog.  Although I have a great craft for next week and the letter Xx, I am struggling a bit with Yy.  There is the norm of yo-yo, but if you have any other ideas, let me know!  I am a bit desperate at this point! Thanks and tune in next week when I give a little shout out to my mom!