Story Time from A to Z

Well, we made it! Truthfully, I can't believe it! I am super excited to have taken my kids all the way from A to Z! So here is a short and simple blog ALL IN PICTURES! Enjoy!

 

    

Z is for... Zebras and Zinnias!

     Are you ready for the last alphabet post?!  It’s been a long time in the making, but we finally made it to the letter Z!  Hooray!

     Ok, I will admit it.  I took the easy route with Zz and with zebra! There are lots of great zebra books and I wanted something a bit easier for my kids to be able to complete with little help!  Thus, without further ado… the letter Zz!

 

Materials:  Index card with capital z, black crayon, zebra head, google eye, and glue stick.

Front of card

Back of card

1)    Use the black crayon to draw stripes on the capital letter Z.

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

3)    Glue the zebra head on the Z and add the google eye.

     By now I am sure you all know what comes next.  The 2^nd craft for my four to six year olds, of course.  I really struggled with this.  Finally, I found a cute zinnia craft.  I know zinnia is a bit unexpected for Z, but it gave me an opportunity to introduce the kids to a new word while also being able to celebrate spring!  Hooray!  Click here to get the instructions on how to make this zinnia.  Warning:  you will have to scroll down a bit on the website to see this craft.

     As for my book selection this week, like I said previously, there are a ton of good books about zebras.  Though, unbeknownst to me, I actually revisited a zebra book from a series that I had previously read.  In October, we read a ghost book about a zebra named Zee.  Guess what, that’s actually the title of this week’s book, Zee by Michel Gay.   Both the children and their parents enjoyed this great little story about a zebra who is trying his absolute hardest to get his parents to wake up.  I don’t want to ruin the story, but let’s just say that Zee gets into all kinds of trouble when he decides that coffee is the only way to wake them up!

     I thought that finding a book to go with my zinnia craft would be difficult, however, it really wasn’t.  Eve Bunting authored the book, The Flower Garden, which discussed a little girl who lives in an inner city.  The little girl and her father are created a birthday present for her mother.  Of course, the book involves a flower garden with zinnias, but that is all I am going to say.  If you want to figure out how I the world a girl can plant a garden in the inner city, you are just going to have to pick it up and read it yourself!

     Slowly but surely I am getting caught up!  It’s nice though, to be officially done with the alphabet!  The kids enjoyed doing it, I thought it was really fun and educational, and the parents appreciated a craft that didn’t clutter their houses every week.  Stay tuned for my next post when I show all of the pictures of the alphabet crafts in order!

Y is for... Yellow and Yarn!

     Still playing catch up over here at Explore to Learn.  This week, we tackle the letter Y.  I know I say this almost every week, but for some reason, I struggled with Yy.  I thought about yak (which I am sure my kids have NO IDEA what that is) as well as yo-yo, but ended up going VERY simple.  Yellow!  I love the color yellow and my library has so many yellow stickers that I thought it would be fun and simple!

Materials:  Index card with capital Y, yellow crayon, and yellow stickers.

Front of card

Back of card

 

1)    Color the capital Y yellow.

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

3)    Stick the yellow stickers on the letter Y.

 

     As usual, my 4-6 year olds made a second craft.  As I was just relegating myself to the fact that I was going to have to do something with a yo-yo, I came across yarn in our crafting closet!  Perfect, right?  Thus, I took some craft stick, glued them together to make a picture frame, and decided we were going to work on our fine motor skills via yarn wrapping.  Needless to say, it took my kids forever and with their short attention spans, they were not happy with the craft. Oh well, I was happy they at least tried it out.  Most of my kids took home half-finished (like my own, below) frames to complete at home.  You win some, you lose some!

 

     The first book we read this week was all about colors.  Kitten Red, Yellow, Blue by Peter Catalanotto is a great book to not only discuss various colors but occupations as well.  My kids really enjoyed this book because they were able to shout out many of the colors and occupations, while also learning new colors such as teal and chartreuse.  It is definitely a cute book and a great read-aloud.

     Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett went spectacularly with my yarn theme.  Although this book is quite long, it definitely lends itself to being cut down a bit.  I did omit a couple of pages without losing any of the story.  The kids were able to follow along and understand that the little girl had a magic box of yarn.  They enjoyed guessing who the little girl might sew a sweater for next.

 

     I promised last week I would present a new song.  Well, if you haven’t heard of the amazingness that is Jim Gill, let me be the first to introduce you to his music.  My kids love his upbeat music and “The Color Game” is no exception.

     Ok, I have done it!  I have gotten two blog posts up in the same day!  I am making up some ground for sure!  Tune in again soon to see if I can get to Z.  Thanks!

X is for... X-RAYS!

     I think this blog post should start off with an apology!  I am really sorry I have been missing for so long.  Things at the library get really hectic at the end of April and beginning of May as we start to get ourselves prepared for Summer Reading!  With that said, there is no excuse, and I promise to try much harder in making sure I continue to post each week.

     With that said, the letter Xx was a fun one.  As you can imagine, there isn’t much one can do with the letter Xx, so I chose the typical Xx is for X-Ray. As I mentioned in my last post, I have to make a little “shout out” to my mom because she takes X-Rays for a living!  My mom is absolutely fantastic, just ask anyone who has ever had an X-Ray done by her! Haha!  And since it is almost Mother's Day, how fitting to make this one for my mom!

Materials:  Index card with capital X, black crayon, four white bones cut from cardstock, and a glue stick.

Front of card

Back of card

1)    Color the capital X Black.

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

3)    Glue the bones on the X to make it look like an X-Ray.

     As for our second craft, well, I thought about going with xylophone.  I even tried to figure out a way to create a xylophone, but guess what?  It was too difficult.  So I found another X-Ray craft at Spell Outloud that I thought would be fun as well as a little challenging.  My kids really did enjoy drawing themselves and then using chalk to draw their bones.  Here are a couple of pictures that I borrowed online.  I can't seem to find mine around here anywhere!

This is the blank person.  I had the kids draw the person to look
exactly like them, or as close as the could get.

This is the X-Ray person.  I gave a black piece of paper to the kids
with a piece of chalk.  I then asked them to draw what they thought their
bones looked like.  We attached the two pieces with a metal brad.

     Instead of the normal two books, this week, I just went with one.  It’s kind of hard to find books about X-Rays, so You Can’t See Your Bones with Binoculars by Harriet Ziefert was a perfect pull for a one book Story Time.  Warning, though, this book is REALLY long and filled with lots of details, thus I stuck to just singing the “Bone Song” which is at the top of each page!  The kids loved being able to point to the different parts of their body and didn’t even notice we didn’t read the whole story.

     I decided to take it easy and not introduce any new music this week.  I have planned for next week, though, and promise to add a video to the blog.  It does seem to be a little lacking without a music video, doesn’t it?  Let’s see if I can find a fun X-Ray song on YouTube.  How about a Phineas and Ferb song!  I love this show!

     Well, that seems to it for this week.  It feels good to be blogging again and I promise to try my hardest to get the next few letters up!  Keep checking in as I work really hard to catch up!  Thanks.. next up is Yy!