Spring Time!

We have still been doing crafts and books just haven't posted... we just finished Olympics and Spring part I. 

Spring II is most based on flowers and weather. We are also starting an early reader series (testing the waters), sampling some read aloud books and others on our giant list for March-April library trips. Here is the list thus far: (if they have a JE... by it that means I've searched for it at our library if not our library does not have it but hopefully yours does!)

Spring Week
The Curious Garden - Peter Brown JE BRO

And Then It’s Spring - Julie Fogliano JE FOG

Green - Laura Seeger - JE SEE
999 Frogs Wake up - Ken Kimura
Inch by Inch - Leo Lioni JE LIO
The Rain Came Down - David Shannon
Spring is Here - Will Hillenbrand JE HIL
Old Bear - Kevin Henkes JE HEN
When Blue Met Egg - Lindsay Ward
Happy Easter - Liesbet Slegers
Piggy Bunny - Jeremy Tankard
The Easter Bunny’s Assistant - Jan Thomas
Duck & Goose, here comes the Easter bunny! - BB HIL

Beginner Readers
Brownie & Pearl series - Cynthia Rylant - JE RYL

Puppy Mudge series - Cynthia Rylant - ER JE RYL

Read Aloud Books
If you hold a seed - Elly MacKay
Happy Harrys Cafe - Michael Rosen
Do Unto Otters - Laurie Keller

Warning Do not open this book - Adam Lehrhaupt
What Happens When - Delphine Chedru
Oh No, George! - Chris Haughton
Fortunately - Remy Charlip
Fandango Stew - David Davis
Old Dog - Jeanne Willis
It’s a Little Book - Lane Smith
Boing - Sean Taylor
I Lost my Bear - Jules Feiffer
Too Busy Marco - Roz Chast
The Quiet Book - Deborah Underwood

Sneaky Sheep - Chris Monroe
Any book by Mo Willems
Harold and the Purple Crayon - by Crockett Johnson 
Horrible Harry goes Cuckoo by Suzy Kline
The frogs and toads all sang by Arnold Lobel
Someday by Alison McGhee 

It’s Spring by Linda Glaser
Flowers and Showers: A Spring Counting Book by Rebecca Fjelland Davis
When Will It Be Spring by Catherine Walters JE WAL
Everything Spring by Jill Esbaum
Poppleton in Spring by Cynthia Rylant - ER JE RYL
The Happy Day by Ruth Krauss JE KRA c.1
Mouse’s First Spring by Lauren Thompson - JE THO
Splish, Splash, Spring by Jan Carr
It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw - JE SHA

The Cloud Book by Tomie dePaola - J 551.5 D419c c.1

Book list sites
http://chasingsupermom.com/2013/03/40-books-about-spring/
http://www.modernparentsmessykids.com/2011/08/book-week-how-to-find-great-kid-books.html
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/over-20-fabulous-mustread-book-154667?utm_campaign=Feed%3A+apartmenttherapy%2Fohdeedoh+%28Ohdeedoh%29&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedburner

August: Lesson Planning for September/Year

So we have library books today and what we check out today won't be back until Sept. 13 which is the end of the first week of school! So I had to put together my calendar today with themes so I could start planning and getting books I need!

I don't think I can put a whole excel sheet in here and honestly I don't feel like dealing with format right now LOL so here is what I can copy/paste from Excel... the list I got from http://dbsenk.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/planning-time/ via Pinterest (of course). It is a kindergarten theme for the year from 2009-2010. I just had to change the dates and of course make up my own lesson plans based around the themes. And since Zoe is only 3... cater it to a 3-year-old and not a kindergarten. No problem!

I am also in a Mom's group so I tried to incorporate upcoming play dates into the themes. This is just what I came up with today...

Week	Dates	Theme	Play dates
Week 1	Sept. 9-13	School/Bears
Week 2	Sept. 16-20	Bears/Mexico	Mexican Independence Day, Cheeseburger Day
Week 3	Sept. 23-27	Apples	Superheroes, Johhny Appleseed
Week 4	Sept. 30-Oct. 4	Me/Senses

and for lesson plans (def. still more research needs done...) I came up with ...

Lesson plans
Letter recognition (LR), number recognition (NR), colors, shapes. Focus: gross and fine motor skills
LR, NR, colors, shapes, Focus: science project
LR, NR, Colors, Shapes, Focus: art and music
LR, NR, Colors, Shapes, Focus: reviewing This is what the Web site I got the themes from did but like I said it is for kindergarten level.... http://dbsenk.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/scope-and-sequence.jpg