The ‘My Body’ topic is now completed, which means it’s time to move onto ‘My Home & Family’. This week we used ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and ‘Goldilocks & The Three Bears’ to integrate Math, Literacy, Science, Art, STEM and Cooking. Enjoy!
My Home & Family Activities
Creative Space
I set out play dough, stamps, scissors, lacing beads, puzzles and blocks for the children to choose from and get creative during this 30 minute period.
My Home & Family Circle Time
Everyday during Circle Time we do the morning routine, which includes the Calendar and ‘Number, Color, Shape and Letter of the week’. We then read a story, sing a few songs and do a group activity.
On every Monday we change the ‘Classroom Helpers’ Classroom Jobs. Each child has a name card on a popsicle stick, and they get to choose their job of the week.
Circle Time Activities
Activity 1: Weekend News
Every Monday morning each child gets a chance to talk about their weekend and what they did. The children then draw a picture in the ‘weekend news’ journal, and the teacher writes down what they have said. Parents love looking at these books at the end of the year.
Activity 2: House/ Apartment Pictograph
The teacher asks the children who lives in a house and who lives in an apartment. Draw a pictograph on the whiteboard and write the children’s names under the headings. In our class, most children live in apartments.
Activity 3: Family Show-and-Tell
Children show the class pictures of their family members and talk about them. One of the bulletin boards in our class is all about our families. When the children are finished talking about their families, the teacher pins/ staples the pictures onto this board.
Activity 4: Pocket Chart Sentences
The teacher writes the sentences on the whiteboard and sticks the words of the pocket chart sentences on the board. Ask volunteers to pick the words from the wall as the teacher points to the words on whiteboard.
Activity 5: pass the Puppet
Play some music. Pass the puppet around the circle. Whoever has the puppet when the music stops, is out. Continue until there’s only one child left.
My Home & Family Songs
Nine action songs all about our Homes & Families, to get those bodies moving and grooving while making school so much more fun. Click on the image to head over to the post.
My Home & Family Books
Twenty of the best story picture books that are perfect for the My Home & My Family theme. Click on the image below to read what these books are about.
My Home & Family Literacy Activities
Activity 1: Goldilocks Sorting and Cut-and-Paste
- Cut out and laminate the colored pictures of Goldilocks and the three bears.
- Read ‘Goldilocks and the three bears’ or watch the YouTube video here.
- Use these to re-tell the story.
- Talk about the different sizes of the bears.
- Hand out the cut-and-paste sheets. Children cut out the pictures and paste them under the correct headings.
Activity 2: The Three Little Pigs Stick Puppets
For this activity we read ‘The Three Little Pigs’ (or you can watch the read-aloud YouTube video here). We then talked about the pigs and the materials they used to build their houses. The teacher took the children on a walk outside to collect grass and sticks. When they got back to the classroom, the children stuck these onto the first two houses (grass as straw and sticks as sticks)
We used a strip of brown colored paper (prepared by the teacher beforehand) and cut it into smaller pieces to use as ‘bricks’ for the third house.
When all the houses were done, the teacher assembled them into a book, while the kids colored the stick puppets. The teacher then helped them to stick toothpicks onto the back using sticky tape. And it was finally time for the story re-tell. The kids loved pretending to be the wolf huffing and puffing at the houses 🙂
My Home & Family Literacy Centers
Center 1: Cut, Paste & Re-Tell
Children cut out the pictures of the houses and paste them in the correct order onto the ‘Cut, Paste & Re-Tell’ Activity Sheet.
Center 2: Look, Build & Write
Look at and read the word, build the word using magnetic/ foam letters, then write the word using whiteboard markers.
Center 3: beginning Sound Cut-and-Paste
Look at the pictures on the activity sheet and say the words out loud. Ask the children what the beginning sound of each word is. Write the words on the board and circle the beginning sounds. The children cut out the letters, paste it next to the correct picture and the write the letter.
My Home & Family Math Activities
In Math this week, we spent two days on center games and two days on whole class activities.
Activity 1: Family Handprints Measuring
A banner was sent home on Monday with a note to the parents asking them to trace all their family members hands. These banners were then used as a measuring activity. The children used cubes to measure the length of each family members hand from the wrist to the top of the middle finger and recorded their findings.
Activity 2: Counting Forwards & Backwards
- Sing the Counting Song by Dream English Kids
- Place number cards 1 – 10 in a row on the floor.
- Give a dice to the first child. Ask them to stand on zero. They throw the dice and jump that many times. Continue throwing until they get to 10. Let each child have a go. If there is still some time left, ask each child to jump on numbers 1 – 10 while the rest of the class sings ‘1 Little, 2 Little, 3 Little Fingers’ and then backwards. Continue till everyone had a go.
Math Centers
My Home & Family Art Activity
This Three Bears fork painting was the second favorite activity of the week. Children used round pretend plates to trace a circle (the bears head) and then a small plastic cup to trace the two ears. They then used plastic forks to paint the bear, by pressing the fork down and picking it up while turning the paper.
They used a paintbrush to paint the middle of the bears face and the ears and when all of this dried, they stuck on the eyes, noses and ribbons with glue. The teacher drew the mouths with a black marker.
My Home & Family STEM Activity
I found this awesome STEM challenge idea over at SweetSoundsofKindergarten.com. The kids in my class are a bit too young to follow this activity step-by-step, so I changed the activity a little.
The kids used playdough, toothpicks and craft sticks to ‘build a house’ around the little pigs (I stuck a picture of a pig on a paper plate beforehand). When they were done, we used a hair dryer (i.e. ‘the wolf’) to see if we could blow the houses over. Surprise, surprise, the craft sticks fell over sooner.
Science & Social Studies
In Science and Social Studies, the teacher asked the children to bring in a picture of when they were babies. We talked about how everyone grows and how we can do a lot of things now, that we could not do when we were babies.
After that, the children completed the ‘When I was small, I could not …’ Class Book. The teacher assembled it when everyone was done, and read it to the class. Once again, click on the picture to go to the downloadable book.
My Home & Family Cooking
Of course this was the favorite activity of the week 🙂 The children spread Nutella on a slice of bread (cut into a circle using a cookie cutter beforehand). They used plastic knives to cut a quarter of a banana into 3 slices (the ears and nose) and placed these on the bread. The 3 raisins were used as the eyes and nose.
For everything you will need for a week filled with awesome Home and Family Themed Activities, click on the image below to download.
