Children's Literature as Curriculum

We read a fun book this week, below and enjoyed drawing our own hats.  We read books together, not only for fun, but for developing curriculum and going deeper into story.

We talked about different kinds of hats...

We recognized that the hat in the book was the shape of a triangle.  Below, Jane and Summer draw their own.

We played a game where we had to find the red hat all over the room, too.

We talked about how the Bear in the story felt, at first, not knowing where his hat was and then later, when he realized the Rabbit had not told him the truth.  We practiced showing emotions on our faces.  Below, Jane is "surprised" and Colins is, guess! "Mad!"

It was hard not to giggle when we tried to contrive a "sad" face . . .

They loved doing "happy" and Colin is showing, "I'm thinking."

Jane is showing us, "I know the answer!" in raising her hand confidently.

We also made green play dough and looked for green things in the room.

We had enough snow this week to attempt a snow person...

We painted his face on and added sticks for arms.

and then we painted the snow...

The kids are still really enjoying playing with the cars and track.  I added ping pong balls for going down the track.

They sure love Curious George.  Thursday, Noe suggested we read the one where he swallows the puzzle piece.