Week 3

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

Reread the story Mrs. W shared this week Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

A cute craft to go along with our pigeon story this week. You will need:

Paper plate
Yellow paper triangles for beak (or color yellow afterward)
white paper circle for the eye
Blue decorations: crayons/paint/markers/pom-poms/torn paper/feathers- your choice!
glue & scissors

First, cut two small triangles for a beak, and one large circle (about the size of a coffee mug) for the eye. Depending on their familiarity with scissors, your child can do this on their own or with help (circles can be especially tricky!). Draw a black dot on the circle to be the pupil of the eye.

Then, have your child decorate your paper plate so that it is blue. You can keep it simple with blue crayons or markers, or get a little messy with paint or glued-on blue things like paper or feathers. Get creative!

Finally, glue the eye on the plate, and glue or tape the triangles to the edge to form a beak.

Photos from: https://thego-tolist.com/kid-crafts-activities/paper-plate-pigeon-craft/ and https://www.gluedtomycraftsblog.com/2015/02/paper-plate-pigeon-kid-craft.html

A few facts about pigeons!

Parking Lot Numbers (or Letters)

Try building some number or letter recognition into your child's pretend play. Use masking tape to label cars with numbers. Then, making a "parking lot" from a shallow box or a piece of cardboard and label each "stall" with the same numbers. Your child can drive the cars around and then find the matching number to park it in.

If you choose to use letters instead of numbers, you can try using the letters of your child's name, or pairing upper and lower case letters to help your child recognize both forms of the alphabet.

Car Sort

Sorting is an important skill that children need to develop for success in school! It may seem simple, but it's actually a more complicated skill than learning the alphabet! When kids sort, they are:

analyzing and organizing information
describing attributes (size, texture, shape etc)
learning about similarities and differences
developing flexible thinking skills (being able to shift between one way of sorting to another)

This week, try sorting your cars (or dolls, blocks, or other toys) in different ways. Many children naturally sort by colours, but you can also try practicing how to sort size, shape or other attributes like texture (rough or bumpy vs smooth, shiny vs dull etc.)

You can also turn sorting into an active game!

Work with your child to create categories for sorting and write or draw them on separate pieces of paper (ex. a different page for each colour, or each shape). Place all the cars/toys in one room, and place the category pages in other areas of the house. Then, on the count of 3, race to get everything sorted!

photo from busytoddler.com

All Aboard the Bus!

Here's a great song to sing along with The Wheels on the Bus!

Use these visuals to help your child sing The Wheels on the Bus!

Let your child choose a picture to decide which verse to sing next!

Count the Bears on the Bus!

Use the pages to below to count the bears as they come onto the bus! Help your child learn to count by making counting a fun part of your day. Count socks as you sort them; count the apples in your refrigerator, count the cars and buses going by. The more your child experiences counting, the quicker they will learn the meaning of numbers.

(This includes a lot of pages to print, you can JUST print the bus with the number 10 and then practice counting the other numbers on this page; print and cut out the bears or use objects you have at home, small toys, cheerios, nickels etc.)

Count the bears coming onto the bus!

Ways to go!

Here is a fun way to talk about different modes or transportation. What other modes of transportation can your child think about?

Print the visuals below and then trace the letters with marker, Q-tip and paint or shape the letters with playdough (start at the green and move to the red). The letters in this package are great to work on beginning printing skills using lines and circles!

Ways to Go