Skip to content

Tag: Pre-K

Pre-K Reading Zoo Buddies Grant

Thank you to the Plano Education Foundation and Toyota for the Pre-K Reading Zoo Buddies grant! This money will purchase board books for our Pre-K students and a mini stuffed animal. They will read to their stuffed animal at home. Awesome!

grant 2021

Proposal summary:

Since the Pre-Kindergarten class sizes at our campus continue to grow every year and it is important to encourage a strong literacy foundation for the youngest learners, the money for this grant will purchase Pre-K level library books to borrow and a mini stuffed animal (“Reading Zoo Buddy”) to keep at home. Since several students may be absent due to various illnesses, they will now have a “reading zoo buddy” to keep at home to encourage continuous reading. The student will return their book when they return to school but will keep their reading zoo buddy at home. Pre-Kindergarten library books will be purchased for students to check out to read to their zoo buddy.  William Teale, president of the International Literacy Association, said that “when you pair reading with a toy or stuffed animal, kids become a part of the story. And they will start to show interest on their own.” (Teale, 2017)  In the CNN Stuffed Animals Reading Study (Teale, 2017) he states that children reading to a stuffed animal causes them to… “look at pictures in a book, and they’ll start to use some of the words in the book.” We want the students to use reading to the stuffed animal at home to enhance their comfort with reading and to allow their skills to bloom.

 

Link to other winning proposal summaries

Pre-K Tie Dye Turkeys

Posted in fun events, and holiday

Pre-K had fun in the library this week! They created tie-dye turkeys. After coloring a coffee filter with water-based markers, they dipped them in a bowl of water. After letting them dry a couple of hours, they came back to the library to put their turkey parts together. Helpful tips: Have samples of a completed coffee filter to show them how to color ALL of it, bottles of water available to pour into the bowl, a bucket available to pour the dirty water into, lots of towels and paper towels, a butcher-paper lined bookshelf top for a drying space, and always make a couple of extra filters for the absent or late students so they can still assemble their turkey on time. Fun! 

pk tie dye turkeys

PK turkeys

turkey bulletin bd

turke7

turkeys

Pre-K Black History Month Sing Along

Posted in bilingual, holiday, and Social Studies

Pre-K created an African American musician “quilt” in the Jackson Library! As they worked, we talked about Nina Simone and played her “I’m Feeling Good” song. Then we used Liz Buchanan‘s primary version of the song as a chant for the kids to sing the “I’m Feeling Good” lyric at the end of each line while they worked. Fun! Thanks to Liz for adapting the song (linked below) to make it choral for Pre-K! They sang ‘I’m feeling good’ for the second part of each verse. The kids loved it. I found a Spanish version of the original song for the bilingual Pre-K class to sing.  I have a note to purchase the Nina Simone: Jazz Legend and Civil-Rights Activist book for next year!

nina simone pk lesson

nina simone lesson

Nina Simone redeaux

Nina Simone lesson pk
Nina Simone – Wikimedia Commons

Nina Simone Lesson PK

Spanish -Y me siento bien

I'm Feeling Good in Spa
Spanish version

Quilt Square Pattern for Musicians Quilt 

quilt sq pattern

 1

Afr Amer Entertainers PK quilt

Nina Simone book
Click for review

Whose Feet?

Posted in apps, bilingual, and nonfiction lesson

Before STAAR week, Pre-K had fun guessing Whose Feet? in the Jackson Library. After reading My Eyes are Big and Red, the kids guessed what animal on which the story was based. Then they had to guess what animals were on the poster just based on the feet. At the tables, they played the Whose Feet? game on the app, colored the feet of Jan Brett animals, and  listened to the fun Maple Leaf songs.

whose feet

Whose Feet?
color the feet

Pre-K Farm Fun

Last week in the Jackson Library, Pre-K read farm animal stories. After singing Hap Palmer’s Big Red Hen song, we read Barnyard Banter and the kids identified the animals by their sounds. They explored the Canticos Chickies/Pollitos app to create their own song, listened to the Chick song (featured also in different languages), and decorated an egg. During check out, we enjoyed Alina Celeste‘s Pollitos song video.

pollitos lesson

Canticos Pollitos song
Canticos
 

 

 

Skip to toolbar