Aa is for Animals and Acorns

Aa is for animals, so today we did more with our 'Before Five in a Row' story of the week - Play With Me, by Marie Hall Ets.  It is a really cute story about a little girl who goes to the meadow to play.  She encounters lots of animals, but none of them will play with her.  Sad that she can't find anyone to play with her, she sits quietly by the pond and slowly all the animals come back out to see her.  I made stick puppets of all the animals she sees and Evan has fun acting out the story as we read it.  I also made some classification cards with an interesting fact about each animal. 

Evan playing with the 'Play With Me' stick puppets.

Inside our 'Play With Me Lapbook', there is a magnetized 'Who Am I' matching game.  Evan liked removing all the animals and putting them back in their right pocket. 

Who Am I?

The first animal the little girl in the story sees is a grasshopper.  Since Evan is totally into bugs right now, I took the opportunity to talk about other bugs that she may have seen in the meadow.  Then Evan made his own insect collection on the back cover of the lapbook. 

Evan excited about his bugs!

We reviewed the other Aa words that we have learned so far (Angie A, alligator, and apple) and had fun playing with the stick puppets.  He just loves these puppets.  During one of the puppet shows, he insisted that I use Angie A, alligator, Amazing Apple, the little girl and all the animals from 'Play With Me', and the entire Rubber Duck family!  Whew!  That was fun!  As soon as I get done with one show, he claps, and says, "Again, again."  It's so cute to see his excitement!

Evan playing with the puppets.

We practiced writing Aa some more and then moved on to Aa is for acorn.  He really wanted to go outside, so it was perfect timing for an acorn hunt!

Hunting for acorns.

Proud of all his acorns!

Then Evan colored an 'Aa is for Acorn' picture, glued it onto construction paper, and put his acorns all around it.  While it was drying, we read a book called, "From Little Acorns...A First Look at the Life Cycle of a Tree" by Sam Godwin.

Aa is for Acorn