The Legend of Jelly Bean and the Unbreakable Egg

 

The Legend of Jelly Bean and the Unbreakable Egg:  

A Holiday Hill Farm Book by Joe Trolano, illustrated by Susan Banta

 (DJ Inkers Clip Art)

I received this book from a friend and teaching colleague and I knew right away that it would be the perfect seasonal book for young children.

Here's a Peek Into the Story:

Five fluffy chicks peck, poke, and whack a friend who is not ready to hatch!  Much to their dismay, the unbreakable egg is collected by the farmer.  The chicks follow the farmer to rescue Chick Six, but not before falling into the Easter egg dye.  Finally, these colorful chicks receive a colorful surprise when the sixth chick Jelly Bean makes an appearance.  

Teamwork and kindness are the messages received from this great seasonal story!

My Preschoolers loved this story!  Here's a Look At What We Did:

Colorful Shape Inspired Egg Hunt

(Source for Geometric Shapes 10" Jumbo Designer Cut-Outs)

 (Source for Geometric Shapes 1" Mini Designer Cut-Outs)

Prior to the start of the lesson, I hid many plastic eggs.  The children found the eggs and opened each egg to reveal a small shape cut-out.  The children were asked to identify and sort these shapes and to place the egg in the colored buckets.

Jelly Bean Sorting With Our Very Own Jelly Bean Chicks

Each child received these cute plastic chick eggs full of jelly beans to sort and to eat!

(Jelly Bean Sorting Mat Source)

Jelly Bean Chick Art

These colorful chicks were made from coffee filters.

 

Ask K-2 students to write about their own unbreakable egg, complete a written retelling of the story, identify and explain their favorite part of the book, and make connections to self, text, or the real world.

 Click on the chick to download the writing paper and the math mind map.

Enjoy the download and have a great night!

Wrapping Up The St. Patrick's Day Fun

 These books were perfect for exploring and learning about the color green and shamrocks galore!

Using these great products from Creative Teaching Press, 

here's a quick look at more of our preschool activities for 

St. Patrick's Day!

The March-Poppin'Patterns Seasonal Calendar Days were the perfect accents for these seasonal counting workmats.  

(I glued the calendar number to the center of a Shamrock 10" Designer Cut-Outs ahead of time.)  

The children used gold coins and two-color calendar cut-outs to count sets.

 We turned the shamrocks over and used a die to practice our counting skills too!

 The March- Poppin'Patterns Seasonal Calendar Days were the perfect accents for these seasonal bingo cards.  

 The bingo cards were used with the preschoolers to reinforce number recognition.

  

These same cards could easily be used for addition and subtraction practice with kindergarten and first grade students.

  

We worked on letter recognition using the two-color shamrock calendar cut-outs.  

The child tossed a pom pom onto the card and named the letter.  

Some of the students also practiced individual letter sounds.

We played hopscotch on a field of shamrocks and 

matched the upper and lowercase letters.

 We counted shamrocks and made sets.

We had fun with patterns.

We matched shapes!

We continued our work with colors and patterns and made our own Shamrock Necklaces for a little St. Patrick's Day parade!

 Wow, it was a great week of fun and learning!

Thank you, Creative Teaching Press!

Spot a Leprechaun

 

Recycle plastic bottles this St. Patrick's Day!

"Discover" how much fun children ages 2-6 will have making these 

Leprechaun Bottles!

To get started, gather the materials from the project.  

I used pipe cleaners, magnetic wands, stickers, and paper clips.

 We used the cute Shamrocks Stickers from Creative Teaching Press.

(source)

 

I special thank you to the wonderful people at Creative Teaching Press.  

Your products certainly help make Teaching Creative!

Before  sharing this activity with my students, I cut the stickers apart and attached paper clips to the individual shamrocks.  

(At this point, I left the paper backing on the stickers.) 

I also taped leprechauns to each magnetic wand and cut the pipe cleaners into small pieces.

Be sure to cover the shamrock stickers with the pipe cleaner pieces.

I placed the bowls and the wands on the table and the children searched for the shamrocks.
It was so quiet in the room while these preschoolers worked, we could have heard the small footsteps of a leprechaun!

The pipe cleaner pieces were attracted to the magnetic wand and provided for a little magnetic discovery and discussion. 

We made a game out of assembling this leprechaun bottle. 

I challenged the children to put all of the "rainbow" colored pipe cleaner pieces in the bottle.

A simple and fun fine motor and hand-eye coordination activity!

For a few of my Pre-K students assembling this bottle was also a sensory activity.  They weren't quite sure if they liked the way the pipe cleaners felt. 

Giggles and Gasps could be heard as they discovered the shamrock stickers in their bowls.  

We called the bowls the "pot of gold"!  

You may want to include some yellow sticker dot stickers as the gold! 

Shamrock stickers and a friend for the Leprechaun were quickly added to the bottle.   

The children were excited to take the bottles home so I encouraged them to add additional items such as colorful pom poms, small toys, shiny foil, etc. to attract a sneaky leprechaun!

Happy Friday!

Bump With The Cat

Bump With The Cat

Scrappin Doodles

Download the addition and subtraction bump games here.

Grab The Dice and You Have Morning Work!

For My Pre-K Friends

 Download the Roll and Cover Number Recognition board here.

Happy Reading!

 

V is for Vase and Valentine's Day

 V is for Vase 

and 

Valentine's Day Fun

 Coffee Filter Art

Start with a coffee filter and washable markers. 

(Cover the table with newsprint and/or paper towels to make clean up quick and simple.)

 

Use the washable markers to draw and color on the coffee filter.  

Use an eyedropper to drip water onto the coffee filter.  

Since coffee filters are porous, the ink will spread and blend with the colors next to it.

 (If you do not have an eyedropper, use a water bottle and lightly spray the filter.) 

  

Allow the colorful filters to dry.

 

While the coffee filters dry, assemble the vase.  We used a cut-out letter v for the vase, added the green flower stems and leaves, and the (blended coffee filter) flowers.

Add heart stickers throughout the design for extra Valentine's Day fun! 

 Extra heart stickers make great books too!

My Heart Counting Book

 

Here's a counting book made by my preschoolers.

It was quick and easy to make these cute napkin covered books.

  I used a holiday napkin, stapled blank paper inside, and added the counting phrases.   

The Pre-Ker's added the stickers and practiced their counting skills.

 K-2 students could easily write math word problems and use heart stickers to illustrate their math thinking!

Happy Teaching!