Rhyming Farm Books & Crafts!

I'm back from Vegas! I have to say, I was a bit disappointed because Sullivan did not seem to miss me at all. Seriously! He was asleep when I got home early Saturday morning so I waited anxiously for him to wake up. He cracked his eyes open, I cooed at him, and he just smiled and flipped over, ready to get his day started - like I hadn't even been gone! Don't get me wrong, I'm happy my husband and older children took such good care of him while I was away, but I'm thinking that maybe they could've fallen down on the job just a little, so Sullivan would have been relieved to see me - "Here's the woman that feeds me!" or "Finally, my butt will get changed in a timely fashion!" or "Well thank goodness you're back, I'm about to pass out from my own stench!" but noooo, he was fed, bathed, changed and played with so well that he could have cared less that I was gone...sigh....

 This is one of the pics my hubby texted me while I was away - that boy is g-o-n-e,  gone!

Today I'm joining up with Mrs. Jump's Class again for Book Talk Tuesday!

At the beginning of the year I always do a Farm Unit because we have a County Fair the first week of September and my students can go and see the free petting zoo with all sorts of farm animals. I like to try to tie our units to events that are happening in our community that they can access at little or no cost. At the beginning of the year I'm also focusing on the phonemic awareness skill of rhyming. Today I'm going to share several books that combine the Farm theme with predictable rhyming text and fun illustrations:

 

1st up: Sheep Out to Eat. This is a very simple book with a cute story about sheep who go out to eat, only to find that the lawn is what they want for lunch. With only a line or two of text per page, its also great for teaching one-to-one correspondence and directionality. Since there are 5 other rhyming Sheep stories by the same author, we usually read them all and make this paper plate sheep!

2nd:When Cows Come Home. This one has fun illustrations and a silly story about cows riding bikes and pulling sleighs. Each page has 4 lines and every other line rhymes. Here's a free paper plate cow craft that goes perfectly!

3rd:Big Red Barn. This book is also great for learning "big" and "little" and we always do a lot of counting of the eggs, the kittens, and the puppies! There's a free barn template here for a fun painting craft.

4th: Barnyard Banter . I think this book has my favorite illustrations! It goes through both common barn animals and more exotic ones like peacocks, all in the quest to find Goose, who is chasing a butterfly through the pages. This paper plate goose craft is simple and quick!

5th: Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Farm. Who hasn't heard of Mrs. Wishy-Washy?! I love how the animals go from not liking Mrs. Wishy-Washy to being happy to see her. The text is more complex than some of the other books, but there are solid rhymes on each page. Here's a cute Mrs. Wishy-Washy paper plate craft too!

6th:Pigs Aplenty, Pigs Galore! This book isn't actually set on a farm, instead the pigs invade a normal home, coming by boat, plane, bus and train. Be warned, while some pigs are from France, others are just in their underpants! Cue the hysterical laughter from students! This piggy craft is simple enough for young students, although I usually trace them myself.

7th:There's a Cow in the Cabbage Patch. I love the collage art in this book! All of the animals are in the wrong place "There's a cow in the cabbage patch, moo moo moo! She should be in the dairy, what shall we do?" and so on down through horses, pigs, roosters, sheep even doves and an owl! To go with this story, this handprint horse craft is adorable!

8th:Sixteen Cows. This is the story of two farms, each with 8 cows. One day a tornado destroys the fence seperating them and the sixteen cows get mixed up. Cowboy Gene and Cowgirl Sue each try to sing their cows home, to no avail. Luckily they fall in love and combine their herds! Since we live in Tornado Alley, this is a non-scary way to bring up tornado safety. Here's a tornado craft we do too.

9th: Barnyard Song. In this rhyming book, all of the animals catch the barnyard flu thanks to a bee and the farmer has to feed them all soup! This footprint bee goes very well with this story!

10th:Barn Dance! . The skinny kid can't sleep, so he goes to investigate "music honeyed up by the ol' scarecrow". He ends up dancing with the scarecrow and all of the farm animals in the barn, wearing a hole in the toe of his sock! This one has more text and more advanced language, so its a good idea to pull out some words ahead of time for a vocabulary study. Since the dancing is started by the scarecrow with a fiddle, this paper bag scarecrow craft is a must-do!

There you have it! 10 awesome rhyming books for a Farm theme! I'll be blogging more about our crafts and activities for Farm in September, so be on the look out for that! I'm also working on a freebie - looks like I might get it done for tomorrow so check back! Have a great week and don't check the calendar - summer is speeding by way too quickly!

Let's Talk About Books Linky ~ With FREEBIE!

As I was thinking of books to share with you this week, I was reminded of a day back in the spring. It was one of those mornings - woke up late because the alarm didn't go out, my boys were slowpokes getting ready and then the baby needed an outfit change right before we went out the door. In the midst of the chaos I ended up forgetting the book that I needed for my lesson that day. "Oh well," I thought, "I'll just grab it from the school library instead."

Unfortunately, when I went into the library, our sweet librarian had never heard of the book! I was floored, flabbergasted, dumbfounded! This is the sweetest book, that lends itself so well to the classroom! It's followed by another book that might even be better! I thought that it must be a popular, well-known book that we'd for sure have in our school library! Once I had enthused about the book to our librarian and got her to add it to her wishlist of books to be bought when we get money, I headed off to adjust my lesson plans. I ended up doing the lesson the next day (I packed the book in the car the night before this time!) and my kids loved it, as expected.

Anyways, because of that experience, I thought that maybe some of you out there hadn't heard of this book yet either, and I decided to share it for my linky book! How Rocket Learned to Read:

It's about Rocket, a reluctant learner. He's reluctant because he was just looking for a place to take a nap lol! But the little yellow bird assures him that he must be a student because she is his teacher - that's the kind of logic a dog can't argue his way out of!

The little yellow bird had hung a banner in the meadow, "Ah, the wondrous, mighty, gorgeous alphabet," she marveled, "Where it all begins."

The little bird starts to read a story, and soon Rocket is listening instead of napping. When she pauses at an exciting part, Rocket calls out, desperate to know more:

But the little yellow bird was gone! The next day, Rocket shows up early and asks to hear the rest of the story. The little yellow bird gives him a name tag and then begins to read. Each day she teaches him a new letter and then they start to sound out things like Mr. Barker's growl:

They do a whole lot of sounding out of words like F-A-L-L and R-E-D and WHOOSSHHHHH which is the sound the wind makes. The little yellow bird reads him stories about dogs, and about birds flying south for the winter. Then one day she flys away and reminds him "Words are built one letter at a time!"

Rocket spends the winter practicing his letters:

Spelling out words:

Spelling his friends' names:

Until finally it is spring and the little yellow bird returns! They read his favorite story, and then they read it again, and again and A-G-A-I-N!

Isn't it precious?! I love the illustrations and I love that Rocket spells out things in his everyday environment! Rocket was a hit with my students too, they asked me to reread the story over and over. The next book in the series is Rocket Writes a Story and is great for a writer's workshop!

I made this alphabet game that can go along with Rocket's story as a freebie for you! Just click the picture to go download it!

Now head on over to Mrs. Jump's Class for other book ideas!

Mo Willem's Pigeon Books in Kindergarten

On the last day of school, at the very end of the day, I gathered all of my firsties around for one more read-aloud. Well, it was supposed to be one more. But, when it comes to Mo Willem's Pigeon books, well it's kind of like Lay's potato chips ~ you can't read just one! Even though we had read these books previously - me aloud and most of my kiddos individually - they were still so involved in the stories and enjoyed them immensely. I'm happy that was their last memory of their first grade year!

The Pigeon was on our mind because in April, Mo Willems came out with the 6th installment of the Pigeon series, The Pigeon Needs a Bath! If you haven't introduced the Pigeon to your classroom, you're going to want to, and if you already know and love the Pigeon, make sure you check out his hilarious bath time book! Look to your right and you'll see links to the Pigeon books on Amazon on the side bar, as well as some of Mo's other books - I've got almost every book he's written and I can say he hasn't written a bad one yet!

My kiddos loved this latest book and we did some fabulous writing - unfortunately I forgot to take pictures before I tucked those writing pieces into their cumulative folders. I was so tickled at the thought of them reading their stories in 4 years when they leave 5th grade that I forgot that I wanted to share them here too! Luckily I didn't forget to take pictures of our art:

In order to make these, we practiced drawing the Pigeon on our whiteboards first (Mo's tutorial is here) and then drew the Pigeon again on a plain piece of copy paper. Next we used the torn paper technique to cover our pigeons with blue and orange construction paper, and used a black marker to outline eyes, collars and wings. We added chenille stems for the legs and bent them to make the feet. I think they turned out super cute - and they were all so unique!

The best part about the Pigeon series of books is that they are so interactive - the kids respond to every single page. It is great to see them take on an authoritative role - and to hear them parrot the same phrases their parents probably use on them when they want to get out of going to bed or taking a bath!

The other great thing about the Pigeon series is that it lends itself to a class book so well! One year we made "Don't Let The Pigeon Be a Substitute Teacher" through Student Treasures:

I could go on and on, but why should I when I can send you over to Pigeon Presents, Mo's site that has a ton of cool stuff, including games, posters, coloring pages and teachers guides!