Flannel Friday Guest Post Palooza - Pete The Cat

Flannel Friday is 4 years old!  WHOOT!  To celebrate, seasoned bloggers such as Library Village were paired with guest bloggers who wanted to give blogging and Flannel Friday a try.  Miss Sue was paired with Mary Eames, an early childhood specialist and stay-at-home mom who wanted to share a multitude of ways she uses Pete the Cat with her adorable sons.  She sent along a ton of great photos, ideas, and resources.  I bet you NEVER thought about SHOELACES on Pete's shoes!  Read on for more about that!  Without further ado, here is Mary:

Pete the Cat Activities

My sons LOVE Pete the Cat! We have definitely hoped on the bandwagon with this one. I have an Early Childhood Education degree and a degree as an Intervention Specialist. Currently though, I stay home with my 3 year old son and 16 month old son. In order to keep us busy, we do lots of FELT activities! So I knew as we rented all these books from the library, that we just HAD to make some felt-board activities with Pete!

My felt board is a piece of big green felt hooked to a metal drip tray that is attached to our playroom door. The inspiration for the magnet board part was found at:

http://www.babble.com/toddler/20-repurposed-projects-for-toddlers-diy-ready-made/

But the idea for the green felt board part was my own idea.

 We also have a small one that I made by taking the glass out of an 8x10 picture frame and putting blue felt into it. This is our “on the go” one or when we feel like sitting at the table or on the couch to do a felt activity.

These are our felt pieces for Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin.

Pete the Cat loves his brand new white shoes so much, he walks down the street singing this song, “I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes...”

Oh No! (My son loves yelling this part out). Pete stepped in a large pile of (I let my son tell me the fruit here) STRAWBERRIES! What color did they turn his shoes? (I let him tell me the color) Red! But did Pete cry? (My son will yell out) GOODNESS NO! He kept walking along and singing....

Once again- he’s walking and singing his song....Sing it now, inserting the word “Red.”

Repeat all steps again, except it’s a pile of BLUEBERRIES! So they turn his shoes BLUE.

Now after you’ve done, “Did Pete cry? Goodness no!” He keeps on walking...just now with BLUE shoes. Until....he steps in a pile of MUD this time, turning the shoes BROWN. So repeat all steps using these words and props.

So continue the song about the BROWN shoes, same as before. Until he steps in a BUCKET OF WATER! Now his shoes are (back to white because it washes off all the red, blue and brown) WET! He sings, “I love my wet shoes, I love my wet shoes, I love my wet shoes...”

Story ends with, “The moral of the story is- no matter what you step in, keep walking along and singing your song, because it’s all good.”

My son enjoyed being able to put the shoes on Pete the Cat, along with putting the items on the board for Pete to “step in.”

In order to keep add a “mathematical element” to this, I put one “shoelace” (aka a black marker line) on the first shoe, two on the second, etc. It also helps me to keep them in piles to minimize the shoes from getting lost.

These are our felt pieces for Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin:

This is Pete with just his shirt on, to show what it looks like. I made Pete separate from the shirt, so that I could reuse him with other stories. The shirt is also 2 separate pieces, so it could make it as close to the story as possible when the buttons pop off.

So the story talks about how much Pete puts on his favorite shirt with four big, colorful, round, groovy buttons. He loves them so much he sings this song, “My buttons, my buttons, my four groovy buttons. My buttons, my buttons, my four groovy buttons.”

But then POP! A button pops off (I pull it off dramatically) and rolls away. How many are left? (I have my son count the number left and tell me) 3! 4-1=3. Did Pete cry? My son yells- Goodness no! Buttons come and buttons go! He kept on singing his song....

My belly button is hard to see because my son keeps pulling it off. I think I’m going to put a new one on using white puffy paint instead of a small piece of white felt. It will last much longer!

We also found an AMAZING extension activity on http://www.heidisongs.com/blog/2012/08/a-pete-cat-freebie-and-brand-new.html that has free printables of “Pete the Cat’s” with blank shirts and numbers next to them. The activity called for velcro and paper buttons, but I put them in a binder with page protectors and gave my son large real buttons to put on the shirts. He loves to count the buttons out and put them on each cat. I have to admit I love it too! I used buttons I had, but I know Wal-Mart carries buttons that look just like the ones in the book. This can work one-on-one as shown here, or for a group!

GREAT JOB Mary!  It was my pleasure to host you this week.  Big thanks to Mollie Kay from What Happens In Storytime for hosting Flannel Friday this week. Mollie has a great blog which you can read (and make sure to follow!) by CLICKING HERE!  If you would like to know more about Flannel Friday, read their blog by CLICKING HERE.  You can also follow Flannel Friday on Pinterest and Facebook (just search for Flannel Friday), or on Twitter with the hashtag #FlannelStorytime

I really enjoyed hosting this week.  If you are a gentle reader who would like to share your ideas but do not blog, I would be happy to host you sometime.  Just let one of us at the Library Village know you are in need of a space.

For everyone else, I hope you enjoyed all of the guest posts this week.  Shine on everyone!
Thanks for stopping by!