Imagination Station - Let's Play "Post Office!"

 

Our most popular Imagination Station thus far has been, hands-down, our Post Office! Let's take a look at some of our activities:

 

The Post Office (puppet theatre):



 

The Mail Bag and Envelopes:

Made of felt, obviously!

Do you recognize these from a Preschool Story Time post? We didn't want to ruin Miss Sue's set, so we made a second mail bag and envelopes to be played with.

 

Postcards and Stamps:

Although kids loved this activity, it did, unfortunately mean a lot of paper waste.

Don't forget to mail your postcards in the Mail Box!:

A hidden flap in the bottom so we could retrieve the mail! Miss Kristie's creation!

 

And who wouldn't want to drive the Mail Truck??:



Duct tape straps made this so easy to slip on and "drive" around!
(This truck has since been recycled into a school bus!)

Miscellaneous:

We had foam visors, which once said "Mail" in foam letters, but they kept falling off!
Miss Kristie also made those little mail boxes, which we placed around the room.  That way kids could deliver the mail around the neighborhood!

 

This was probably our messiest Imagination Station so far, because we were constantly cleaning up the papers and stamps, emptying the envelopes, rounding up all of the pieces and straightening up.  But it was also the most fun! Kids really enjoyed driving the truck, wearing the visors and mail bag, and leaving us mail in the big mail box!

 

Looking back, it's clear that children were able to practice at least four of the ECRR2 practices:

Reading - "mail" related books were on display

Writing - they wrote on postcards

Talking - that puppet theatre got A LOT of use

Playing - just look at all of these cool things to play with!

 

Feel free to borrow any of these ideas - we borrowed some of them, ourselves! And share with us any great ideas you've had for imaginative play!

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Preschool Story Time- Letter of the Month is A

I decided to start something new in my story time this month. I thought I would try to do something that would bring my story times together, allowing me to bring back some favorite stories, flannel boards, and songs. So, I decided to start a 'Letter of the Month' story time for the first week of every month to see how it goes.  I might stop this by summer, but it will be a great exercise.

Check out my mailbag. I made it myself with fleece, felt, and a lot of hot-glue (See my Flannel Friday Post about this bag).  I also made lots of felt envelopes to use with it.  We introduce story time with the mailbag and wonder what 'letter' is inside it for us!  I will call up volunteers to peek inside the envelopes and tell me what is inside.  Today we had the letter A and 4 items that begin with A....Ant, Astronaut, Alligator, Apple (my Ant isn't in the photo).


Thanks to Kay Leigh for sharing her idea to felt the Animals in this book: Animals in Underwear by Todd Parr.  I literally ran out to the store, bought the book, and felted all of the animals that weekend.  Now I get to introduce the book and share a new animal in their underwear every week!  Yay!

Here are some of my animals...Squee!!!

After our mailbag offerings, I sang a new song with my ukulele.  I played Old MacDonald Had a Farm with these lyrics:
Our Librarian has a book - E-I-E-I-O
And in that book there were some As - E-I-E-I-O
With an A - A - here and an A-A there, here an A, there an A, everywhere an A-A
Our Librarian has a book - E-I-E-I-O
(for this letter, we repeated this verse with long and short A sounds)

For our Every Child Ready to Read fans, we talked about pointing to letters in books, starting with the first letter in their name, to get children excited about reading.  Simple repetition of pointing to the A and letting them feel successful, makes them excited of learning.  Songs like the one above are familiar, yet teaches sounds in a fun new way....just like they learned animal sounds with that song, they learn alphabet sounds.


Our first book was The Very Boring Alligator by Jean Gralley.

The alligator JUST WON'T GO!  This book shows kids how to take control of playtime and get rid of anything standing in the way of their fun.

Then we did the AlphaGator Poem.  Not sure who to credit for the poem, but my Alligator is made with scrapbook paper and a felt belly so the letters can stick while I read the poem.   The kids liked this!

Once there was an Alpha-Gator

Who absolutely adored the alphabet.

He ate the letters and had sweet

Alphabet dreams all night long.

On Monday, he ate the letters ABCDEF.

Then he closed his eyes to get some sleep.

But the pointy part of the A kept poking him in his tummy.

And he couldn’t sleep a wink all night long!

On Tuesday, he ate the letters GHIJK.

Then he closed his eyes to get some sleep.

But H and I made a word and said it over and over- HI, HI, HI!

And he couldn’t sleep a wink all night long!

On Wednesday, he ate the letters LMNOP.

Then he closed his eyes to get some sleep.

But the O kept rolling back and forth in his tummy-

And he couldn’t sleep a wink all night long!

On Thursday, he ate the letters QRSTUV.

Then he closed his eyes to get some sleep.

But the S kept saying SSSSS and playing snake in his tummy

And he couldn’t sleep a wink all night long!

On Friday, he ate the letters WXYZ.

Then he closed his eyes to get some sleep.

And he dreamed sweet Z’s all night.

Then the Ant and the Grasshopper fable retold by Mark White.  The kids decided this ant was too mean, and they would have helped their neighbor.  There were some strong opinions here - the moms even said that the Ant should have seen it coming and had a talk with the grasshopper sooner.  Wow.  I guess the discussion was a good thing on this one, but it cracks me up too that it was such a hot issue.  After all, it IS a fable with a moral to it.


After halftime and our usual Popcorn Dance, I told the story called That Apple is Mine by Katya Arnold.

You'll have to see my FLANNEL FRIDAY POST about this Story board set I made last fall.  This story is a hit every time I tell it.  There is a surprise ending that the parents really enjoy too.


Finally Animals Should Definitely NOT Wear Clothing by Judi Barrett.

Another book that delighted both the kids and parents.  What would happen if Animals DID wear clothing?  Funny book!

My craft was an Alligator made from the letter A.

And THAT'S the Letter of the Month!!  We had a really great story time this week and I am already looking forward to the next one! Hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for stopping by!  

Flannel Friday - Mail Call!

OK.  Sometimes I see something on Pinterest, and I have to have it.  Usually it is a felt set, or a recipe, or a story time theme.  This time it was a mail bag.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/250372060507885851/

GASP!  As soon as I saw it, I thought of Valentine's Day!  You could do the 6 Little Valentines rhyme with this, or come up with a "What could be in this letter?" kind of activity.  But WAIT!  I had another idea! So, I got out some fabric and a glue gun and had at it!  It might not be as pretty as the one above because I didn't use any stitching, but mine is still functional.

OK, I made mine with fleece for the bag and the rest is felt.  To make the bag, I hot-glued a piece of felt to the fleece and cut a large enough rectangle around the felt.  The felt helps to give the bag some shape.  Then I put a book in the felt and folded up the sides and glued them well to make a panel on either side of the bag.   The long remaining end flaps over to make the flap you put the word MAIL on.  The strap is just a long piece of fleece folded in half and hot glued for shape.  The envelopes are just felt cut to that shape, and glued up the sides.



At my new branch, I inherited one extra story time per week.  So I thought I would use that week of the month as The Letter of the Month theme!  I made a bunch of envelopes and plan to have the letter of the day plus something that begins with that letter in each envelope. I will invite the children to come up and see what is in the mailbag today - they loved this part.  Then we will read stories, have rhymes, and a craft based on that letter.  I think it will bring a level of fun to the story time.


Check our labels and search for the Letter of the Month story times.  I did my first one this week and will blog on it over the weekend!



Thanks to Christine at Felt Board Stories for hosting this week's Flannel Friday!  If you like to learn more about Flannel Friday, Click HERE.   ALSO, Thank YOU for stopping by!