What does the fox say!!?!?

 

Can we just talk about how a song with animal sounds is COOL right now? Too bad it would be a tad inappropriate to show that during our circle time (darn!). However - no need to stick to the classics! I have a book here with a song about farm animals and the sounds they make that ISN'T "Old McDonald"! I really do not know where I saw the idea for this song... I definitely didn't dream it up myself but I did spend some time making this fun book to share with you all :)

 

The song is to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus" and it is really a lot of fun to do with the kids. I have a student who has been working on intraverbal fill-ins (ex. "a pig says ____") and when we started using this book/song in circle, he started mastering several of them!

 

Hope you guys enjoy it! DOWNLOAD HERE!

 

5 Little Turkeys

Since this is the month of the turkey, I present you with another book produced by yours truly! It is an adapted book to go with the 5 little turkeys poem. Included are the instructions on how to put it together but it is pretty simple. I hope you all enjoy it! I am excited to show my students tomorrow.

Download here!!

My Halloween Book!

Happy Halloween! Today I have a treat (no tricks!) that I put together this week. I have a rather dismal collection of fall and halloween books so I figured instead of contributing my hard earned dollars to the Amazon empire, I would make my own! It took me hardly any time to come up with a quick little idea and do a Google search for images. My assistant was kind enough to finish the formatting to make the book look classroom worthy and WHOOMP, THERE IT IS. (no, not there. that's a link to a 90's classic).

But for real, HERE IS THE DOWNLOAD! Enjoy!

Free Adapted Pete the Cat book!

Last week I made an adapted book for Pete The Cat: I Love My White Shoes. I have discussed my love for Pete in another post and I highly recommend that you introduce him to your kids if you have not done so already! 

I used this book during circle with my kids and it went better than I could have expected! I carefully chose how I would adapt it, keeping in mind the need for consistency and simplicity. One of my students was independently reading the book within a day based on the images associated with the main phrases in the book. Prior to using this adapted version, he needed verbal prompting and modeling to chime in with "Did Pete cry?", "Goodness no!", "Oh no!", and even the song part. Now, he is doing all of the parts completely independently which is very exciting! I am sending home his own copy so that he can impress his parents with those awesome skills! 

This book hits on a lot of learning points. With the same Pete image on each page, it helps the students become familiar with the character and help them recognize him. The book also teaches color identification, facial expressions, and labels/vocabulary for the items he steps in. 

Depending on the students you are using it with, you can adapt it even further by printing and laminating certain parts of the book, such as the color parts or the things he steps in and then have the students match the pictures to the book. You could also print the pictures onto cards and have the students help tell the story or even predict what happens next by selecting the corresponding card. There are many great ways to use this book and I hope that your students enjoy it as much as mine have! 

(The last page includes pictures of water to velcro onto the shoes for when he has wet shoes.)

Here is the link to the Pete the Cat book!

Here is a sample page from the book!

A Zoo Book!

I decided to do a zoo theme for the first month of school this year and am really excited about all the fun animal things we have been doing (mainly because I participated in a life changing experience on vacation this summer where I HAND-FED A GIRAFFE which only confirmed my obsession for the awkwardly beautiful creatures).

I wanted to share a book that I made and give you some ideas on how to use this book. I saw a cutesy little song about going to the zoo where you sing "I went to the zoo one day, zoo one day, zoo one day... I went to the zoo one day and I saw a ____" and you fill in the blank with a zoo animal. What I did was print each page, laminate them, and then hole punch each at the top and bind them using a metal book ring. 

IDEAS:

- Print extra pictures of each animal, laminate them, and use adhesive Velcro on the back of each picture to have them match and attach the pictures to each page. You can do an activity where you hold up a page from the book and put out 3-5 photos in front of the student. Tell them to match the correct animal.

- Sing the song while showing the page and have the student fill in the blank by saying what the animal is

- Have them identify the animals (expressively - "What animal is this?" and receptively - "Show me the panda")

- Sing the song, filling in the animal and then have them find the correct page (or photo if you want to place the photos in an array in front of the student during a table activity)

- Have them match plastic animal toys to the pages

- Have them match non-identical pictures to the photos of the animals (you can use google images/Boardmaker and print off various pictures of the animals, including cartoon pictures, etc)

- Have them identify the colors of the animals (and even match the environment that they live in, the stripes or spots on their fur, etc. depending on the cognitive level of your student)

This is a preview page from the book... which you can download for free HERE!!!

*Just a note... I did get these images from the good ol' interwebs and saw the song idea on a site that I cannot remember the name of. If you see something included in my book that deserves to be tagged with a link to where it originated from, please leave a cordial comment or email and I will give it the rightful props!