Additional Classroom Connections This storytime can be expanded to continue children’s exploration of the seasons and weather.
Social & Emotional Weather Clothesline Have children focus on transitions using this activity about changing clothes for changing weather. • Hang a clothesline low enough for children to reach. Have plenty of clothespins available. • Invite children to cut out pictures of clothing from catalogs and magazines for different kinds of weather. Sort the clothing into piles. • Throughout the week, invite children to change the clothes on the clothesline to match a new type of weather. You can assign the job of “weather caller.” That child can decide if the weather should be snowy, hot, cool, windy, etc. • Ask children to share how they change their own clothes as the weather changes. Classroom Interactions Using Transition Times Developing routines for transitions can calm uneasy children and also enhance your curriculum. • Call children up one at time and say something positive about each child. • Reinforce categorizing and sorting as children line up. Ask children to line up if they are wearing red (or have a sibling, or like cats, etc.). • Tie transitions to your curriculum theme. (For transportation, ask children who rode a bus to school/walked/drove to line up in groups.) • Incorporate songs. For example, If you’re wearing blue and you know it, come to the rug. • Invite children to use motions and patterns as they move to their new task. For example, Clap three times as you come to the rug.
Music & Movement Fingerplay Invite children to join in on this fingerplay about an umbrella. Then ask children what else they wear or use to protect themselves from different kinds of weather.
Under My Umbrella Under my umbrella, I am dry. (Cup hand above index finger.) When it’s raining—my oh my. (Fingers wiggle like rain coming down.) I wait until the raindrops stop. (Clap hands together on the word stop. )
Now no umbrella on my top! (Just hold up an index finger.)
Language & Literacy Alphabet Knowledge: Letters and Sounds As you share the Big Book Caps, Hats, Socks, and Mittens, build children’s alphabet knowledge by helping them learn to name the letters of the alphabet and recognize the letter symbols. Draw children’s attention to the word winter and the /w/ sound we make when we say this word. Have children repeat winter after you. Continue reading and point to the word winter and say, Winter begins with the letter w . As you continue reading and come to the word wet , point to the w in wet and say, Wet begins with the letter w , too. It begins with the /w/ sound. Have children repeat the /w/ sound in the beginning of wet. Focus on initial letters and repeat the exercise with repetitive or alliterative words throughout the book— hats, caps, summer, mittens, fall, red , mud, and so on.
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