Today we started our study of the letter “P”. We had a fun morning. Here are some of the highlights.
We started our morning by reading Small Pig by Arnold Lobel. This book was one of my favorites when I was a girl probably due to the fact that my father was a hog farmer. The small pig doesn’t like to be clean and runs away from home after the farmer’s wife gives him a bath. (I don’t remember my mom giving our pigs a bath.) He searches high and low for a new mud puddle, but doesn’t find what he is looking for. In the end he gets to go back home and there is a new mud puddle waiting for him. I think my favorite part of this book is when the pig gets stuck in cement thinking it was mud. We also read the book Pig Pig Gets a Job
.
After our stories we sang this fun pig song that No Time for Flashcards posted. The children enjoyed it so much we sang it three times.
Squishy , Squashy felt so good,
The farmer took one pig out,
Oink oink oink, the pig did shout!
Squishy , Squashy felt so good,
The farmer took one pig out,
Oink oink oink, the pig did shout!
Squishy , Squashy felt so good,
The farmer took the one pig out,
Oink oink oink, the pig did shout!
They all looked so clean and good,
The farmer turned his back and then,
All the little pigs rolled in the mug again!
Next, we made these pink paper plate pigs (Say that 3 times fast.). I squirted some pink paint onto a small paper plate and let the children use a paintbrush to cover it. They also painted the inside of a clear water bottle cap. Once those were dry they taped 2 pink construction paper ears and curly tail to the back of the plate. Then they glued on wiggly eyes and drew a mouth. I used hot glue to attach the lid to the plate to act as a snout and drew two nostrils with a black permanent marker. I think they turned out cute, but this pig doesn’t seem to like the term cute. He seems to be rolling his eyes at me. 🙂
We also made pianos out of the letter “P” by using the tutorial at No Time for Flashcards as a guide.
I cut all of the pieces beforehand which made this project much easier. The stick part of the “P” is a white piece of paper and the rest of the “P” was cut from pink paper. I decided not to draw lines for the keys because it would have been too much work with so many to make. I opted to just have the children glue small black pieces of paper on the white strip. I think it looks enough like a piano keyboard that the children will remember that “P” is for piano.
I also set out all of my puppets for the children to use during our free play time. They used a large play silk to make a curtain for the puppet shows they performed. A few years ago I made my own children a doorway puppet theater. Children seem to enjoy using puppets no matter what they hide behind. Fun!
