We read Jan Brett's The Three Snow Bears book...
I printed out color pictures for flash cards of the animals in the story and then described them (their appearance, what they eat, etc) and she picked out which animal I was describing (always her favorite part!).
We also watched How to Draw a Siberian Husky Dog on the Jan Brett website, which we worked on together, and then Taylor painted. 
We read another really sweet book today... Far North in the Arctic (Counting Alaska's Mammals) by C. Hansen, and then Taylor painted a beautiful Arctic scene with her watercolors.
So many fun things to learn! The opportunities are just endless!
Looks like fun! I love what you are doing with the artwork. Jan Brett books are great to work with aren't they?
ReplyDeleteLet me share an example of how you might build on your existing units for next year: You could use the Three Snow Bears and find two other very different versions of the three bears and teach Taylor how to compare and contrast the literature. You can write your own version, choosing a new setting for another kind of bears and filling in all the details. This could even be part of a habitat study where you look at different places all month, or a bear study where you look at different bears. This works well as a group-write in kindergarten.
You can do the same thing with your Mitten unit. This year teach The Mitten and next year add The Umbrella (the rain forest version of The Mitten). This can be part of an author study, since both books are by Jan Brett, or you can teach it during a rain forest unit as another chance to compare and contrast literature. Jan Brett's website includes a lot of information about how she got her ideas for The Umbrella. This might inspire Taylor to create a new story using the mitten concept.
Such great ideas!!!! You're the best!
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