Miss Mary Mack hand clapping Game

I presented The Magic of Handclapping Games with Loretta Jackson yesterday at the Early Learning in the Valley Conference yesterday. We played some handclapping games and here is a video of the game being being played to remind participants of the actions. :-)

Lyrics for Handclapping Games

I am presenting on the Magic of Handclapping Games at the UFV.  It is the Early Learning in the Valley conference.

Here are the words to two of the handclapping games we will be using as part of the presentation. You can find videos on youtube showing how to play the games.

Miss Mary Mack.

Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack

All dressed in  black, black, black.

With silver buttons, buttons, buttons.

All down her back, back, back.

She asked her mother, mother, mother.

For fifty cents, cents, cents.

To see an elephant, elephant, elephant.

Jump over a fence, fence, fence.

It jumped so high, high, high.

It touched the sky, sky, sky.

And he didn’t come back, back, back.

Till the fourth of July ly ly ly.

A Sailor Went to Sea

A sailor went to sea sea sea

To see what he could see see see

But all that he could see see see

Was the bottom of the deep blue sea sea sea

A sailor went to China

To see what he could China

But all that he could China

Was the bottom of the deep blue China.

A sailor went to chop chop chop

To see what he could chop chop chop

But all that he could chop chop chop

Was the bottom of the deep blue chop chop chop

A sailor went to skee bop a doo

To see what he could skee bop a doo

But all that he could skee bop a doo

Was the bottom of the deep blue skee bop a doo

A sailor went to sea sea sea

To see what he could China

But all that he could chop chop chop

Was the bottom of the deep blue skee bop a doo.

Red Leaves Falling Down, A Song, Fall Activities and Books

This is a great action song to do at this time of the year.



September and the Fall are such a beautiful time of the year and children get so excited as they discover beautiful leaves on the ground.
Leaves are great to use on a Nature Table and for science of course. Then there are the Art opportunities they provide, leaf prints and rubbings. Also they are great for math activities, for sorting and discussions on size etc.

Sorting leaves using different attributes, creating their own rules. There are even some cones and a stone, each in its own group or set.

 Here the children proudly share their sorting efforts.

We see the sorting clearly here.

Fall is a great time to take your students outside and discover what nature is doing. We discovered these mushrooms in one visit to our forest playground that is alongside our regular playground.

There are some great books for kids on the fall theme too. Here are just a few you can check out.

          
          

She'll Be Coming 'Round The Mountain, kids song by Pamela Sunshine

I had nearly forgotten about this fun song, the kids just love the actions. We did it the other day. So much fun. There are lots of other great songs on my youtube channel, PamelaSunshineTV. 
You can subscribe to it for updates on new songs etc.

Primary Crafts for Valentines Day or Friendship Theme

It takes a while for me to get my pictures uploaded. Report cards and trips to the aquarium, teaching life, get in the way of the blog. I hope you like some of these ideas and it is nice to know they can be applied to the theme of friendship.
We made the hats as part of our Valentine's Day celebration and created the banners a few days before so our classroom looked festive.
I cut many different sized hearts ahead of time and showed the students how to cut smaller hearts out of the middle of a bigger heart. They enjoyed cutting out their own hearts as well.
I hope you have some fun with your students with these ideas.

We made hats for our Valentines Party

We made these Valentine Banners to hang up in our room. Lots of cutting and sticking.

Close up of a hat, each one was different, according to the imagination of the child.

Some chose to add some writing. This one translates as, 'I Love everyone'

Multi Media Snowmen using Paint, Paper, Fabric and More.

As part of our celebration of winter we made some snowmen. We started by painting the bodies, and the snow covered ground.  The next day we added paper eyes and buttons, I have used real buttons in the past.  Then cut out scarves and hats using fabric sample books.  Some children chose to add orange carrot noses, one student a cup of coffee, some added glasses and headphones, it was up to each student to create their snowman's personality. They love saying, "we can do whatever we want because it is Art!" I celebrate this sense of personal power over their creation. 

I hope you enjoy these snow characters and get a sense of the fun we had making them.

A

Where The Wild Things Are Art Ideas

We read Maurice Sendak's popular story, Where the Wild Things Are and got some great inspiration for doing art and writing. I will share our writing activities in another post.

I got this great art idea from IncredibleArt.org
Submitted by Jeryl Hollingsworth of La France Elementary, La France, SC it was the perfect way to explore texture and discuss the illustrations found in "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak.
Here are some pictures of what we created. I modeled drawing a wild thing on the board, and we discussed the features, and how to create texture etc.
Then they used crayon as suggested and did a paint wash over the wild thing. I added black outlines with a felt and then they cut out their wild thing. The next step was to create the background and they used pastels and paint for this.
Then we stuck the wild thing onto the background and displayed them.

We also are working on a big wall frieze. We still have some trees to add onto our big wall picture, but this will give you an idea how things are progressing. Here is a video of some of the children painting.

Carefully cutting out a wild thing.

 

Our Big Wall Wild Things Display