Little peas all around the classroom | Virtual Book Club for Kids

The bloggers of the Virtual Book Club are celebrating the works of Amy Krouse Rosenthal this month and so my class has been busy reading up on a few of the beautifully illustrated books by Amy Krouse Rosenthal…

The Amy Krouse Rosenthal book titled, “Little Pea” is about a little pea that loves to play and loves his family but the one thing little pea doesn’t love is having to eat candy for dinner…

But much to his dismay, little pea must eat his dinner before he can have desert – a yummy bowl of spinach!  This book is so simple and yet offers many different concepts that are fun and easy to expand on in the classroom…

After reading “Little Pea,” I gave each child a “Little Pea” of their own to take home as their story book token.  I made the little peas out of green play dough, added eyes and a mouth, and let them dry until they were hard.  I was kind of in a hurry to get them to dry out so I put them in the microwave for about a minute to dry them out quicker. But you have to be careful if you do this because the play dough burns easily….

To expand on our “Little Pea” story, we prepared a number of centers for the children to explore. I don’t normally share so much in one post but I thought I would keep all the pieces of this day together – well most of the pieces anyway.

Math

For math, the children made patterns with pieces of candy (remember, little peas don’t like candy for dinner!) …

We set out little jars with different colors of wrapped candy in each jar.  Each child selected two different colors of candy to make their candy patterns with…

And of course, at the end of the day, the children got to select one piece of candy to take home…

Discovery Table

In our outdoor classroom, the children explored sugar peas and snap peas…

To explore the peas, we set out scales, scissors, tweezers and magnifying glasses and cups…

The children used the tools to open up the pea pods so they could take a closer look…

The children used their fine motor skills to dig out the peas with tweezers and as they worked, our entire outdoor classroom smelled like pea pods…

And the children added pea pods to the scales to see if they could make the dial on the scales go up and down.  We used this time to talk about how the scales work and what the numbers on the scales mean…

Little Pea Art

In art, the children used green play dough to make their own little peas. Making little peas is great fine motor work for small hands…

And after each child had a set of peas all ready to go, we set them aside to dry and harden so the children could add them to their  pea pods (green paper plates) the next day…

The children made pea pods by painting a paper plate green. It also had to dry overnight. After the paper plates dried, we folded them over and stapled the corners of the plates to make them look like little pea pods….

I did not get a photo of the completed pea pods and peas before they went home – but you can see what a completed pea pod looks like by clicking on this post here (only we made ours just slightly different)…

Large Motor

In the book, little pea likes to play hop scotch, among other games, so we made our own indoor hopscotch carpet game for the children to play…

And we made little pea rocks for the children to toss on the hopscotch board…

The children toss the little pea rock onto the hopscotch board and which ever square the rock lands in, the children are not supposed to jump in that square.  Some of the children used the rocks but most preferred to play the game without the rocks. It was quite challenging for the children to hop from square-to-square but they loved the challenge…

Waterplay

And in our outdoor classroom, the children explored pea green water and spray nozzles in the water table….

And we added green water beads for the children to explore in the water table as well…

And used little green peas made out of foam for target practice on the window easel…

Fine Motor

And finally, in our indoor classroom the children used spoons to spoon frozen peas into our measuring cups to weigh on our balance scales….

That about sums up all of our little pea activities and yes, it was messy and busy but that’s pretty much an average day around here…

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Up and coming authors that will be shared in the Virtual Book Club include the following…

  • November 19th- Tomie de Paola
  • December 17th- Jan Brett
  • January 21st-David McPhail
  • February 18th-Dr. Seuss
  • March 18th-Julia Donaldson
  • April 15th-David Shannon
  • May 20th-Leo Lionni
  • June 17th-Gail Gibbons
  • July 15th- Jez Alborough
  • August 19th-Donald Crews

VirtualBookClub

To see more ideas from the other participating Virtual Book Club just check out the linky below! Remember, if you are viewing this post by email or in a RSS Reader, you may need to click on the title of this post to view the linky from the blog post…

Participating Bloggers

Toddler ApprovedMom to 2 Posh Lil DivasRainy Day MumReading ConfettiInspiration LaboratoriesPlay Dr. MomMommy and Me Book ClubKitchen Counter ChroniclesTwo Big Two LittleCreative Connections for KidsThe Golden GleamJuggling with KidsTaming the GoblinCrafty Moms ShareReady Set Read 2 MeFamiglia and SeoulThe Good Long RoadThe Educator’s Spin On ItImagination Soup3 DinosaursRoyal BalooBeing A ConsciousParentNo Twiddle TwaddleCrayon FrecklesThe Pleasantest ThingAdventures in Reading with KidsSmile, Play, LearnCreekside LearningOur Feminist Playschool, and Teach Preschool!

Amy Krouse Rosenthal Virtual Book Club Linky

There are a few rules for this blog hop that we ask you to follow, so make sure to read them:
  1. Link up only posts inspired by Lois Ehlert that share children’s book inspired crafts, activities, recipes, etc. Any other posts will be deleted.
  2. Visit other blog posts on the linky and comment on or share the ones you love!
  3. Add our Virtual Book Club button to your post if you’d like.

Deborah J Stewart

Deborah J Stewart

Every time I think I know everything I need to know about teaching young children, God says, "Hold on a minute!" and gives me a new challenge.

Let me tell ya...

With each new challenge that you overcome, you will find yourself better equipped and more passionate about teaching young children.

God didn't call wimps to lead, teach, or care for His children. Nope, he has high expectations, so get ready. You will have to give your very best but after teaching for over 30 years, I can tell you that it is a wonderful and rewarding journey.

Whenever your calling feels hard, just remember, 'He who began a good work in you (and in the children you serve) will be faithful to complete it.'

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