The children’s book “Press Here” by Herve’ Tullet is always a favorite in our classroom and I love it because there are just so many ways we can expand the book all throughout the classroom…
“Press Here” by Herve’ Tullet is an interactive picture book about dots. The children are invited to interact with each page of the book by either pressing a dot, blowing on a set of dots, or some other type action. As the children take a new action and turn the page, something happens to the dots. It’s a very cool read-aloud experience…
There are so many different ways one can expand on this book throughout the classroom so we explored lots of different processes including making dots of clay…
To make our dots of clay, the children first had to practice the skill of rolling up a square of clay between their two hands to form a small ball. Making small balls of clay is no easy task for young children but soon they figure out the right amount of pressure, rolling, and shaping to make their balls of clay…
After all the rolling, the ball of clay is then placed on top of their yellow dot (like the dot in our book) and the children then pressed down on their ball to make a clay dot…
The clay I brought in for the children to use was purchased at Hobby Lobby and is a very soft moldable clay for kids that comes in small rectangles of bright colors. I cut the clay into squares in advance so the children could keep their focus on making the small clay balls for today…
Our press here boards are laminated so the clay wouldn’t permanently stick to the boards. My goal was to let their clay dots dry out so we could use the dots for other games later. Well, the dots never did dry up…
I couldn’t figure out how to fix that either so eventually, the children just played with the clay again and mixed it all up together. Oh well, we still enjoyed the process of creating with clay and talking more about one of our favorite class books!
Links to Grow On…
Let your students press here! by Teach Preschool
Interactive Books for Children by Pre-K Pages
Press Here Movement Game by Home Grown Friends
Magnetic Sensory Bottle by  Preschool Inspirations