Hands off My Honey!

This spring one of my college courses was about teaching emerging literacy to preschoolers

As part of this class we had to design and present to a preschool class two lesson plans.

My first one was about retelling a story

I used the book

There Was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly.

(I blogged about this activity last month).

My second lesson plan was on listening (skills).

I chose the book Hands off My Honey!

by Jane Chapman.  Illustrated by Tim Warnes.

Hands off My Honey! is a fun book.

Bear has a giant jar of honey and he is NOT going to share it.

The hare brothers, mole, and mouse all plan a sneak attack to steal some honey.

While the mouse and rabbits are able to stay quiet, the mole keeps tripping and talking.

Bear catches them and while he is distracted by the mole,

the mouse steals some of the honey.

Oh No!

Does the bear get angry?

What does he do to the other animals?

Hmmmm, guess you'll have to read the book

and find out for yourself.  ;)

I read the book to the children and then we played a fun game.

I gathered the children in a big circle and chose one child to represent the bear.

The "bear" pretended to sleep while the children chanted the following...

"Isn't it funny 

how bears like honey,

buzz, buzz, buzz

I wonder why he does.

Go to sleep Mr. Bear

don't peep Mr. Bear."

While the "bear" is sleeping,

one of the children must sneak up and steal his "honey pot"

To make the"honey pot", I used a small coffee can.

I wrapped it with yellow construction paper

and wrote "honey" on it.

Then I placed a bunch of jingle bells inside the can.

After the child steals the honey pot,

they must shake it behind their back to make a noise.

All the children hide their hands behind their backs

and say

"Wake up Mr. Bear

someone stole your honey."

And the "bear" must remember where he heard the sound and find the jar of honey.

I really enjoyed this activity and I think the preschoolers that I worked with did as well.

Each child got to take a turn being the bear and hiding the honey.

They wanted to keep playing the game, because they had so much fun with it.

*Disclosure: I received a copy of the book Hands off My Honey from Tiger Tales for review purposes only.  The opinions herein are my own and were not influenced in any way.

**I got the idea for this activity from another blog (which I can't remember right now - sorry!), but the book I chose to go with it was my choice.

jelly bean art

Nathan and I read the book

Jack and the Jelly Bean Stalk
over Easter break.
(and yes, I'm just now blogging about it).

It's a sweet (literally) version of the original story about Jack and the Bean Stalk.

not everyone loves jelly beans...so what's a kid to do when someone gives them a bag of jelly beans?

they make a beautiful art mosaic.

just to be clear, Nathan does love jelly beans, but we used some for this super cute fish.

The book was written by Rachael Mortimer

and illustrated by Liz Pichon.

It follows the tale of the original Jack and the Bean Stalk, but it has a fun twist.

Instead of magic beans, this story has magic jelly beans.

The jelly beans have many delicious flavors (except for the smelly old sock one - blah).

apple

pear

mint

sherbet

chocolate chip

apple pie

cotton candy

popcorn

chocolate pudding

french fries

Jack's mother is angry when she finds out that he sold their cow for the beans 

and she throws them out the window.

In the morning, Jack discovers the beans grew.

As he tasted the different flavors, he climbed the stalk.

At the top he meets a goose and eventually a giant.

Jack saves the goose from being dinner, by offering the giant some jelly beans

But the goose was hungry too and he stole some of the giant's beans

this made the giant very angry and he chased Jack and the goose down the stalk.

And of course the stalk broke under the weight of the giant.

Jack, his mother and the goose lived happily ever after

dining on yummy jelly beans.

Like I said, a sweet version of an old tale.

*Disclosure: I received a copy of Jack and the Jelly Bean Stalk from Tiger Tales Books for review purposes only.  The opinions herein are my own and were not influenced in any way.