In this story, that blue cat (who shall remain nameless - I'm not planning on violating any copyrights today) wears his favorite shirt and the buttons pop off one by one. In my groups, I first read the story, pausing on each page for the kids to notice where the cat was and what he was doing. I'm ALWAYS targeting wh- questions in my sessions! After we read the story, we listened to the song. (I keep the song in a folder in my Dropbox, open the Dropbox app and play!).
Next, for many of my students, we worked on following directions using buttons and felt pieces of clothing. I quickly drew the pants, shirt, shoes and skirt (for the girls in my groups) on felt and cut them out. Then I grabbed some buttons I had hanging around:
The kids followed directions that varied in complexity based on their current abilities. Examples:
- Find a blue button.
- Touch the skirt.
- Get a large yellow button and put it on the pants.
- Find a square green button and put it on the skirt.
For the articulation groups, we used this patterning page from 3 Dinosaurs (see link below). The kids said their word x number of times and rolled a die. They got to color buttons based on the number on the die. Whoever finished coloring their buttons first was the winner!
Some of my other groups used "Button Bonanza" from Teach Speech 365 (here's the direct TPT link). This activity targets following 1, 2, and 3-step directions.
Here are some resources for you:
- 3 Dinosaurs - huge printable packet (including the patterning sheets I used for the articulation activity)
- Fun for First - lots of nice activities/worksheets with a focus on adjectives
- Making Learning Fun - story props, worksheets, magnet pages, etc.
- Creating and Teaching - activity cards
- Mrs. Miner's Kindergarten Monkey Business - Base ten, common core aligned math activity.
I've got to say, my kids are loving these books and activities! Do your kids love these books/songs as well? Which one is their favorite?
