We're Getting Ready to Rock!

The Sprout Scouts Playcamp is READY TO ROCK this week with our Rocks & Stones theme. Rocks are one of our favorite play themes here, and it certainly is a theme worth repeating. We will likely revisit some of our favorite rock themed activities and we'll be exploring some new ones as well. While Sprout Scouts Playcamp is nearing the end of its summer run, the nice thing about a rock theme (and just about any of our Summer themes for that matter) is that there is still much to explore well into the Fall and even year round.

I spent some time yesterday adding in some themed materials and activities into our play area. A few updates were made to our Ever-changing Book, a couple of our drawers stocked with a Rocks & Stones Observation Station and sensory play trays with kinetic sand and stones.

We have an amazing rock and mineral collection from my mom. Rather than setting out the whole collection at once, I stock the small baskets nightly with some interesting ones and the drawer also contains magnifying glasses, magnifying containers, a couple of rulers (S is very into measuring these days) and a prism scope. You could add in a scale if you have one, options for drawing and documentation or whatever else might be useful for observation.

The boys both loved singing and acting out this Stone Soup song. Don't forget to check out the short story stretcher activities we did last summer with the story of Stone Soup!

We happened to take a little day trip yesterday and stopped by a little gift shop on the road. Outside the shop as we had our picnic lunch, S noticed a beautifully painted rock left in front of some flower planters. What a find! While we have not actually painted and left our own Rocks for Kindness, we have been on the receiving end of a few and we happened to have one of our finds in the car still! We swapped out the rocks and made our way. S already has in mind that he'd like to paint some rocks of our own this week...



We will also be engaging in some great sensory play activities, both indoors and outside, a rock & mineral scavenger hunt, making our own rock n' roll band, smashing geodes, performing some rock science experiments and more!

We got out some of our favorite rock themed books from our own collection and some from the library. We explored rocks on the light table (such an incredible experience!) and had loads of fun in the first of our rock themed sensory bins, I-Spy Letter Rocks in Rainbow Rice. S took it upon himself to find everyone's special letter (the letter that begins our name) and Y got a kick out of holding his Y rock.

 There are so many great rock themed activities out there:

• Fantastic Fun & Learning has an amazing collection of 30 Playful Ways to Teach Young Children About Rocks, and don't forget to check out their list of Books About Rocks for Young Kids as well!
• Here are Four Ways to Use Stones in the Classroom [or your home] from Little Pine Learners, a great website for nature based learning and play.
• Check out the Preschool Rock Theme at Preschool Powol Packets!

Rocks are a fabulous theme on their own, but you can also integrate it with our Digging in the Dirt Theme or explore the vast history of fossils and rocks with our dinosaur themed activities.

We will be back with more rockin' play ideas later this week. Until then...

Rock on & happy playing!

Short Stretch: "Stone Soup" & Our Rockin' Round-Up

It's a Thursday afternoon as I write this post. We've had a fun and busy week here playing at home through the theme of our first summer Story Stretcher, Everybody Needs a Rock by Byrd Baylor. With nicer weather than expected, we've enjoyed some extra time outdoors and even at some local parks. Now it's time to start thinking about getting things done for Shabbos tomorrow evening and still make time to entertain the busy boys in this house. This is the perfect time to insert a short stretch story stretcher--and maybe even one that will recruit an extra set of hands in the kitchen as we get ready for Shabbos. Stone Soup by Marcia Brown is the perfect candidate for the job!
This is a classic, award-winning tale of three hungry soldiers returning from the wars, seeking a meal and place to rest. When the townspeople, who are afraid of strangers are a bit less than hospitable, the clever soldiers give them a recipe fit for royalty and a feast they will not soon forget! This book is a great compliment to our rock theme this week and can inspire some great play activities, too.

I introduced our book during breakfast in the morning, bringing it to the table to read with S and Y. While S is almost always up for reading together, this book is a bit lengthy and I felt the table would be an ideal setting to read it together before beginning our busy morning. He has loved learning some new vocabulary this week related to rocks--like pebble and stone. Language development happens so naturally through reading together! S automatically took to his kitchen set after breakfast for some Stone Soup themed dramatic play. He got out his pots and a spoon, grabbed a rock from our shelf and got busy!

The proof is in the pudding here--story stretchers don't always need to involve preparation or direction from adults. Children naturally expand upon literature through play! I was certain he would enjoy our afternoon plans just as much when I invited him to the kitchen with me to help make our Shabbos soup, Stone Soup style!

But with such beautiful weather outside, we took to the play garden first to make some Stone Soup in the water table. Adding some rocks, toy dishes, a ladle and bowls, maybe even some play food if you wish, can turn your outdoor water table into the perfect setting for making Stone Soup. If your weather is less than cooperative, water play is fun in the kitchen as well or even in the bathtub.

One of our favorite Shabbos songs to sing is this one, to the tune of "London Bridges" about making soup!

Shabbat Soup Song
Put the chicken in the pot (hold arms out in a circle, like a pot)
Stir it up, nice and hot (stir your "pot")
Get it ready for Shabbat,
For Shabbat!

Children can insert their own ideas for ingredients and it's particularly fun to include props like a pot and pretend food/pictures of foods to add or to include hand motions.

You can build letter recognition by making alphabet soup
in the tub, water table or a plastic bin!

In the real kitchen,S loves to help wash vegetables for soup.I set out the veggies I needed washed in a large bowl for S along with a few carefully selected stones for our stone soup. Even once the veggies were recruited to the pot, S continued to have fun washing his stones! He can also help with my assistance/supervision to peel and cut veggies for soup and add things to the pot. He is always eager to get his step stool even if to just be alongside me as I cook! Including little ones in the kitchen when you have to be there anyway is a great way to feel a bit less lonely in there and spend time together. It definitely takes a bit longer with more hands in this case, but I'd rather entertain those little hands in the kitchen than have to run out to keep them out of mischief every few minutes! Helping to cook the foods we eat also builds skills in math/measuring, science, reading, following recipes, fine motor skills like pouring, peeling, cutting, scooping and mixing--and sometimes means that the pickier eaters in the family will try what we're serving for dinner. The added bonus on this occasion was that I was able to get done what I had to get done while connecting it to our theme and spending a bit of time with my little campers!

We've had a great week stretching out the story Everybody Needs a Rock. As we move on to our next story stretcher theme, I think S will like to continue playing with some of the materials from this one. Rocks are a great summer theme to explore! Here are some of the other activities we especially enjoyed this week:

Rocks to pebbles, pebbles to sand, I hold a million tiny rocks inside my little hands! We had a lot of fun observing sand through magnifying glasses, burying and discovering little rocks and pebbles and playing! And then we had a lot of fun cleaning up...

Chalk is a rock!

Graphite works just like our pencils!

Building our names with letter rocks

Rock n'Roll Painting with red paint on the letter R

We rocked out to some great music while rolling the rock through the paint inside the shoe box!

S loved using rocks in his water table--with and without water!

For some more great reading on rocks, we really loved these books:

• Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
• A Rock is Lively by Diana Hutts Aston
• If Rocks Could Sing: A Discovered Alphabet by Leslie McGuirk
• Stone Soup by: Marcia Brown
• If You Find a Rock by Barbara Hirsch Lember and Peggy Christian

This little guy is a big lover of rocks!

We'll be back next week with our next Story Stretcher theme. Until then...

Happy Playing!

How To S-T-R-E-T-C-H Your Story Stretchers

I previously touched upon how to whip up a quick story stretcher (or even a longer one) when you're short on time in this post, but what if you want to stretch those activities across the span of a week or longer? Well, this is the post for you! Our play at home camp this summer is taking us beyond several of our favorite children's books with themes, authors and stories that my older son is particularly fond of. When you look at this blog, it may appear that we are engaged all day in play and learning activities and this is simply not true. Particularly during the summer, I like to move at a slower pace and make plenty of time for outdoor play and park visits, family time and free/independent play. Fall will be here before we know it and S will begin preschool. I'd love to continue story stretcher activities with him as a way to continue our play at home adventures and even connect the school to home gap, but I will follow his lead with this. For now, we are enjoying the summer swing of things and with some thoughtful planning, it's easy to stretch your own extension activities and themes across the span of several days, a week, or whatever feels right to you!

We kicked off our Story Stretchers Play at Home Camp by decorating a book bag!

Here are a few things to keep in mind:

You don't need to reinvent the wheel! I may post a variety of extension activities for each of our story stretcher themes, but I don't whip them all out on the same day. When it comes to more structured play and learning activities, I go with the flow. On days we have a lot of time, I can spend more time engaged in structured activity with my toddler--that is if he is interested in it! If he doesn't seem enthusiastic about a particular activity or is showing signs of wanting to do something else altogether, I go with it. I put away the activity and we try it again later. There is no reason to battle over something that is meant to be fun and to connect us. When I sense frustration or disconnect, it's definitely time to move on and try again later. On the other hand, if S wants to spend longer with an activity or repeat it, I do that, too! I prepare a selection of my activities in advance in such a way that I can have one (or a few) sessions of working on it with S and then he can access it and do it again on his own as desired. Repetition is the essence of learning and S loves to repeat favorite activities. I may present one or two novel activities on most days, but throughout the week we play more freely and revisit our favorites as desired. That more "structured" time is sometimes as short as half an hour or spread over a few chunks throughout the day.

On the first day of our Everybody Needs a Rock story stretcher week, I formally introduced and read the book and we painted a special box for a special rock. S chose a rock from our collection at home that he thought he wanted to keep inside...by the next day, he'd picked a different special rock! I have a feeling his little box will be home to many special rocks along the way...

He wanted to tuck his rock into bed. We found a little washcloth and used it for a blanket.

Let your little ones take the lead. As noted above, I try to follow my toddler's cues as much as possible. I also must balance my infant's needs and our other household obligations. Even during our "school year" I was careful not to push beyond S's interest or attention span. Particularly when it comes to story stretchers and reading together, I want S to have as much control and autonomy as possible. I'd rather put a book away or take a picture walk on a day he doesn't feel like hearing a story than have unpleasant experiences around reading together. Building an early love of literacy is a delicate process and while I do have a toddler who loves to be read to, not all children feel this way and no children feel this way all of the time. Additionally, when I prepare an activity to be done in one way, S often has his own ways of doing things. I reserve "no" for when I really need it. Imagine being told "no" by your boss or your spouse repeatedly again and again and again. You'd probably lose your interest in doing whatever task you were doing if not lose your cool altogether. When S decides to add materials to an activity or use the ones I've set out in a different way than I'd envisioned, unless it is truly unsafe or will be harmful to the materials, I allow it and even build on it with him.

On our second morning, I set out our invitation to draw on rocks with chalk. S loved it and wanted me to draw on the rocks as well. He asked me to draw a robot (one of his other favorite things right now) and then became quite attached to the robot rock. Since I knew the chalk would eventually rub off, I suggested we find a lighter colored rock and I could draw a robot with permanent marker for him. He came back with another rock and then I drew the robot...next he found some robot stickers and wanted to add one of those! I love that he felt inspired to take our chalk activity all the way to decorating his own pet robot rock and beyond!

The robot rock now has a happy home in his special rock box. 

So what about the story? If you read your target story on the first day, then what? Do you read it again? I often set out the target book on our little table for S to see so he will remember what we've been playing about. Sometimes he will ask to read it again. I also set out other theme related books. S will frequently bring one over to read or sometimes I will pull one out to show him. He's been particularly fond of a nonfiction book we checked out of the library called Can You Find These Rocks? by Carmen Bredeson and Lindsey Cousins. He was particularly excited to find that we actually had many of the rocks in the book now in our little museum collection, thanks to my mother's special donation!

We are having a rockin' time exploring rocks this week! I am following S's lead and we are moving at a comfortable pace. My hope for S (and for Y as well, as he grows) is that a love of literature will follow and inspire them into avid readers all in due time. That said, I am in no rush for them to read or reach particular academic milestones. I want them to carry with them a love of literature, a fond memory of our activities and time together, and maybe a few rocks in their pockets!

Wishing you all a comfortable pace of reading, learning and, of course, playing!

Welcome to Story Stretchers Camp! A Rockin' Kick-off Children's Book Extension

We are kicking off our summer Story Stretchers Camp here with one of my favorite books, Everybody Needs a Rock written by Byrd Baylor, illustrated by Peter Parnall. I've yet to find a child who does not love to pick up and collect rocks and in my family, I've yet to meet an adult who doesn't fit this profile either! In fact, many of my resources and ideas for this story stretcher came from my own mother, also a preschool educator (and avid rock collector) who taught an enrichment class last year she calls "Rock-It Science."

I don't have a "set method" for setting up and executing our story stretcher themes. While I am devoting a week to each target story I use this summer, I've mentioned before that story stretcher activities can be done in as little as 15-20 minutes or can be stretched across a whole week or unit. You could, for instance, do a rock theme over the course of several weeks and include more than one story with it or use the target book as a way to introduce the sub-theme of rocks. While each week at our Story Stretcher Camp will be set up a little differently, there are some main aspects I will aim to consistently include:

• My books are chosen based on interests and passions my toddler is currently exploring. If your children are particularly passionate about a topic, you may already have or know of books related to it. If not, doing a Pinterest search is a great way to start! For example, searching "children's books about robots" will pull up a variety of Pins with book suggestions, and, likely also activities. Alternatively, you can build your story stretchers off of your children's favorite books. I love brainstorming themes and activities related to some of S's favorite stories!
• We will begin each week by presenting our target story and reading it together. Every early reader is different. Some love to sit for story time, some do not. Many feel differently about being read to at different times. Here are some ways to creatively introduce your target story based on some different reading/listening styles:
• Introduce your book at the "right time." If your little one mainly likes being read to at bath time or bed time or during meal times, read the book then!
• Take a "picture walk" with longer text rather than reading word for word. In other words, show the pictures and use your own descriptive language to paraphrase a story.
• Ask questions, leave familiar text out for your little one to fill in the blank or even fill in a blank to a familiar story yourself with a silly word to engage and include your pre-reader. Use pictures to ask questions about how a character is feeling. Ask your little readers what they think a story will be about showing the title page or what they think will happen next at a cliff hanger. These are all great tools to build literacy skills and to keep your child's interest.
• Include props, puppets, stuffed animals, felt board or printed/laminated pictures when possible to add a hands-on/visual element to a book. This is particularly useful for tactile and visual learners who may be less auditory.
• If your library has more than one copy of a target book, you may wish to check out multiples--particularly if you have more than one reader at home! Being able to follow along in their own copy of the book can be quite appealing.
• Use audio or video versions of a book in lieu of reading it yourself and follow along with a hard copy if you wish.
• Using your finger to point to text on a page helps to connect the concept of words on a page creating the story even for pre-readers.
• Some weeks will include stories related to the target story and others will focus on only one target story with more play based activities related to it. Some weeks we will explore a particular theme through literature and some weeks we may explore a particular author through literature. 
• All of our story stretchers will include some or all of the following types of extension activities: dramatic play, sensory play, science, math, writing/language arts, music/movement and gross motor activities, outdoor play, related outings/field trips, arts & crafts, cooking, building and more!

And here's a peek in our playroom set up as we kick off our week of taking Everybody Needs a Rock beyond the book!

Our shelves are stocked with some theme related materials, including additional reading checked out from our local library, a copy of our target book, some rocks to observe and explore and a "few selections" (her words) from my mother's museum collection of interesting rocks and minerals. I will set out different activities in particular throughout the week and we will also be reading some other great rock-themed children's literature.

A magnifying glass and some non-fiction children's literature checked out from our local library make a great compliment to our target book and invite and encourage exploration.

If you'd like to join us in a rock themed unit or similar story stretcher, here are some materials you may wish to include:

• rocks, either found and collected or purchased from craft shops, aquarium shops and even dollar store floral/craft departments
• chalk
• pencils
• paper/notebooks
• recycled containers or a craft box to decorate (for a rock house)*
• a recycled shoe box or foil pan for "rock n' roll" painting*
• magnifying glasses
• paintbrushes, toothbrushes and/or scrub brushes for washing rocks*
• ice cube tray for sorting
• washable paint
• plastic bin, trays, or water table/sensory table for sensory play with rocks
• sand (either craft sand or play sand)
• large pictures of shapes to trace for rock shape trace (you can print from home and laminate if you wish)*

*more on these activities later...stay tuned!

I'm a BIG fan of using what you have, so please do not feel you need to go out and purchase all or any of these materials. I did spend a few bucks getting some fresh craft sand and some river rocks at the craft supply store this time, but all of our books for this unit are checked out from the library and everything else I already had at home. If there are activities you have the materials for, go ahead and do those!

S loves finding and collecting objects from nature, particularly interesting rocks and sticks. I leave a couple of "treasure jars" out front for him to store these materials as he finds them.

Here's a peek at some of the ones we have set up for this week. We will be back to post about some of our favorites. Until then, happy reading, story stretching and playing!

s

We're bringing out some of our favorite rock materials from the past year, like these Shabbos Story Rocks... 

...our letter rocks--particularly great for name building activities...

And this invitation to create a shape, now using rocks to trace with...

I previously printed and laminated these shape mats for use with a variety of materials, from rocks (and other loose parts), to playdough and even dry erase markers.

This invitation to draw with chalk on river rocks is a great art extension...

...and a wonderful theme related addition to our art shelf.

Rocks and Minerals are all around us--even in some of the every day materials we use and love. S will be fascinated to see and use chalk in its natural form...

...and graphite...

This cute little rock poem teaches about the cycle of rocks and is a great way to include some journaling to your theme and to accompany the below activity:

Observing sand...

...and investigating pebbles in sand...

And of course, a rock is most likely to be found outdoors. Our week will surely include many rock scavenger hunts and some sensory and water play in our (very muddy) water table!