Inspired by Frederick

Story time is one of my favorite times at preschool and as often as possible I like to connect the activities of the day to the story. I love to get inspired by books and love when the ideas just come to me spontaneously. Last Thursday was one of those days. We read Frederick by Leo Leoni and let the characters inspire us! Frederick is a poet. In the story, while his whole family of mice were working hard gathering the supplies for the winter, Frederick was sitting around. He said that he was also hard at work gathering sun rays, colors and words for the gray, cold winter. Once the winter came and the food supplies were out, the family asked Frederick for his supplies. He warmed up the room and made everyone happy by reminding them about sun and beautiful summery colors and by reciting his poems! 

In our classroom we took on roles of the mice from the story. We had a sorting math activity: a bowl full of grains and three small clear jars. We pretended to be the mice sorting the winter supply of corn, pasta, and lentils.

The second activity was an art activity: we used watercolors to create beautiful paintings and just like Frederick. We thought of beautiful colors of spring and summer as we were working.

 Here are children creating:

There is nothing better than classroom full of focused children at work! Pure joy!