PeeWees: Grumpy Bird (week 1)

For my second teaching round, I chose Grumpy Bird, mostly because I just love that book.  And I can relate, personally, and as a mom, to Bird.  Grumpy is a frequent state of mind for some of us.  And distraction is the best medicine.


Grumpy Bird by Jeremy Tankard


Concepts: animals - bird/rabbit/sheep/raccoon/fox, morning/evening, wake up, birds, bird nest/animal homes, what animals eat, friends, follow the leader, grumpy/cheer up, feelings, walking/jumping/flying, greetings, exercise, stand on one leg, farm, forest, "Fun", sun & stars

Related/Support Books: Boo Hoo Bird by Jeremy Tankard, The Way I Feel by Janan Cain

Arrival - Magnetic letters and metal cookie sheets to play with.  I was curious if the kids would like playing with letters, since they all know some letters.  They stayed interested for a long time, shouting out letter names when they found one they knew.

Hazel and Ginger were home because their school had no power from Hurricane Sandy.

Circle Time - We did our alphabet singing from a complete magnetic alphabet I had Hazel and Ginger make for us while we were singing the welcome song.  For counting, I had a selection of 12 stuffed birds that we looked at, passed around, named, and eventually counted.  

 Then I laid out gummy worms on a cookie sheet and we counted those, too, then had the birds pretend to eat them, then gave some to the kids to eat.  Gummy worms were definitely the hit of the day.  I taught the song "In the Leafy Treetops" with hand motions and we sung it several times.  Then we read Grumpy Bird, mostly talking about the story and the animals.  

Snack - "Dirty Worms" - classic!  Pudding, crumbs, gummy worms.  Plus some chocolate mushrooms from World Market.  Because we can.  Everyone had chocolate beards after.

Art - Painting birdhouses.  They each chose their color, and their bird.  I loved the concentration they devoted to this project.  The birdhouses were $1/each at JoAnn.

My sample

Right before leaving, when the birdhouses were mostly dry, I hot glued a bird on each.  These birds were not easy to find this time of year; I had to order them on Etsy.

Activity 1 - Color matching.  I had colored papers taped to the wall, and photocopies of the animals from the book.  The kids took turns choosing an animal and trying to remember what color it was in the book, and sticking it to that color paper.  Multi-step memory/cognitive task.  They got most of them wrong, but we went back through the book and corrected them.

Activity 2 - Freeze Dance.  I played some "bird songs" and paused while they all played freeze dance.  [Bird songs: "Rockin' Robin", "Two Little Blackbirds" (from Music Together), "The Bird & The Worm" (Owl City), "Three Little Birds" (Bob Marley), "Blackbird" (The Beatles)]

Closing - Read the book again, focusing on what "grumpy" means and how the bird cheered up.  After the "So Long" song we practiced "In the Leafy Treetops" a few more times and played a few rounds of Follow the Leader, like the animals follow the bird and do what he does.