PeeWees: Corduroy (week 2)

[from PeeWee mom Julia...]

Arrival:  So, last week we did a lot with buttons. We started the day with three activities: button tosses into a bowl, button stacks, and button sorting. The button toss was the same as the week before but I actually made them stand back a little bit. It wasn't easy for them and they learned that the smaller buttons were more likely to stay in the bowl than the bigger ones that tended to bounce out.

The button stacks were fun and challenging: they had to stack as many buttons on top of each other as they could. They stuck with this for longer than I'd thought-- they were actually willing to try several different times. Then they began to build with certain colors. Bodie wanted black, Jackson had green, Poppy had pink, and Henry had white.

When they got tired of this we started sorting buttons. I originally had three bowls to sort the buttons into: small, medium, and large. But the medium bowl was a little confusing so we stuck to small and large. Everyone took part in this one but Bodie was primarily a fan of big buttons and Poppy collected lots of small ones. So, so interesting to watch their personalities come out.

Circle Time: After our welcome song, ABC's with jumping jacks, and counting buttons, I had them tell me what they remembered about the book. Everyone remembered how Corduroy went looking for his button but no one remembered the ending. We re-read the book and then acted it out with our bears and flashlights. 

Snack: teddy grahams and button-sliced bananas.

Art:  I helped them each glue a heart of their choice (I had all different sizes) on a piece of cardstock and then they all glued their own buttons all over. They applied the glue with a q-tip and put each button on themselves. Poppy was not done until ALL of her buttons were glued. The boys' attention lasted not quite as long but each of them glued a good number of buttons on their valentines for their moms. I was impressed! As they finished, I helped them choose some of their favorite buttons to make magnets that took forever to dry but were really cute in assembly.

Activities:  Then we played two games. One was on their own-- they tried to swing the buttons into their cups that they brought home. This was much harder for them than I realized it was going to be. Bodie and Poppy both did it by accident. Getting the swinging motion controlled enough to land the button in the cup was pretty tricky! However, no one got frustrated and no one got hit in the eye by a flying button-on-a-string so I counted it as successful.

Our second game was "Hide the Button." With "Who's Got the Button" not being overly successful last week, we tried this one. I hid the button first and tried to explain about "hot and cold" as they got closer and further away while they were looking. The hot and cold idea was over their heads so then I resorted to "closer" and "farther" which definitely worked better. After the first few rounds they began to get the hang of it more and more. Each of them found it at least once and each of them got to hide it at least once. The hiders had a hard time keeping the button's location a secret which was at times hilarious but by the end they'd gotten the idea.

We finished up with a re-cap of the story and another bear hunt and headed out for the trampoline. In spite of rather inclement weather the trampoline is what they really look forward to at my house. They are so cute and such great kids. Thanks for lending them for the morning!