There Was an Old Lady...

She Swallowed a What?

The munchkins had a great time with this quick little unit about the crazy old lady that swallowed...

Well...

Everything!

We read so many fun versions of the story, from swallowing a "fly", to swallowing a "pie" and even some "leaves"!  We even had one that had her seeing a ghost.  It was a great way to compare and contrast.  The munchkins did a great job deciding how each story was the same or how they were different. 

Probably the most fun, though, was creating a lapbook full of fun games to take home and share with everyone. 

Along with making our fantastic lapbook, we filled our time with all sorts of interesting activities...

Whether reading from the many pocket chart poems about the old lady...

Or helping each other retell the story with our fun old lady puppet (who actually "ate" the character pieces!)...

Or even sequencing the words of the story in our own mini-pocket chart activity...



The munchkins had a blast.

But that wasn't all we did!

Some of the munchkins really enjoyed the little story about the old lady who swallowed all the numbers!!  This was a great way to practice forming each number correctly as well as learning to read and recognize number words.

So some munchkins played our number matching game...

And still others enjoyed learning all about how to eat healthy (unlike that crazy old lady!)...

And still others simply had fun finding a hidden place in the room to play with all the great games in their lapbooks.



But to top things off, we couldn't resist tyring to swallow a spider ourselves!

Of course, they go down much easier when they are made of pretzels and oreos!

I wonder where a spider belongs on the food pyramid?

Until next time...

Giggles,

Mrs. D.

There Was an Old Lady

There Was an Old Lady

Who Swallowed a Fly!

We took a few weeks right before Thanksgiving for this fun book, as well as some interesting variations of it.  It was a great way to practice some new sight words, compare and contrast story structure, characters and settings, and it gave us a chance to talk about nutrition, too!

We began with our ever handy and trusted pocket chart, as we learned the sequence of the story, sight words from the story and matched unknown animals words with the correct character pieces.  The chart was a fun way to retell the story, too and our Old Lady puppet (which actually could "swallow" the animals) was a big hit.  The munchkins made their own little puppet for retelling the story as well.  She could "swallow" pieces, too!

We collected all of our fun activities in a little file folder lapbook. The munchkins had a great time playing with the lapbook out in their spare time.  It was filled with story pieces, sight word games, rhyme matching games and number word recognition practice.  It was fun to see them spread out at the tables or on the floor and play!

The munchkins had fun creating the outside of the lapbook almost as much as creating all the fun games inside!  They each colored the little Old Lady and gave her a speech bubble.  What do you think that little Old Lady would say after swallowing all those crazy critters?

"Oh my, the cow's horn hurt me!"

"I feel sick!"

Very creative little writers we have in our class!

We finished up this story by changing it a bit. The munchkins created their own version.  Such fun!  We had that little Old Lady swallowing all sorts of things:  trucks, stop signs, hats, giraffes, coats.  Oh, my!

And of course, we can't get through any story without a recipe day!  We decided it would be fun to make the "spider that wiggled and wriggled and jiggled inside her".

There was a "young" lady who swallowed a spider!

After having so much fun with this story, the munchkins couldn't wait to read the next one:  I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie.  What a crazy Thanksgiving story that one was!  It was a great opportunity for us to start discussing Thanksgiving traditions & healthy eating and it was a fun way to compare two stories with the same (yet very different) story structure.

The munchkins helped fill out a large classroom Venn Diagram, then they used the information from that chart to create their own small Venn Diagram.  They did a fantastic job!

After reading about all this crazy eating, we decided we should discuss what healthy eating looks like.  We played several games to help us learn about the food pyramid and the basic types of foods our bodies need to stay healthy.  The munchkins even had a tasting day to see what kinds of foods they like best.  It made a great journal entry too (and a great lesson in what makes the /oo/ sound in the word "food"!)

We were sad to see the little Old Lady go, but with only one more full week until Thanksgiving, we are excited to think about what we may be doing next!  I think I hear some "gobbling", don't you?

Until next time,

Giggles,

Mrs. D