The ZooMobile!

Today we had a special visit with some animals from the zoo!  The theme was "How Animals Move" and we listened to a book about animals and all the different ways they can move. The kids had such a great time learning about several different animals and getting to see a few up close and personal! They had a chance to touch a sea lion's fur and a cheetah's fur, as well as see an armadillo, a Polish chicken, a tarantula and a snake.  Below are some great pictures from the visit as well as a video of the kids moving like all the different animals from the book.  It was so fun, and we are so thankful to the Kansas City Zoo for offering us this great opportunity.

The Action Alphabet

One piece of our curriculum in Grain Valley is called Animated Literacy. This is something that the elementary schools use to teach letters and sounds, so we introduce parts of this curriculum in Early Childhood. In Animated Literacy, each letter is represented by a character and the sound that letter makes is represented by an action. For example, when we learned about letter A, we met "Actress Annie" who has a pet alligator and likes to add on her abacus.  So when we think about the sound A makes, we cross our arms to make an addition sign and say "A for add...a, a, a."  Each week we learn about a new letter and sound and add it to our "Action Alphabet" song. I wanted you to see the actions for each of the letters we have learned so far in case you see your preschooler doing any of these at home. This way you can help your child practice too.  Plus, it's pretty cute to see them singing. :)

Once we learn all of the letters and sounds, I will post another version so you have the complete song.