Putting the Pretty In Preschool
Finding Beauty In Everyday Early Childhood Experiences
This shiny spooky hands craft is effortless to do and uses easy to gather materials. The supplies for this project can be found at your local grocery and dollar stores.
white corn syrup
orange, green, and purple food coloring
paint containers and brushes
spoons
spider-themed fake nails
skull-themed fake nails
polka dot fake nails
Q-Tips
spider gems
sturdy white paper
black permanent felt pen
scissors
This Charlotte’s Web Book Theme is based on the best-selling children’s chapter book by E. B. White. The story centers around a pig named Wilbur, a spider named Charlotte, two farm families, and other colorful barnyard animals. The latter part of the story celebrates the sights, sounds, and excitement of a country fair.
For a summary of the book, click here:
E. B. White is quoted as saying that he wrote Charlotte’s Web for children, and for his own enjoyment. But I thoroughly relished rereading the tale through an adult lens.
World Book Day is held every year on the first Thursday in March. It is a celebration of authors, illustrators, and books. And it is most of all a celebration of reading.
The impact of the picture book “Just Itzy” spanning my preschool storytime, a teacher aide’s home, and three children and their classrooms makes the story worthy of a shout out for World Book Day.
“Just Itzy” is written by Lana Krumwiede and illustrated by Greg Pizzoli. This story was one of the many books about spiders I chose last Fall in gathering resources for a Spider theme. It is an entertaining read about a spider named Itzy Bitzy and his first day of school. In the story, Itzy wants to catch his lunch instead of taking a lunch box that had been packed for him. In learning to make a spider web to trap food he becomes part of the nursery rhymes “Little Miss Muffet”, “There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly”, and “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” By the end of the tale, Itzy builds a successful spider web AND rescues his big brother Gutzy who had been teasing him about his “smallness.”
My class enjoyed the story. The teacher aide liked “Just Itzy” so much she borrowed the book from a library for her three children. After numerous readings at home, the story was further enjoyed at her children’s school:
The teacher aide said that for weeks afterward, their family would add humor to their day by chanting “Keep your eye on the fly,” a saying Itzy’s “spindergarten” teacher taught the class about never giving up.
