We Love Pete the Cat

We had a great week with LOTS of Pete the Cat fun.  After reading Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes, we made shoes (in our favorite colors) that were inspired by those made by Sandi from Rubberboots and Elf Shoes and April at Chalk Talk.  Do I love those two teachers? Goodness Yes!

The next thing we did was learn to read! :)  The kids were so excited when I told them that they would "shock and amaze" their parents by reading a book to them. We started with reading the words of our book from the sentence chart.  The children were happy to see that once I read the title "I Love My Shoes!" they could use the pictures and pattern to "read" the next sentence.  I always use Dr. Jean's words and say things like, "Wow, that's great! Good Readers look at the pictures to help them figure out the words."  We will start singing her song "The Tools of Good Readers" in a few months when we are ready to look for smaller chunks that we can read. 

                                 

After we read the words as a whole group, I met with small groups and we colored our book I Love My Shoes! I have spent way too long trying to figure out where I got the book from. I'm not sure... if it's yours, please let me know (and thank you).  It did not have any words so I typed up the words and then just glued them on to the bottom of the pages. 

For the last couple of years I have used a black sharpie and put a dot under each word that we will be reading before copying a book or poem.  It really helps the kids to track the words if they use the dots to make sure their finger is under each word.

We also loved reading about Pete's 4 groovy buttons. 

 I used the pattern from Cindy from Hooray for Kindergarten for our adorable Petes.

I love how the kids' personalities come out even if they  are using precut pieces.

Everyone wanted to make their Pete the Cat and pick their favorite 4 colorful buttons.

The last craft we did this week was to glue pieces of ripped up paper on our names and record how many letters are in our names on our graph. I liked the name activity (that I saw on Deanna Jump's Blog) because it is good small motor practice and I think they look really cute.