good books for kids

An Old Favorite:

Mary wore a red dress, back to school ideas, back to school books. I chose Mary Wore A Red Dress for this month’s book pick, because young children enjoy it.

It’s one of those “Read it again; read it again!” stories.

Learning colors is one of my report card standards and having color words as part of the word wall and doing a variety of things with colors, is a big part of most teacher’s back-to-school activities, so I thought this was a good choice to dream up some activities for you to do with your students.

The Gist: Why I Love it:

Mary Wore A Red Dress is an old Texas folk song. I love it because it provides the perfect Segway to the introduction of colors.

In this particular version, animals are on their way to a birthday party.  I also like that the author includes the music at the end of the story.

Story Telling Tips:

  • Mary wore a red dress, back to school ideas, Use the colored clothing pieces that I have made to match the story and pass them out to students.  This is the perfect “sequencing” story.
  • When the “orange” shirt is read, the child who has the orange shirt piece adds it to the flannel or white board.
  • After reading the story, mix up the pieces and see if the children can remember the order they came in.
  • Substitute students’ names for character names.  Watch little ones’ eyes light up when you say their name.  “Am I really in the book?” They’ll ask. It gets them to really pay attention.
  •  I say the colors in English as well as Spanish and have the children repeat them back to me.
  • Another thing you can have students do is to stand up if they are wearing the color that is being talked about in the story. i.e., Mary is wearing a red dress.
  •  If you’re also wearing red, stand up.
  • Children can wiggle their fingers, touch their nose, take a bow or do something silly, point to that color and then sit down.

Magic Tricks: I use my change bag to produce different colored scarves to teach secondary colors.  “What color was Mary wearing?” Yes, red.  Did you know that red and yellow make orange?

I put a red scarf and a yellow scarf in the change bag and have children exclaim:

“ _______________ wore an orange shirt!” Then I pop out an orange scarf.  I do the same thing when I produce a green scarf (blue + yellow) and a purple scarf (red + blue).

 If I have time, I let students smear what ever primary color combination they want together, to turn a white paper tee-shirt into a secondary color.  I then hang these on a clothesline with mini clothespins.

Mary wore a red dress, math ideas, back to school ideas, Math: 5 graphing extensions, connect the dots, & count how many and write the number skill sheet.

Mary wore a red dress, writing class books, making class books, back to school ideas, writing prompts, Writing Extensions: 2 Class books: We Wore __________ To School! and On the First Day Of School Who Did You See?

Art Activity: (T-shirt idea above.) Click on the link for a copy of a t-shirt to paint.

Language Arts: Trace to pre-write skill sheet, matching colors, alphabetical order, rhyming words.

Mary wore a red dress, back to school ideas, writing prompts, ideas for class books, writing class books. Click on the link to view/print the She Wore A Red Dress Packet. This packet will be FREE til September 16th and then can be purchased for only .99 cents. 

 Bibliography for Back-To-School: Click on the link to view my favorites.

Be sure and check out our FREEBIE reader of the month: Where Are The CoconutsThis is a great booklet to go along with any of your Chicka Chicka Boom Boom activities.

  If you’re a big fan of Chicka Chicka  Boom Boom, be sure and check out the Arts-Crafts and Activities section.  That is my major theme this month. 

Our free "Easy Reader" this month is The Students On the Bus, a great math extension booklet and a real keepsake when you add a few photographs.

Whatever you're reading this month, I hope it's simply T-riffic!  Happy August.