We have finished up our mini unit of horses in the classroom and last week I finally got around to snapping a few photos. I thought I would share a few things we did.
I made this Horse Game to reinforce the names of the body parts of these beautiful creatures.
The game is played by one or two children. They take turns rolling, moving their game piece, and then coloring in the appropriate body part. THey play until their horses are fully colored in. I have turned both the game board and the smaller horses to color into PDFs. This is a very new thing for me but I am excited to be able to share it with you. So here is the Game Board and here are the Game Pieces. I colored in the board then mounted and laminated it. My students did enjoy playing and I took part in a number of games as well! I saw a game similar to this during my training last year made by one of my professors. I have dreams of creating more of these games for other animals as well.
We read many horse themed books over the past few weeks. A few of our favorites were...
My Pony by Susan Jeffers
Fritz and the Beautiful Horses by Jan Brett
Barn Dance by Pat Hutchins
Leah's Pony by Elizabeth Friedrich (couldn't resist!)
and finally... The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse by Eric Carle which lead us into an art project.
I have admired Ann Wood's Cardboard Stampede for a few years now and I immediately was reminded of her free download month's ago when Jen and I decided to do this unit. I needed to tweek it a little bit to make it work for 3-6 year olds. First I made it a bit larger, then cut it out and attached the legs knowing that part would be too difficult. After outlining and dotting a few details, I printed them on cardstock. Adults cut them out prior to being painted (it required a fair amount of patience!). But the result...
is stunning. The children painted them using tempera cakes and then I laminated them to keep them flat and protected. This stampede has grown substantially since this photo, the children have really loved painting them.
Also on the shelf...
Sensory Tub (above)
Parts of a Horse puzzle
Horse Matching (two toobs)
Horse Stable with wooden horses, farmer, apple trees, and basket
Measuring by Hands (I made a sheet with a list of things to measure using our hands ie. a friend, a shelf, the continent globe, a chair...
Stamping 1-10 with horse stamp and ink
That about rounds it up! Enjoy.
