Catina Cat

Happy Friday!  I have never been more pumped for it to be Friday!  Some weeks are just like that.  My mom is visiting from Minnesota (YAY!) and we are ready to get our "spook" on with costume making, pumpkin carving, Halloween parties, and some fun fall baking.  Let the weekend begin!

Meanwhile, it was our zoo-phonics themed third day with the 3-year-olds.  Today we focused on Catina Cat.  This is always a favorite of the children.  I think mainly because it is such a familiar and beloved animal for children. 

 At circle time I read many wonderful books about cats.  You can click the pictures below to take you to the link.

We really loved reading Grumpy Cat and making our own grumpy cat faces.  At the end of the book, we learned that the cat wasn't so grumpy anymore and we used our faces to express the new emotions he was feeling.  Those little faces look so cute smiling back at you!

We then took turns tossing balls of yarn into a wicker basket.  One thing I know for sure, 3-year-olds love to be successful.  This little activity was quick and easy, but they loved it nonetheless. Our circle time this week was shorter than usual since we are regularly practicing our Halloween songs for our Halloween Party next week.

During centers we did all sorts of letter "C" themed activities.  Each week we add a different letter craft inspired by the zoo-phonics character for that week to our zoo-phonics alphabet book.  This week we worked on Catina Cat.  They turned out so cute!

I love all the little details the children add to their letter!  Just darling!  I don't fuss too much with the children about where the paws or face end up on the letter.  Since I do a lot of the cutting for them, I let them have the freedom to decide where the pieces go...or how many for that matter.  :)

We worked on sorting and categorization today by matching rainbow goldfish crackers to the correctly colored cat on the sorting mat.  When they were all sorted, we counted how many of each color.  After that, of course, we ate them up!  The cute cats came from mailbox magazine a few years back.

This year, the children love centers with food!  They are always a huge hit!  So today, there was also a little center where the children got to make their own "Cat Nip".  Our cat nip was just a simple snack mix of assorted goldfish crackers, raisins, and pretzels.  Too cute and so easy.

In the books we read today, the authors talked about cats scratching with their paws.  This was a perfect opportunity for us to use our own little paws to "scratch" the letter "C" in the salt trays.  I can usually get a few good "C's" in before they just start playing in the trays.

If you are interested in seeing some more of the zoo-phonics alphabet book, please follow me on pinterest and check out my zoo-phonics board.

Have a great weekend!