Activities! Buddies! Spunky Monkeys! Penny Pots! Teamwork!
With a Special Message for Teachers, Librarians and Parents in LA
The Stuart J. Murphy Activities Newsletter comes out every other Wednesday, filled with selections from a vast and wonderful archive of Early Math & Early Childhood Ed activities.
Please tell your friends, colleagues, librarians & parents!
It’s FREE!
Hello,
The news from LA is heartbreaking. Photos and videos of entire neighborhoods reduced to ashes seem unreal. How could this be? Homes, businesses and schools gone. Tens of thousands of people struggling to figure out their next steps.
The firefighters are heroes! But so, too, are the teachers, administrators, librarians and custodians who made it possible for the LA Unified School District to reopen schools this week, providing a much needed sense of normalcy during an extraordinarily difficult time.
I saw this Today Show segment and wanted to share it with you. It’s about Project: Camp, which has partnered with Save the Children to set up pop up camps across the city staffed by counselors trained in trauma informed care. Actress Jennifer Garner, who has served on the board of Save the Children for many years, is using her celebrity to help spread the word.
It is going to be more challenging for preschools to bounce back. Many are small, independent businesses that faced challenges even before the fires. \\It is going to take time to rebuild their schools.
From the beginning with the MathStart series and later with the I See I Learn program, my editors and I felt it was important to provide lots of free downloadable materials to extend learning beyond the books. There are free pdf math activity pages for all 63 MathStart stories, including the 21 Pre-K books. The are printable “Closer Look” posters for the 16 I See I Learn stories, each focused on a different Social, Emotional, Health & Safety or Cognitive Skill. There are also videos, maps and paper dolls.
If anyone reading this newsletter thinks these materials would be helpful to a teacher, a parent or a librarian in LA, please forward. Thank you!
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This week’s featured I See I Learn story is Camille’s Team / Camilo y su equipo which is about about cooperation / cooperación.
This week’s three featured MathStart stories are:
Every Buddy Counts (counting)
Spunky Monkeys on Parade (counting by 2s, 3s, and 4s)
The Penny Pot (counting coins)
Your friend,
Stuart
Mathstart is a series of 63 storybooks organized into three levels for Pre-K through Grade 4. Each story teaches a different mathematical skill.
You can buy individual books, sets by level, or a complete library! Here is list of where to find MathStart books!
• Level 1, Pre-K/ Kindergarten:
Every Buddy Counts (counting)
When a little girl wakes up one morning feeling "crummy, yucky, very sad," she cheers herself up by counting all her friends—which include pets, playmates, neighbors and even older sisters.
Not only can counting make you feel better, it is an essential math skill.
• Level 2, Kindergarten / Grade 1:
Spunky Monkeys on Parade (counting 2s, 3s, 4s)
The "Monkey Day" parade is a very big deal. The crowd loves to watch the Monkey Cyclists who cycle two by two (2, 4, 6, 8…). They're followed by the Monkey Tumblers, who travel in groups of three (3, 6, 9, 12…). Finally, there is the Monkey Band lined up four across (4, 8, 12, 16…).
Counting by 2s, 3s and 4s is called skip-counting and is an important step in the development of multiplication skills.
• Level 3, Grades 2 - 4:
The Penny Pot (counting coins)
Art teacher Fran is painting kids' faces at the school fair for 50 cents each. But Jessie has only three dimes, a nickel and four pennies, which is just 39 cents. So Fran puts out a "penny pot" for spare change. Miguel has a quarter, a nickel, two dimes and three pennies: 53 cents. He adds three cents to the penny pot. All the other kids contribute, too. Soon there's more than enough for Jessie. Learning what
different coins are worth and adding up change are important life skills.
I See I Learn is a series of 16 stories that follow the adventures of the children in Miss Cathy’s class at Ready, Set Pre-K in See-and-Learn City (see map).
Each story focuses on a different social, emotional, health & safety and cognitive skill important for success in school and in life. For Pre-K / Kindergarten.
20% off on book sets on the I See I Learn store!
Camille’s Team (cooperation)
Camille loves to build sand forts at the beach. But it’s hard to build a big fort alone. See what happens when Camille and her friends make a plan, work together, and share the fun.
Learning how to work together to achieve a goal helps children develop mutual respect. Children see that they can get more done—and have more fun doing it!
Share the work. Share the fun!
FREE ACTIVITY PDF
Camilo y su equipo (cooperación)
A Camille le encanta construir castillos de arena en la playa. Pero, es difícil construir un castillo solita. Ve lo que sucede cuando Camille y sus amigos hacen un plan, trabajan juntos, y se divierten.
Aprendiendo como trabajar juntos para lograr una meta ayuda a los niños a desarrollar como respetar a los demás. ¡Los niños aprenden a completar más trabajos - y a divertirse mientras trabajan!
¡Compartir el trabajo! ¡Compartir la diversión!
FREE ACTIVITY PDF
Do you have a story or a question? Please send me an email!