New Activities to go with Pete the Cat!

I have finally finished some great colored shoe theme, math, language and art activities.  I think everyone is going to like them!  I got great high top converse looking shoe clip art from Ashley Hughes!  She is awesome if you have not checked her out.  You can find here on TPT too!

Here are a few samples of what you will get if you buy my activity bundle.   Since the author of the blue cat book (we all know which book that is by now I hope!) does not want us to use his book name, I will refrain!  I titled my games, "FOLLOW MY FEET!"  That way no one gets upset.  Personally I would be happy if teachers all over were reading my books and making activities to go with them!  At least we have Pinterest to share them right!  I have a huge Pete board there if you would like to stop by and grab some inspiration.

                                                    

Click here for: Pete the Cat PINTEREST Boards

So back to my games included in the Follow My Feet Games...I created a very basic game that will expose your young students to how to match and how to play a clothes pin clip game.  If you feel they are not read for that you can use a math counter or chip to mark the correct color match answer.  

I am going to cut these cards apart, laminate and then use clothes pins.  I like my students to start getting their fingers strong for writing.  This game can be used for color assessment too.  After completion, we ask the student to rains their hand or come find a teacher to show.  They practice naming the colors and then I can easily see if they can identify colors, match colors, or even if they can name color words at all.  It gives us a good sense of what a child knows coming into our class for the first time.  It is also a good way to teach following directions with our materials.  This activity will be out when we begin school.  I am looking forward to seeing how they do with it!  I have included a blank card that is all black line so you can print it 3 times and color it yourself to save on ink!  Trying to think of everyone!

This activity is for my returning students who already have mastered colors, can name some letters, and are ready to work on basic sounds.  This activity is to be used with clips and in clear plastic sleeves with dry erase markers.  I think having it in two places gives more students a chance to work on letter sounds.  Both activities with these cards will give fine motor strength too.  I have found these sleeves to be pricey at Lakeshore and Amazon, but I have also used regular, clear page protectors and they work great too!.

The counting clip game is going to be on my math shelf.  Our classroom has shelves with activities that we use on small rugs on the floor.  I have gone from 1-12 for this activity to extend it for kids who already know 1-10.  I have found preschoolers sometimes have a hard time going higher all at once so we work on 11 and 12 for a while and then add the teen numbers in other ways.  This game too could be in a plastic sleeve with a dry erase marker,  or cut apart with clothes pins.

My new favorite game is having my students up and looking for things, whether it be a letter or number hunt, science finds, or in this case hunting for colors.  I have created cards with the color words on them for your students to find and record in two different ways.  On the recording sheet, younger students can make and "X" or a tally mark and then color the shoe to match the color they find.  Older students who are writing, can find the shoe, and write the color word on the line and color the shoe.  I know kindergartners have to read color words very early on in my district to participate in worksheets and homework activities.  this will help them on their way and get them a little fun writing practice!  These get cut apart and hidden in the room!  I have included one page that just has black line to save you on colored ink.  I got that great idea from many hours of researching what types of thing I wanted to create for other teachers!  Have a parent take them home and color them in for you!

I saw the last activity on my Pinterest hunts and I cannot remember who to link it to.  I loved it so I make shoes for your students to design.  After that, Take photos of your class with their legs spread apart about a foot individually.  Print them on a full sheet and add the shoes to them to make a funny picture, or up in the hallway as meet my class!  It is funny to see them in huge high top shoes!  

I hope this gets you wanting to stop over and buy some of my new products on Teachers Pay Teachers!  If you have never gone to the site...WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!!  Go and grab some easy centers or activities to start your year off right!

Starting Off With Pete the Cat! Freebie Included!!

Well my year is off to a great start!  We began with 10 returning preschoolers and ten new ones and we have a great group of kids.  We set up a two day Pete art project at the creation station and every Pete we made is unique!  Day one we cut out the cat.  I am re-posting these instructions for those who missed it last year. This is by far one of my most read blog posts!

On day one we gave each child a folded piece of blue paper.  On it draw the lines as we have here.  We have the child cut the bigger line first and then the small one.  Those create the cat parts!  The child will end up with two pieces for the head and tail.  We have our students put the extras in the middle.  We use those for the kids who are not the best cutters!  Those are our extras which we always need!  This year we used three different blue papers too which added some variety in the cats!

The class really got into putting on all of their parts on their Pete!  All of them turned out unique!  We have read two of our Pete the Cat books and already the students have learned the songs and love the books.  Next up is Pete the Cat and His Groovy Buttons! 

This was my Pete!  He sits at the parent sign in book and starts a lot of great book conversations in the morning with my students and their moms!  They have all been asking who Pete is!  

We made a matching shoe color game and we have been playing traditional memory with it.  This week we are using these same color cards to pair up the kids to have a partner to sit with a t lunch!  This helps my class get to know each other and they love walking with partners in the hall.  Usually we walk down the hall in a traditional line, but on partner days we walk two by two!  The colored Converse shoe cards are a fun way to practice color matching and also a good way to pair up new friends!  I have it here if you would like to try them too!  I print on heavy card stock and laminate!

Click here for : Free Colored Shoe Memory Game

New Pete Books! Who Knew!?

I do not think my students are ever going to tire of Pete The Cat!  I was searching for a preschool easel idea and I came upon these two new titles.  I cannot wait to tell my whole class.  We have two little girls who got new coats with of course, GROOVY BUTTONS!  They are so cute running around the playground singing about their buttons.  I just thought I would link the books here so you can pre-order if you are a Pete nut like me!  And do not forget the book Pete the Cat Saves Christmas is already out!  My own children already love it.  The new ones come out in late February.

Click here to link to Amazon!

What boy won't love this one?!

Serious Color Activity for Pete Lovers

We are pretty settled in with our new class and already they are singing Pete's songs all around the room.  We are always working on new ideas and original ideas to do with our children.  We have a group of children right now who really are not aware of color words or color recognition, so we are trying to think of fun ways to push them a little to mastering at least 4 basic colors.  Our idea this week is simple.
We are going to hang up a picture of Pete on our door, post a fun sign we created on Power Point, and encourage them all day long to learn the colors that are in Pete's book.  We will have all of Pete's books in our morning book bax s well as in our reading nook with out small Pete stuffed animal.  Now we do have some children who know colors, so we will be encouraging them to go further and to be helpers to the other children.  We are going to use praise and positive reinforcement to encourage them along with their families.
Here's what we came up with.  We made Pete necklaces out of fun foam which now comes with sticker backing on it if you need it.  HUGE time saver!!! The necklaces only cost us a little over $5 tomake 20!!! So we made a necklace for each child.  They have to earn the necklace by coming to the color table with me (the teacher stations for learning) and demonstrate growth with knowledge of colors.
We are going to set a goal for each child so that each child is furthering their growth.  Then once they show is they have learned the 4 colors in the book and helped others if they need too, they will be awarded the Pete the Cat COLOR club award and they will get a necklace to show that they are in the club.  We will work to get every child in the club by the end of two weeks.  It should be great!  I think they will love it and I think their families will be encouraged to help as they see names going up on our door of kids who make it into the club!  We will make sure all join of course, as we do not want anyone feeling bad! This is a feel GOOD activity!  I can't wait to get to get started.

Once we get our door finished tomorrow, we will post how the kids are doing!  We made  very cute name tags too for the club door once they can demonstrate color kowledge.  I think the are going to be very excited!  I know I am!

  

Color Activity Posters

This week we are working on recognizing colors and each child is helping us make color posters by bringing in something to share on our poster.  The students have been so excited to bring in items to share.  We put large pictures of colored converse shoes on the tops of the posters to go along with our reading of Pete the Cat, I Love my White shoes.  At the end of our week we are going to talk about what things we could step in to make our shoes turn the colors on the posters.  Then we are going to generate lists of things that come in each color to add to the poster.  For yellow one child even brought in the back of a very large toy dump truck so we put that down on the floor under the poster!  We just loved the giant shoes on top of the poster and so do the kids!  If you want pictures like this, just use Google images and type in red converse high tops!  I right click it and then save and print the images!  So simple!

Pete the Cat color Posters

This week we are going to begin color recognition.  I am starting off with a bunch of sorting and fun activities!  Then we are going to make color posters.  I am going to head them up with a large converse shoe for each one, as we ask each child to bring in items to glue on to our posters.  We are then hanging them up for the year.  I am also putting out a color game I found through TeachersPayTeachers.   It is really cute!  You can  find it on my Pete the board on Pinterest.  I bought it from TeachersPayTeachers!  You should too.  It is really well done and great for preschoolers.  So glad I found it and did not have to make it myself!  Thanks to Erin @ Creating and Teaching!  

An App for Pete!

Finally they came out with an app for Pete!!  I stumbled upon this as I was seraching for apps to review for appSmitten.  I was so excited.  I tried it with my two 4 year old twin girls and it was a hit right away!  Pete is rockin in his school shoes and you can help him find things in hidden pictures.  It reminds me of a very simple version of Where's Waldo but for preschoolers.  It is great because Eric Litwin the narrator for the game and is awesome.  If you have not gotten his books yet you must do so!    Preschool is so much better with Pete!  Here is the link:
Pete the Cat App

I also recommend heading over to my Pinterest boards.  I have tons of free printables for Pete and great ideas for your preschool room!  Here is my link:

Pinterest Board for Pete the Cat Activity Ideas and Printables

Send Pete On An Adventure!

It is Pete the Cat time again and we are sending our Pete on an adventure.  We have found a nice blue backpack, decorated it with fun foam, and have placed Pete and a composition book in it.  We will be picking one great student to take him home each night, play with him, and then write a story with their parent about what they did together with PETE!  We will then read the child's page in the class book at circle in the morning.  I have done this with a plastic fish but never with an actual soft animal.  I am prepared to have him washed frequently!  He is ready.
I have been working on a parent instruction page too.  I will post that tomorrow as a FREEBIE so check back!  He is ready to head out!  Told me so himself tonight while we were blogging.  I would recommend this activity for preschoolers.  They get so excited when it is their turn.  The fish we sent home last year even ended up taking a bath with one student!  Hopefully Pete will stay dry!

It is almost back-to-school time!

Most teachers are getting ready to head back and get ready to set up!  I am already teaching in a special kindergarten prep pilot program.  We have of curse been reading Pete the Cat and talking about him, colors, and of course the rooms in the building-the lunchroom, playground, etc.  We made my Pet out of paper and were practicing listening and following directions.  After we finished, we put the cats in the hallway.  Many of my students were upset that their cats did not have shoes.   I told them we would add them the following week.  I had some very distressed artist who felt they needed shoes on the cats.  So on Friday we got out paper and practiced cutting just circles to add to the feet of our Petes!  Some of the kids really were not happy with our basic shoe shape and they made adjustments.  But then came Joe (name is changed of course)!  Joe loves art and wanted to make the shoes for all 4 feet, draw laces, and the backpack, AND then the LUNCHBOX!!!!  I just had to post it.  It was so detailed!  And I almost forget the GUITAR! 

It's almost school time again and Pete is waiting!

I cannot believe it is almost time again to begin another year!  I think along with the excitement of planning new things I have been most excited about the new Pete the Cat ideas I have been working on for the summer.  I hope everyone knows that Amazon is taking pre-orders and the new book about Pete comes out in September!  I did this for the last book and my class held a count down.  We used the count down as a math project.  I am going to do this again.   I will post the photo of what I have mad latter this week when I have my classroom more put together!  We had a picture of Pete and he held the count down numbers and we tore one off until the new book arrived.  It made it very exciting.  And now since there is a new one coming again, I think we will do the same!  I posted this picture just to get others as excited as I am about the new book!  More later this week as I get things ready!  My summer class kids are really enjoying Pete and we have only read it once!  I have one student who calls him Pat the Cat!  Tomorrow we are going to read I Love My White Shoes and make shoes for our cats we made last week.  I will post some action shots of their creations.

GREAT Pete the Cat Lesson Plans!

My favorite book for the beginning of the year is definitely Pete The Cat!  If you have not read one of the three books in this series, you are really missing out on being a cool teacher!Get out there and buy them today!  The books are by Eric Litwin and James Dean

• Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes
• Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes
• Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons

Rocking in My School Shoes is a great way to start off the school year.  It would be appropriate for preschool and for kindergarten although older kids are very into these books too!   We read Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes.  Below are things that can be done with this book.                    

1.  We all began by reading the book, learning the tune and then watching some of the great YouTube videos on the Internet! 

2.  Then create your own cats and decide what color shoes he should wear.  The pattern you see here is how to cut out a cat that stands up.  Just fold a piece of paper in half and then cut the pattern.  You will end up with 2 tails and 2 heads and we just put the extra in the middle of the table for someone who may not cut as well as others.

3.  We created a class video with children reading parts of the book or singing parts of the book. We did this by creating small videos on an iPod Touch and them piecing them together.  It was simple.

4.  One day we had Pete the Cat Snack and ate everything that he stepped in during the story.  We had a plate and had strawberries, blueberries, mud (chocolate pudding), and water.  The kids loved it and then graphed what they liked eating the most.

The last book is Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.  For this book subtraction on a very basic level is introduced.  My class decided to "act" out this book for their end of the year performance for their families.  We had sound effects made with instruments, a child with a Pete mask and yellow shirt on with buttons we created with fun foam, and children with number signs.  It was great!  I narrated parts but the students had most of it memorized.

**Note to teachers who plan to do this...have several copies checked out of the library for your book shelf.  We had 2 copies of each book and that wasn't enough.  This was by FAR their favorite set of books and they fought over them up until the very last day of school!
I just heard a Christmas Book is going to be released September 25th!  I know we will be pre-ording this on amazon.com.  by doing this it will arrive on September 25th for you to share in your classroom.  
We ordered Four Groovy Buttons by pre-ordering on amazon and we held a count down in my classroom on our circle time calendar.  This kids were really excited doing this.