Og® the bookworm represents caring and literacy, and is the perfect Primrose Friend to bring your child's school experience to your home. Over the next few weeks, we will provide specially designed interactive activities for children and parents as we navigate at-home learning together. The activities will also infuse character development lessons incorporating the Primrose Friends — 12 engaging classroom puppets that help foster compassion, creativity, gratitude and honesty in children. If you have questions or comments on this site, click here. 

Og^® the bookworm represents caring and literacy, and is the perfect Primrose Friend to bring your child's school experience to your home. Over the next several weeks, we will provide specially designed interactive activities for children and parents as we navigate at-home learning together. The activities will also infuse character development lessons incorporating the Primrose Friends — 12 engaging classroom puppets that help foster compassion, creativity, gratitude and honesty in children. If you have questions or comments on this site, click here. 

Animal Covering Textured Art

Using thick, nontoxic paints, paint a variety of animals. While the paint is still wet, create texture on your painting by gently laying various items of different textures onto the paint (examples include: washable toys or household items, bubble wrap, crumpled paper, corrugated cardboard, or foil that is poked or torn into a wide range of textures.)

Animal Charades

Decorate the animal masks and then play a game of “Guess Which Animal I Am” using clues such as animal noises, movements, etc. 

Animal Prints

Using the blank animal shapes or plain paper, your child may dip their fingers into paint and make various animal prints (spots, lines, stripes). How many different animal prints can they come up with? 

Billy's Playlist

Billy® the duck has even more new songs about caring for animals to share! Sing along with Billy here.

Veterinarian's Office

Create your very own Veterinarian Clinic to care for your stuffed and toy animals. Set up your office to include a waiting area, an exam table, bandages, notepads, things to represent doctor’s tools, a phone, and a cash register. You might make a sign to hang outside your office and create brochures to show customers the kinds of animals you service. (Parent note: Dramatic play helps children build character development skills such as caring, cooperation, responsibility, and generosity).  

Five Green and Speckled Frogs

Count the frogs on your fingers as you engage in this popular fingerplay The Five Green and Speckled Frogs (demonstrated courtesy of the King County Library System). For variation, your child may create 5 paper frogs or use 5 toys and jump them off the lily pads while singing the song. 

Buzzy Bees!

Cut out and color a set of five bee finger puppets for each of you. Place a bee on each finger of one hand. Use the puppets to act out the rhyme in the activity.   

Mice Twice

Follow along as celebrity Ty Burrell reads aloud the book “Mice Twice” by Joseph Low (from Storyline Online). If you were the author, how would you end the story? Retell the story with your new ending. 

Letter Sound Matching

Cut out each image from the bottom of the activity sheet. Choose one of the images and say the name of the image out loud. Listen for the beginning sound in the name. Make that sound. Next, find the letter on the chart that represents that beginning sound. (Does it begin with the letter m, v, s, or e?) Place the image under the correct letter. 

Shadow Play

Spring is the perfect time to start venturing outdoors in the sunlight to explore shadows. Encourage your child to look at their shadow. Describe the shadow. Is it short? Long? Draw it with sidewalk chalk on concrete. Later in the day, stand in the same spot and draw the shadow again. Does it look different? In what way? Why? 

Weather Chart

Benjamin the bear loves to check the weather each day so he knows what clothing to wear. He also loves to use charts to keep track of daily changes in the weather. Use the daily weather chart to keep track of the weather by your house for a full week. At the end of the week, ask your child what do you notice about the weather this week? Were there more rainy days or sunny days? Did it snow this week? 

Animal Coverings

Animals have different types of body covering (fur, hair, feathers, scales, shells). Consider the pets or animals you see near your home and complete the Body Coverings activity sheet. 

Heavy and Light

Explore the property of weight. Gather a variety of everyday objects such as empty plastic bottles, bottles filled with water, stuffed toys, toys of varying weights, etc. Sort the heavy objects into one group and the light objects into another group. Weight can be relative. What is heavy for one person may be light for another, so ask your child why they put each object into each group. 

Musical Animal Freeze Game

Choose an animal and move like the animal to soft music. When the music stops, freeze until the music begins again. 

Which Direction?

For this game, Choose the animal you would like to be. Place the arrow cards and numeral cards in two piles face-down on the table. Pick up an arrow and a numeral card. Move like the animal in the chosen direction the number of steps shown on the numeral card. Choose another arrow and numeral card and move accordingly. Continue until each direction is chosen. Feel free to change animals at any time during the game. 

Lily Pad Counting

Using one lily pad and 2-3 dragonflies, your child may create a story about how many dragonflies landed on the lily pad and then count them once they have all landed. Start with a few and add more dragonflies if your child can count using higher numbers. Older children may use several lily pads, more dragonflies, and write an addition number sentence.

Kangaroo Hop

Kangaroos jump really high! Pretend you are a kangaroo and see how high and far you can jump. Use a measuring tape or ruler to measure how far you can jump. How far can you go after three jumps in a row? 

Og's Story Time

The Kindergarten students (with the help of the Primrose Friends) at Primrose School of Savage (Savage, MN) adapted Wanda Gag's book "ABC Bunny" into a 90-second film to submit for the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival. The festival is an annual video contest in which young filmmakers create short movies that tell the entire stories of Newbery-winning books in a minute and a half.  

Bonus Og's Story Time

"The Rainbow Fish" by Marcus Pfister (from Storyline Online) is a great story about friendship. Friendship is an important character development trait for children to learn when they are young. As you read along, think about what you would do if you were the Rainbow Fish and draw a picture and write about it. Next, make some colored "scales" and write a message of friendship on each scale to send to friends or family. Create a dance to celebrate sharing all of your scales! 

Checking the Weather with Benjamin^®

Benjamin the bear is happiest when he is playing outdoors! Have your child look out the window and give a weather report for the day with Benjamin. Sing along here! 

#PaperPercyChallenge

Each week we'll be giving a new challenge to take on with your very own Paper Percy. Humans and animals need shelter to survive. Create a realistic-looking animal habitat for your favorite animal and take a photo with Percy exploring your wonderful habitat! Be sure to tag @PrimroseSchools with #PaperPercyChallenge on Instagram. 

Pledge of Allegiance

Each morning, we start our day with the Pledge of Allegiance. Say the Pledge with Percy^®! 

Demonstrating Courage

Think of people who demonstrate courage. What do they all have in common? We all show courage at times, and sometimes we need to work on building courage, too. Cut out the person template and draw yourself. Next, on your drawing write ways you are courageous or show courage.    

Sign Language

Sign language promotes and strengthens early language development by giving children a tool to express themselves before they are able to communicate verbally.   Early sign language, when combined with verbal cues, supports oral language development. These downloadable cards feature various signs for animals to go along with this week's theme.     

Cub Cam

Learning about animals is more fun when they’re as cute as cheetah cubs! Click the Cheetah Cub Cam to view live streaming from the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Virginia to check out Echo and her four newborn cubs.    

These additional resources provide even more activities to continue the learning for this week's theme!

Parent Resource: Math Search

Use this activity to help children take familiar concepts of math and learn how to apply and identify those concepts in their own home.