What better way to reaffirm my love for my little spot in cyber space than with Paula's Storybook Sunday - a weekly linky for us to share great picture books that we are using in our classrooms. I'm always on the lookout for a great read-aloud and have snagged plenty of ideas from this linky.
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"The Kissing Hand" tells the story of Chester the racoon, who is off to school for the first time. He's feeling a little nervous so his mother, Mrs. Racoon, lets him in on a very old secret. By placing a kiss on the palm of his hand, she can send her love and warm feelings with Chester to school. Anytime he feels lonely or anxious, he can press his palm to his cheek and remember how much his mother loves him.
Such a gorgeous story! I've seen so many blog posts and Pinterest pins about this book but have never read it... until a little forage in the storeroom (looking for clear contact paper!) unearthed a copy. I decided straight away to use it as the book focus for our first week of Prep. A quick google or TpT search will give you a tonne of ideas of how to use this book in your classroom, but I plan to do just a few simple activities in amongst the busy-ness of the first days of the year.
We will make a 'First Day Feelings' poster to display, inspired by this one from Once Upon a First Grade Adventure:
We will listen to the story read by the author on Barnes and Noble Online Storytime, and complete the response sheet from this freebie on TpT. Each child will print their hand with paint, and when it's dry they will glue a heart on the palm to make their own hand into a kissing hand. :) I hope we have time to make this super cute racoon craft also!
So that parents understand the idea behind "The Kissing Hand" I'll send a note home tomorrow with a link to the video so that they can share the story as a family and be sure to send their kidlet off to Prep with a kiss in their palm for as long as they need it! :)
I'm off to finish organising for tomorrow - the first day of Prep! - and do some last minute cleaning and tidying. (All those weeks of holidays and I leave it until now to get the housework done? Crazy!)
Lauren
I adore this book, it is great to use at the start of school
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I love this book too! I use it at the beginning of the school year as well. We have a poem that we use along with it and add a painted handprint with a heart sticker in the palm. We laminate them and send them home in the first week of school so that parents will have a kissing hand from their children. We also send home paper and ask parents to make some sort of kissing hand to send to school so their children have one too. We create a bulletin board display with all the kissing hands and the kids often go over and look at their hands...we are mid-way through the year and my students still enjoy getting a little peek at their kissing hands on the wall!
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