Family Night

What is Family Night? Most schools that receive Title 1 funding are now required to have 2-3 events per school year that provide educational opportunities for parents and students after school.   These events are required to focus on the core subjects of math, science, or literacy.  The ideas below pertain to our Literacy Night activities, or “Pre-K Rhyme Time”.   Please note that the original idea for “Kindergarten Rhyme Time” comes from Michelle at Hubbard’s Cupboard, some of the ideas below have been adapted from her website.

Pre-K families participated hands-on activities at four different stations focusing on nursery rhymes that we learned in class, our fifth station featured free family photos.

Time Frame: One hour.  We had five stations and we budgeted 10 minutes per station which included wait time.

See details about each activity below, see pictures above in the slide show.

Station # 1: Humpty Dumpty

Materials Needed: plastic Easter eggs, stickers, Sharpie markers, wax paper, yellow balls of playdough, one project display board, rebus pictures, Humpty Dumpty poster or words to display.

Directions: Instruct the students to use the rebus directions to complete the activity. Have each child decorate the outside of the plastic Easter egg with facial features using round stickers and Sharpie markers. Next, have the children crumple up small squares of wax paper and place inside the egg to represent the egg white. Finally, have the students place a small yellow ball of playdough inside the egg to represent the yolk. Students can then act out the rhyme using the plastic egg.

Station #2: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Materials Needed: tongue depressors, liquid glue, paint brushes, gold or silver glitter, die-cut stars, one project display board, rebus pictures, Twinkle Twinkle poster or words to display.

Directions: Instruct the students to use the rebus directions to complete the activity. Have each child paint the end of a tongue depressor with liquid glue, then attach a die-cut star to the end of the stick. Next, paint the star with glue and shake glitter over the star. Students can recite the rhyme for parents using the star as a prop.

Station #3: Little Miss Muffet

Materials Needed: oatmeal, sugar, cinnamon, plastic spoons, cups, one project display board, rebus pictures, Little Miss Muffet poster or words to display

Directions: Instruct the students to use the rebus directions to complete the activity. Have each child take a cup of oatmeal and add one spoonful of sugar, stir, and sprinkle cinnamon. Students can then taste the oatmeal and recite the rhyme for parents using the oatmeal as a prop for “curds and whey”. (*note* I know curds and whey are nothing like oatmeal but kids won’t eat real curds and whey!)

Station #4: Eensy Weensy Spider

Materials Needed: Ritz crackers, peanut butter, plastic knives, pretzel sticks, raisins, napkins or small plates, one project display board, rebus pictures, Eensy Weensy Spider poster or words to display

Directions: Instruct the students to use the rebus directions to complete the activity. Have each child take 2 crackers and spread peanut butter on them. Next, have students add 4 pretzel legs and put the second cracker on top of the first to make a sandwich. Finally, add a little peanut butter on the top of the sandwich and add 2 raisin eyes. Students can then recite the rhyme for parents and taste the spider.

Station #5: Family Pictures

Materials Needed: Digital camera, backdrop, computer to upload pictures

Directions: You can create a cute Nursery Rhyme themed backdrop on butcher paper or use one you already have; we have a nice mural painted on the wall of our cafeteria so we chose to use that instead of making our own backdrop. Also, if you have a stage with curtains you could take the pictures in front of the closed curtains, they also make a nice backdrop. Families posed for our volunteer photographer (my husband) and then on the weekend we uploaded the photos and optimized them in Photoshop. We used a one hour on-line processing service, there are many to choose from (CVS, Target etc).

Research shows that low-income families do not have many pictures of their children individually or together as a family so we decided that having Free Family Photos would provide a valuable service and also act as an attraction to get families to attend.

Nursery Rhyme Resources: