Ellie pretended her playhouse was a hotel and she was in charge! We named it "Hotel Gladden." On the chalkboards of the playhouse Ellie tried to write, "Hotel," But her penmanship was far too large for those boards and it was all over the place! 😂😂 However, the purpose still served that she practiced writing her letters and making words.
She made the inside cozy for me making a little bed and she made me all my meals. She made me cheesy bacon (sand) and then my husband came home from work and he came to the window where she served him too! Her creative process as she planned out and talked aloud about her meal was awesome.
Our bible verse for this book was: Hebrews 13:2 - "Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some people have shown hospitality to strangers without knowing it."
"Hotel Gladden" was also pet friendly as Blondie was also invited inside with us!
The police patrol was a good part of the book as we saw a lot of action from them. We read a book about policemen, discussed their role in society, and then Ellie played dress-up as a police woman and played a few games.
The first game we played was a traffic light game. She knows just from riding around with me in my car what the lights mean at a traffic stop. She got three pieces of paper, drew/traced a circle on each page, then painted one yellow, one red, one green. When dry, I laminated these and Ellie got in her car and I was the traffic light! She would go go go go go and then I'd switch the light to a yellow or red and back to green. Sometimes I'd switch fast, sometimes I'd linger making her wonder and wait, testing her attention and reflexes. She giggled endlessly playing this.
Then we played a left and right game. Basically, the game was follow the leader but with left and right directions. So I would stand beside her and say commands like, "jump left! run right! Slide right again! Left! Left! Left! Go right!" She LOVED this because we were so silly and did so many different movements. She has known her left and right a long time but it never hurts to continue the practice. I mean I still have to do the "L" trick with my fingers. Haha!
We sang and danced the Hokey Pokey in the driveway also to again hone in those left and right skills.
Ok, ok, I'll start by admitting that I totally spelled "Bellevue" of The Bellevue Hotel in the book wrong when I was teaching my daughter to write it. I wasn't looking at the book and had full on mom brain and just left out an "e." But you know what? It's really ok. We spelled it "Bellvue" and it was still a really great fun learning time when Ellie wrote "Hotel Bellvue" all by herself on her white board as she made a sign for the hotel she built of blocks. As I always tell y'all, we are learning to read and such phonetically. So, Ellie knows all her letters now phonetically and visually recognizes them. So, I would say something like, "ok! Hotel starts with a 'Huh;' can you write a big uppercase 'huh' for me? and to the right of that, the next letter in hotel is an 'ah' (o)," etc. And she listens and writes. And then I also write my own version and show her so she can see it written out as well. She is so awesome!
There were so many signs in the pictures of the book. We discussed them. We discussed our road signs, colors, words, and shapes. So, I used Ellie's preschool Math curriculum book to let her trace shapes. She used an octagon block to trace a stop sign.
Speaking of all the signs illustrated throughout the book, there is a sign, "FERRY 50 cent." So we talked about what a ferry boat is and we discussed money again as we have with other past rows. I asked her to get me two quarters. We discussed George Washington and how the backs of each of these quarters were actuallt all different featuring different notable parts of our states. One was NC featuring the Blue Ridge Parkway where I take her hiking a lot so she thought it was so cool. The other had TN on the back and she knew she had been there in a cabin as well and was happy to have these quarters. We obviously discussed the value of each coin, the shape, size, color, material. I explained and showed that in order to ride the ferry she would need two of these quarters (one of the easier ways to pay 50 cents of course.)
When the Duke arrived, there were broadcasters, news reporters and photographers to capture the scene! We discussed each of these occupations and how we utilize their products in daily life. We receive a newspaper to our house free which we usually use for compost, kindling, or crafts. However, this time, I was able to use one of the papers to show her what an actual newspaper is and explain what a news reporter and photographer does to produce this item. We talked about how exciting events like famous people arriving to town like the Duke is news that locals want to read about or hear about and that is why so many people work to spread the word as a profession.
The Duke arrives in America and we see in the illustrations a person waving an American flag. Ellie knows our country's flag and so we did a puzzle of our country to help learn about our states!
I think every parent who has ever rowed this book has made their own homemade pretzels with their kids for the overturned cart in the city. We eat healthy around here so I had to make a special recipe for the pretzels we wanted to bake. I chose to do pretzel bites because it was easier, honestly. But Ellie wanted to shape them so they turned out more like biscuits! Haha! But the measuring, mixing, kneading was awesome work for her. She loves to cook and bake!! They looked nothing like a pretzel but they sure were tasty!
For lunch one day, Ellie had a traffic light lunch! Since we really went heavy on road signs and traffic and police, this was a fun lunch. She was too cute eating this. She would eat her greens peas and go, "Go! Go! Go!!"
Together, using her blocks, Ellie and I constructed a silly around the crepe paper carpet. We used one of her toy cars for the Duke's car. After building a city around the crepe paper, Ellie drove the car through the city and the car approached an intersection where I told Ellie the car would have to turn right to make it to the hotel! she thought about that, then went right! Playing with the blocks inspired her to make a pattern and y'all I was so impressed! She took light blue and green blocks and made a pattern and talked it out as she did it. She made it as long as as many blocks she had in the colors she was using and she was so proud and seeing her proud of her job well done made my heart soar!
Hard to see but Ellie made her own red carpet with chalk down our driveway for Daddy to come home on! and she labeled our house number also. She also practiced writing "Hotel" again here with chalk which is also difficult to see but done very well! Chalk play in the driveway was simple and opened a lot of doors for discussion, counting, and reenacting the story.
Cleaning was fun play with her Melissa and Doug cleaning play toys. The hotel was made to be spick and span for the arrival of the Duke! And Ellie loves to clean! For now anyway. She got her things and went to town sprucing up the house!
Here are our go along books. I didn't have much to add but these were great to tie in!
Another art and play activity we did was to roll out butcher paper and Ellie used a paint roller and tray filled with red paint and painted a red carpet!
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