This month the Virtual Book Club for Kids is reading books by Denise Fleming. We enjoy so many of her books, especially the ones related to nature. We decided to read In the Small, Small Pond and create a simple pond small world to reenact parts of the story.
Find more In the Small, Small Pond ideas in our printable lesson plans
for home preschool and preschool classrooms.
This post contains affiliate links.
In the Small, Small Pond is a Caldecott Honor Book about living things you might find in a freshwater pond. It’s a great introduction to pond life for young kids. It’s also a great tool for talking about action words.
After reading In the Small, Small Pond a few times together, we went through our collection of Safari Ltd Toob creatures. We found as many animals as we could from the story.
Later I set up a very simple small world sensory play activity outdoors for my girls to enjoy. I gathered a blue pie plate we have and filled it with water. Then I set it outside near some tall grasses in our yard. In and around the pond, I added a few small pebbles and the animals we collected.
The girls loved coming outside to see this little change to our outdoor play space. Tinker was especially excited to play.
She spent a lot of time naming the animals and playing pretend with them that first day.
The small pond has been sitting out for a couple of weeks now, and all of the kids go back to visit it regularly to make up new stories and adventures.
Get a full week of playful pond theme ideas!
Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.
Get Your Copy
Home Preschool In the Small, Small Pond Theme Lesson Plans
Preschool Classroom Seed Theme Lesson Plans
Now that we’ve shared our activity with you, we’re excited to see what you came up with! Please link up your Denise Fleming inspired posts to the blog hop linky below.
- Link up only posts inspired by Denise Fleming’s books that share book inspired crafts, activities, recipes, etc. Any other posts will be deleted.
- Visit other blog posts on the linky and comment on or share the ones you love!
Amber
Oh my son would love this! He loves playing in water and since it’s starting to really warm outside this would be perfect! Thanks for sharing on Mom’s Library! This is one of my features this week 🙂
Valerie
I am in love with this pond. Love the fact that it was set up outside too.
Tiffiny
That is a great idea! My tot is all about playing in water right now, I know she would love that!