Video of Muddy Creek out of its banks on April 3, 2014, Pettis County, Missouri.

Fee Fi Fo Fum Desmond says while stomping down my hall. And finishes the fairy tale line in time to get to the doorway of the room his friend Weston is in. He’s given me the topic for a theme for an upcoming week. Here’s some brainstorming I’ve done since he showed me his interest.

To get kids interested in learning, you start with what they’re thinking about or what they’re most fascinated by. It’s ‘in the moment’ that they learn the best. Their real-life thoughts and curiosity will get the best of them once you begin.

We’ll have some open-ended questions like:

• What’s scary mean?
• What’s a Giant like?
• What do they eat?
• How do they sleep?
• Where do they get their furniture?
• Where do they live?

This is the jump off point to

1. Writing journals,
2. Story Telling
3. Painting with Big Brushes
4. Filling in a Giant’s footprint with legos or blocks.
5. Listing Giant things
6. Making a Giant group collage
7. Super-size cooking with a Giant Pizza (kids love cooking and it’s Science/Math all in one)
8. Tape recording Giant voices when singing songs or retelling stories (yes I own an ancient tape recorder)
9. Get out the Floor puzzles that are larger than normal
10. Perfect time to take height and weight measurements for growth records
11. Play baseball and make Giant homeruns. We’re Royals fans here so we’d make a giant crown like at Kauffman Stadium for our target 🙂
12. Sort Big and Little shapes
13. Take a Size hunt to find things Bigger than we are and take pictures
14. Use a Beach Ball for parachute games
15. Sort stuffed animals into Big and Little
16. Toss Bean Bags into graduated circles starting with little and going up to Big using chalk outdoors on the pavement
17. Measure who takes the best Giant Step
18. Match Big and Small letters
19. Bring in baby pics and take current pics to compare how Big they are now
20. Match baby and Mommy animals
21. Exercise using Bigger and smaller (Make Big circles, now little. Make Big birds flying, now little, etc)
22. Make a floor size board game with posterboards taped together.
23. Make a giant road for play vehicles with posterboard or wallpaper samples.
24. Create a giant marble run with cardboard tubes
25. And for fun and lots of giggles, try walking around in my hubby’s shoes. He wears size 16