Who's In Rabbit's House? Bracelets inspired by The Masai in Kenya

 Last week I hung out with a group of four Italian beginner students--their ages range from 3-6.

I've been really into thumbprint characters lately, and so have they.  We started off with that:

We sang a few songs.  When I ask them to choose wish songs they'd like to sing, this group has some standard favorites:
1. Yo Gabba Gabba's The Freeze Game
2. Little Bunny Foo Foo
3....

We read our story of the day.  It's one of my favorites (I know, I know, I say that almost every time I mention a book, but who says there's a limit on favorites?)

This is such a fantastic and clever read.  It's based in Kenya and depicts members of the Masai putting on a performance.

Leo and Diane Dillon, the illustrators, did a magnificent job with the pictures, and Verna Aardema's choice of words is impeccable.

 You remember that jumbo tub of beads I bought from IKEA? Well, all we needed was a bit of kitchen string to make some Masai-inspired jewelry.  We talked about what we could possibly make:

 and got to work:

Next time I'd go with another type of string that's a bit thinner--
the kitchen string began to fray after awhile.
So we had to cut, and everyone ended up with...

Bracelets!

 While we worked, I jotted down all the new vocabulary we learned on our vocabulary chart:

 I can vouch for the learning by doing approach personally--I've seen these kids and their moms since this lesson happened.  One mom told me that the word "frog" for some reason hasn't stuck with her kid yet, but he used most of the other words on this chart while talking with me the following lesson.  I love it when stuff sticks.