World Preschool Mom

Hello Again and Five Senses

2008-09-15T12:37:00.016+12:00

I'm back! I'm back! Well mostly back. Life has felt crazy the past two months. Whew, it's nice to unpack the suitcases again...even if it is only for four weeks. It's long enough to get some projects going. In fact right after we finished putting things away A. said, "now we have to do an art project because it has been so long since we have done one." I guess he's been missing it too!

As an explanation, we've returned to the states for a little while. Saying bye to Fiji was a bit of a heart-break--so many wonderful learning opportunities, beautiful sights, and lovely people we will miss. I console myself only with the discovery of the US East Coast, it's an exciting new adventure awaiting us now.

By the way, thanks to everyone who has been making such wonderful comments here on my little blog. Right now I just can't respond to all of them, but in the future I will. And please know that I read every comment and can't help smiling at the kind words shared with me. Thank you so very much for brightening my day!

Well, enough chit chat, let's get down to business. The LLL theme of the month (it's changed to monthly instead of weekly), is the Five Senses. I have some lousy photos from a nice activity we did one morning focusing on the sense of touch. We gathered several random items and made our own texture book. A. provided the word lists to describe the various items and of course was in charge of the gluing.

Here are the gathered texture supplies:

Here is a page from the finished product--I told you it wasn't anything spectacular:

And this is about how things looked for a week while we were slowly making our way across the country.
Tight fit. I decided to incorporate the 5 senses theme into one of our travel games. We decided to go on a pretend walk in different locations and use our senses to tell us what was there. Our first stop was the jungle; we heard a jaguar, saw a colorful toucan, felt the wet leaves, and more. We followed the jungle with a deep sea dive complete with tasty plankton, rough coral, and striped fish to name a few. It was great fun to transform the boring landscape around us into a whole new world using our imaginations. Everyone loved it. I'm thinking I'll hang on to this idea for when we need a quick waiting activity somewhere. No supplies needed besides an active imagination!

For some other wonderful activity ideas, check out this list of posts!

LLL Theme of the Week: Exercise

2008-08-15T11:05:00.008+12:00

I'm really not available much these days, but I wanted to at least put a few ideas down (without photos) on this week's LLL theme: Exercise.

Something I'd like to do is make an exercise calendar or maybe weekly schedule is a better name for it. First you make some cards with cut-outs from magazines or drawings that portray different exercise ideas. Then at the beginning of each week let your children pull them out randomly for the week. They participated in the planning, and can anticipate what activities are expected each day. You can have a week full of activities already decided upon that you can plan for in advance.

Here are a few exercise ideas I came up with. It probably works better to have lots of choices, so be detailed when possible. Also, make duplicates of the favorite activities.

Go for a walk (to the park, to the store, in the neighborhood, at the beach, etc.)
Play in the park (soccer, baseball, choose specific parks, etc.)
Bike ride (again, to a certain destination, or at a specific location)
Dance (when my son was 2-3 yrs I would let him jump on the bed while I danced to Wiggles)
Yard/ Housework (don't tell me you aren't sore after spending the day deep cleaning)
Yoga for Kids (I haven't done this, but I'd LOVE to get a DVD or something and try it...any suggestions?)
Pillow Punching (see here)
Obstacle Course (who doesn't love one of those)
Follow the Leader (make a line using tape and add stations for certain activities like jumping jacks, etc.)
Indoor Wrestling (see here)

LLL: Measurements

2008-07-04T05:55:00.005+12:00

The Theme of the Week for Laugh, Learn, Love is Measurements. This sparked some good conversations, especially in the kitchen. It's amazing how just thinking about a certain thing helps me to bring it up more often in our daily experiences. We also had a planned activity focusing on measuring length or height. We took photos, but they were terrible (bad lighting ion a rainy morning), so you have to use your imagination.

Materials: Measuring tape, scissors, string/yarn/ribbon. You will also need several of some other items--we used straws and dominoes.

Using the string we cut a length equal to A.'s hight, then mine, than my husbands. So we had three strings, all different lengths. We taped them to the floor for some comparisons, first to each other. "Oh look, my string is longer than yours, but daddy's string is the longest of all." etc.

Next we brought out the measuring tape and measured and recorded each one in inches. Then we lined up other objects to see how many it took to reach the end of each person's string. "A. is 18 1/2 dominoes tall, but only 6 straws tall." etc.

After this I taped the strings to an empty wall with papers giving our recorded measurements inches, dominoes, and straws.

We have guest arriving today, so we will ask them to participate as well. We'll measure their height and put the strings on the wall next to ours to get even more smaller/taller examples.

I also taped a few things (pencil, spoon, toothbrush) to a paper and helped A. use a ruler to measure and record how long they were. On another day I found a page in his workbook that had 4 clown pictures, all different heights. The instructions said to use a coin to measure how tall each of them are. That turned out to be a fun variation too. I figure it can easily be repeated with other pictures.

Stapleless Paper Chains

2008-07-01T13:25:00.000+12:00

The classic paper chain is, well, a classic. But sometimes even an old favorite needs a little "chainge". These new paper chains take extra time, but require no staple, tape, or sticker to secure each link. Plus, it's fun to change the shape, and they are easy enough for a 4 year old to make without injury (didn't you ever staple your thumbs together making a paper chain?) I have, with difficulty, found instructions for Stapleless Paper Chains in two locations. One was rather confusing and lacking any photos or diagrams, while the other was a pdf that was impossible to locate a second time. I decided to attempt my own tutorial for it. So, here we go.

You'll need: paper, scissors, pencil, and two round templates (1-2 inch and 2-3 inch).

Making the Links: I cut a regular size paper into fourths--in half vertically and then in half horizontally. This creates a chain link approximately 3 inches long. You can go for the jumbo size and use a whole sheet of paper (yielding a 5.5 inch link), or even a teeny tiny version. Any size rectangular paper will work.
Fold your paper in half vertically. Next fold it in half horizontally. You should now have one folded edge on the left side, two folded edges on the bottom, and four edges on the right side and top.

Using the larger round template, draw a semicircle starting at the top, left corner with the straight edge along the folded left side. Using the smaller template, draw another semicircle within the larger semicircle. A little less than a half inch from the left side draw a vertical line starting at the bottom of the paper and ending where it connects with the semicircle. I call this bottom part the "stem."

**Note: The center cut must be wide enough for the next chain link's unfolded stem to fit in. Also, try to keep a good distance between the tops of the semicircles. The smaller the distance, the weaker the chain link.**

Now cut along all your lines. This is a finished link. If you want all the links to be identical in your chain, you can create a pattern to trace from this first link. If you want each one to be individual, don't bother drawing any lines--just cut freehand (it adds a charming spontaneity).

Connecting the links into a chain: Vertically fold link 1 and feed it through a horizontally folded link 2. Repeat this process until you have reached the end of your chain. Then secure the very last link with a small piece of tape.

Shape variations:
Rectangle--Very easy to cut the straight lines of the outer shape. Great for younger children if an adult can cut the centers.

"Y"--This was the easiest for my son to cut. I drew a line that curved up towards the top right corner. Then I cut out the centers.

Heart--Perfect for Valentine's Day.

Spade

As you can see there is still room for quite a bit of additional improvisation. Hope some of you enjoy trying this.

Crayon Rock Art

2008-07-01T10:51:00.013+12:00

I know this isn't a new one, but maybe it's been a while for some of you. We had a wonderful time making these colorful art pieces.

***CAUTION: watch out that little (and big) fingers do not get burned on the oven, hot rocks or melted wax during the project! Constant parental supervision on this one.***

What you need: crayons (our Crayola and RoseArt crayons produced much more vivid colors than the no-name brand), rocks, foil, hot pads, and access to an oven.

First collect some rocks, we preferred the larger ones.
Wash, dry, and place in an oven for about ten minutes or until hot.
Place the rock on a sheet of foil (with a hot pad or towel under the foil) and decorate with your crayons. The hotter the rock, the more runny the wax will be.

As you can see, there was some serious concentration going on here.

The final photos didn't come out too well, but trust me they are better in person--very bright and cheerful.

OLD

2008-06-24T10:30:00.013+12:00

Unplugged Project this week:

We decided to go the reading/rhyming route this time. Using some small wooden alphabet letters and a homemade cardboard pattern we rhymed the word "old". If you don't have a wooden alphabet, try using the plastic magnet letters or even the foam ones.

A found the right letters for his template and then we set about looking for 'real' words that rhymed with old by trying out each of the letters in the alphabet.

Our favorite part of the activity was making silly words. A couldn't help laughing at the sound of some of them.

**Update: I had no idea my little set of letters would spark such interest! Unfortunately they are something I found in a Fijian nickel and dime store for about $5. There was no brand or "made in" information on the packaging or on the wooden box itself. So sorry to everyone interested. :-(
Check out Carrie's comment below to see some links to other wooden alphabets. Thanks Carrie!

LLL: Balloons

2008-06-23T00:00:00.006+12:00

Here is my post for Laugh, Learn, Love's Theme of the Week: Balloons; four ideas I have created myself and borrowed from others.

Balloon Badminton: Almost every kid I know loves to play some form of "keep away" with balloons. You know, hitting it up and trying not to let it touch the ground. Well, we developed a variation on it that always results in a case of the giggles. Using fly swatters as rackets, we hit the balloon back and forth to each other like a game of badminton. Sometimes I put A on my bed so he is further from the ground (it's easier for me to get to the balloon in time when it's a higher to start with). And sometimes we use the couch as a net we have to hit the balloon over. I pretend it's my exercise on some days, but it's always great for getting A's wiggles out.

Balloon Puppets: The way a balloon slowly sways and bounces makes it perfect for a silly puppet bobbing his head up and down. We used yarn for hair, pompom for a nose, rubber band for mouth, and a Popsicle stick for the puppeteer to hold. Just about anything will work though: buttons, stickers, paper, ribbon, etc. Find what supplies you have around the house, or simply grab a marker and draw until someone new comes to life. (Markers are A's preference--nice and fast.)

Balloon Balls: I saw this idea on Luckybeans and knew it would be an instant hit in our house. I simultaneously hoped really hard it wouldn't be a disastrous mess too! In the end it was a fantastic, mess-less activity. We made a super large one and a med-small one. World Dad stole the small one to use at work as a stress ball (not that his current job is at all stressful, just boring). We did have fun tossing both of them off the balcony to Solo who was a very good sport about being the target during target practice.

Balloon Science: We haven't done this one yet, but I want to try it soon. We have a two week school break right now, so it's looking like a perfect opportunity. If we do, I'll try to post a photo.
**UPDATE: it was a successful science project. Here are the before and after pictures.

Non-scary activities for the dark

2008-06-21T14:04:00.000+12:00

I've become that mom who uses old toilet paper rolls for a multitude of kids crafts. I'm not proud of the extreme tackiness. But what can I say, they are plentiful and free, why not put them to use. Here's the latest activity.

Armed with a push pin and a safety pin we punched holes in several old TP rolls. Some designs were, well, quite abstract. While others were made by following a penciled pattern.

And here is the final product all lit up with a mini flashlight.
We also pulled out a blue Wal-Mart Glow Stick to see how that would work . Not a bad varriation.

We then attempted to play the shadow game. This is really a fun one when you can get it to work right. Unfortunately our flashlights were uncooperative. Let me explain, first gather a bag of random, smallish items. Then in a darkened room have your child sit facing the same direction as you, but in front of you (so they can't see you), and guess the objects as you hold them up in front of the flashlight. Here's the thing, make sure your flashlight has the right shine circumference (is there a technical term for that? Someone help me out) otherwise there are double shadows or blurry images, etc. Our best light for this activity was a headlamp which was even better because I was left with two hands free. Unfortunately the bulb gave out on me. Boo hoo. But try this one next time the power goes out. It's fun.

Yard Soup

2008-06-18T19:40:00.005+12:00

This was the product of his creative efforts. He spent all afternoon collecting and adding ingredients, remembering (and changing) the recipe, and constantly stirring his soup. I thought the finished product was rather beautiful.

He enjoyed the experience so much he made a second soup from leaves, sand, paper, water, and I'm not really sure what else, but it sure stunk after a day or two! Not quite as pleasant of an activity that time around, but still perfect for pretend play.

Aphabet Balance Beam

2008-06-18T16:07:00.004+12:00

I have tried several times to make a walking line for A using colorful electrical tape. Just something he can follow with his feet while concentrated on balance. He never likes it. But, as we were playing with our small alphabet foam squares he found the very long line irresistible to his little feet. Over and over he walked along his new balance beam. It wasn't long before we were changing the configuration to make a square, rectangle, zig-zag, and more. I'm thinking this is a perfect rainy day activity to get out some wiggles.

Suva Zoo

2008-06-18T16:00:00.008+12:00

We decided Suva needed a Zoo. So we made one! It was a great two-day activity that kept A busy...and me too.

Here is the planning and painting stages. We used a cardboard box that had been cut down one of the corners and flattened. Then we gathered up all the random boxes and cartons I had been saving from an early garbage death and glued them down according to our mental blueprints.

And here we have the finished project.

Mr. A has so many plastic animals of varying sizes and colors that we were at no loss for filling up the cages with wild critters. It was fun to move them around and play zoo keeper, but not fun enough. The activity was abandoned quicker than I hoped, but I count the creation process as the real success.

(oh-we actually did this a few months ago, but never posted it...too busy playing.)

Straw Snakes

2008-06-18T11:12:00.006+12:00

Unplugged theme of the week is Plastic. Although very late, here is my plastic activity contribution: Straw Snakes. Simple, but thoroughly enjoyed by my four year old.

It started with some scissors and straws. I let him cut them into any size piece he wanted. We had super skinny, super long, and everything in between.
Then he threaded the straw pieces onto a shoelace (you could also use yarn with tape at the end or a pipe cleaner). Ta-da! You've got yourself a pet snake.

Marble Painting

2008-05-31T08:31:00.009+12:00

I've been wanting to do this for a while. Shortly after waking up this morning A announced he wanted to do an "art project with paint". Then I remembered next week's theme was "paint" over on Unplug You Kids. It was the perfect opportunity.

We used an old plastic ice cream tub, but it works just as well with a shoe box or any kind of box with a lid. Then we placed a piece of paper in the box, added some dabs of paint and dropped in the marble. We slowly rolled it around with the lid off to see what was happening. Then we put the lid on and shook it faster. We made five pictures, each with a different combination of colors (red, yellow, blue, white, black). A's favorite was the one with all five colors. Oh, and the all blue one is mine....what can I say? I wanted to get in on the fun too!

I tried to make purple for him, but it came out too watery. I grabbed a straw and let him blow it around in the box to make a different abstract design. He concentrated very hard on this, but in the end preferred the marble approach.
Considering the mess was negligible and the fun was substantial, we are going to pull out this activity again soon. And I'm so glad it gave me an opportunity to finally contribute to Unplugged!

Color and I Spy Books

2008-05-29T14:35:00.013+12:00

Here are a couple mini books I've made during the past few weeks. As usual, nothing fancy. But A always enjoys a little surprise.

For both books I used the hot dog booklet pattern at Making Books with Children:

My Rainbow of Colors
Using markers we colored A's index finger with ink. He stamped the same color as many times as he wanted all over a page. Each page had a different color. Then I went back and drew in some simple (very simple!) faces and scenery for the characters and added the color word.

I Spy the Alphabet!
I saw an idea on Crafty Crow for a personalized I Spy book. It was taken from this post on marytree where they took photos of toys, then cut and pasted them into a book. I simplified it a bit and cut letters out of an old catalog, then glued them onto the pages and made a list of what letters needed to be found. I'm going to make a few more I Spy books with different and increasingly more difficult themes, but I need to get some doubles of catalogs /wrappers /magazines first. This is also the kind of book that A can help make by cutting and gluing the pictures if we needed an activity.

Bubble Wrap

2008-05-21T16:53:00.004+12:00

If you find the bubble wrap is too difficult for little fingers to pop, try using a rolling pin. It's great.

Sewing Buttons

2008-05-19T16:32:00.005+12:00

With an embroidery hoop, scrap fabric, and a large button I taught my four year old how to sew. I didn't think he would enjoy it, or even have the patience to finish, but he was hooked by the challenge of the project.

Octopus and Iceburgs

2008-05-19T15:38:00.007+12:00

After checking out Wondertime's 3 Great Games for a Wading Pool, I decided I had to try out the Octopus with A. let me fill you in on the steps.

1. Using a screw or other small, sharp object, punch a hole near the top of a 2L soda bottle, and another near the bottom.
2. Fill the bottle with water.
3. Cover the top hole with your finger and magically watch the water stop spilling out the bottom hole.

A enjoyed showing this trick to everyone who passed by. We had some good conversations about how this happens (As the water leaves, something has to take it's place. So if no air gets in to take the water's place, no water will spill.) We then punched one more hole in the middle and predicted which hole would have the larger squirt of water. He was right in the prediction, and I was glad he didn't ask me why because I didn't have a great way to explain pressure to a 4 year old.

We also followed Wondertime's suggestion of making some icebergs for the pool. We talked about if it would sink or float, and considered the hefty weight involved. After testing our theories I set it on the grass, sprinkled it with salt, and then let him decorate with a few drops from different food coloring bottles. The salt helps the ice to crack and well, become bumpy so the color shows better. We both liked watching the colors spread and mix.

Cup Memory

2008-05-19T15:29:00.003+12:00

When we moved in there was an opened package of plastic cups in one of the kitchen cupboards. For sanitary reasons I wasn't too excited about drinking from them, however I found several other ways to put them to use. One of the most successful was a new version of the Memory game. I used alphabet stickers and placed them on the inside bottom of the cup; although any kind of medium-small stickers would work as long as you have two of each picture to make a pair. Turning the cups over to find what was inside kept A's attention a bit better than cards. And in the end, storing them was as easy as stacking them up.

Who knew

2008-03-26T07:32:00.006+12:00

I let A. guide the activity, this is roughly how it went:

1. sort by size
2. sort by color
3. sort by size
4. sort into "families" (by color) in the egg cartons
5. Big ones became mama hens, little ones eggs and baby chicks....lots of "Peep, peep"-ing
6. I challenged him a bit to put three babies in each hole, and one had to be orange
7. Back to sorting by family
He would have kept going, but it had been about 45 minutes and I was growing bored and moved on to other activities. It was funny for me to see him dust off his hands after he had satisfactorily made a grouping of some kind. He was so intent on it all.

Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?

2008-03-05T10:01:00.004+12:00

Nature Walk Poster

2008-03-02T14:18:00.004+12:00

Just a quick photo to get back in the habit. Here is a poster we made from our nature walk one day. I really emphasized all the words as we were writing them and gluing the items on.

More Christmas Advent Fun

2007-12-10T13:01:00.000+12:00

Our nativity puzzle (this was the only picture I could find). We read about it, then cut it up and put the puzzle back together.
Christmas shakers: rice, food coloring, empty bottle. And now we have noise makers for New Years!

Ornaments

2007-12-07T11:55:00.000+12:00

I really don't have time to detail the activities, maybe later. For now here are a bunch of photos. You can make up your own captions.

Christmas Counting Game

2007-12-07T10:58:00.000+12:00

Count the number of ornaments on the tree and then put a clothes pin on the correct number down below.
We also counted snowballs. That was an easier one to make, but less fun to play.

Candy Garlands, Pipe Cleaner Wreathes, and More Cards

2007-12-05T20:31:00.004+12:00

Getting ready to make the candy garland. Hope we have enough candies to make a long one.
Towards the end A helped by flying his plane over to the pile, selecting the next candy, and then dropping it off to me. This plane is one of his many creations. He'll find random objects and them obsess over creating something (usually a plane). The problem is he gets so frustrated when it doesn't work exactly how he sees it in his mind. Funny thing is, he has 8 perfectly good airplanes and 3 more helicopters in his toy box! The inventing/creating gene has definitely passed from father to son.
Here's the finished snake...er...uh..candy garland. There was absolutely no pretending that it was a giant snake. Nope, none of that. :-)

I stumbled on another craft somewhere in my surfing of the past week that I thought A could handle. Once again I overestimated his attention and ability, but we saw it through to the end anyway. It's a mini wreath made by wrapping pipe cleaners around a cardboard circle. Yeah, hideous, but a good activity to pass the time together. These were taken at the half-way point when A's attention was on it's last leg. The faces were all his idea.

Here's the lovely end product. I keep reminding myself that I have to hang it on the tree.
Another batch of cards made today. I was surprised at the interest and ability A had for this one. He did his own cutting and gluing (with my direction). During the crafting he told me these remind him of a jack-in-the-box. Clever little mind.

Holiday Cards: Take One

2007-12-04T18:53:00.000+12:00

Today we started making some Christmas (ok so the PC term is "HOLIDAY") cards. I was hoping to get at least three Santa and three Snowman cards done, but I had to be happy with one of each style. So be it. I did the cutting, A did the gluing and drawing. Not bad.

Reindeer Ears

2007-12-03T16:11:00.000+12:00

Using A's hands as a template for antlers we made some reindeer ears for him. I encouraged brown, but he thought blue was the appropriate color for his antlers. ("Blue is my favorite color mom.")
This picture was taken through our dining room table. So please ignore those crumbs and the butter smear left from breakfast. When I asked if we should trace my hand or his hand for my antlers he decided I should be a polar bear. So this is what we came up with. Not my best picture, but A is smiling big because I turned the screen around for him to see himself.
After we had our head gear in place A wanted to have fights (what else do little boys want to do?) between the reindeer and the polar bear. Good thing dad took over at that point.

Water Color and New Mediums

2007-12-02T16:42:00.000+12:00

We tried a few different mediums with our water colors. Some worked and others, well the mess they made was fun.
We used string, a straw, and cotton balls. He enjoyed the challenge of dipping the straw into the paint water, sealing the top, and then letting go over the paper to make a drop. The cotton balls turned into mush, but A liked them a lot (as you can see by his discolored fingers). He couldn't do a whole lot with the string, but I would make a long stroke and then he would use the straw to put a drop of different color at the start of the stroke and then watch it bleed down the line. (Does that make sense, it's a hard process to explain.)

Pretty Parrot Puppets and more

2007-11-26T16:36:00.000+12:00

We were supposed to make sock puppets at playgroup, but it didn't happen. We did decorate some lovely birds though:A liked flying his around of course (I think he even added some shooters like on his airplanes).
Here's A and friend Callan in the rice boat.

Snake Skin

2007-11-26T16:27:00.001+12:00

Remember those days in elementary school when you put glue all over your hand, let it dry, and then pretended your skin was peeling off? This is based on the same idea.
I mixed some clear glue with a couple drops of green food coloring, then had him paint it on a bumpy plastic cookie tray. Much later I peeled it of for him and he had green snake skin (well we decided to make it green gecko skin).

Feeding the Birds

2007-11-21T21:00:00.001+12:00

Putting together an informal bird feeder (bread crumbs and an egg carton). A took very seriously his job to crush the bread.

Not sure if the birds will like it, but we sure do.Testing out his eye crossing skills. This is a first ladies and gentlemen..lucky we caught it on film, or memory, or whatever you call digital photos.

B is for...

2007-11-21T20:35:00.000+12:00

Butterflies, bats, blue, brown, black, and beach.

I figured the best way to learn about the beach was a field trip. Here is A washing some of the huge sea shells we collected and brought home. His favorite are the 'butterfly shells'.

This is a beach collage we both worked on. A did his pretty much all by himself. (I mostly pointed, he did the action.) Materials: torn construction paper, sand, shells, blue watercolor, and glue. It's a masterpiece.

A in the kitchen

2007-11-15T09:58:00.002+12:00

Can you guess what we made? We followed a recipe. Here are the ingredients.

And here is the finished product: Blue Play Dough!

I know there are lots of recipes out there, but I happened to use this one I found on Montessori by Hand.

4 tablespoons of white flour
2 tablespoons of salt
1 dropper-full of vegetable oil
2 tablespoons of water

Add the dry ingredients in a bowl. If you want to add a few drops of food coloring, make sure to add it to the water, otherwise it will be difficult to get a uniform color. Little by little, add the water. At first, stir with a spoon - once all of the water is added, start smooshing the mixture with your hands until it reaches the desired consistency. Store in an air-tight container in the fridge when not in use. Most likely, it will end up drying out after a day or two of heavy use.

I was surprised at how well A did in measuring, following instructions, and waiting until the right time to do things. This will happily be one of our frequent activities I believe.

water color again?

2007-11-15T09:53:00.000+12:00

Really? You're sure you want to paint again? Yup.

Turns out what he really wanted to do this time was play with the colors, mixing and matching.
I was ok with that.

who knew tupperware was so fun

2007-11-15T06:36:00.000+12:00

I bought a set of Tupperware type containers which are clear with different color lids. A got a hold of the stack and went to town playing with them. I never would have thought of it on my own. We made all sorts of towers: biggest to smallest, smallest to biggest, upside down, all red, all yellow, etc. Here is a quick series of photos from the activity.

Here A is doing a little dance after making a tower.

This is body language for "NO MORE PICTURES!"

Bubble B Quiz

2007-11-13T14:47:00.000+12:00

No pictures for this one, I was too busy in the activity aspect this time. A is really into blowing bubbles now, and I say great! Heres why:
1. he gets out so many of those unending toddler wiggles while he chases around the balcony or the driveway catching bubbles.
2. The kinesthetic activity turns on his imagination: he loves to pretend he is a predator owl swooping down to catch his prey (yeah, those are all HIS words picked up from past learning times and wonderful books). Oh sometimes he's a crocodile catching the rabbits and mice.
3. He doesn't get frustrated at this activity, ever. It could go on for hours if I let it.

Today we started the letter B. I pointed out the Bubbles had two b sounds in it. I decided to take a chance and try making this an educationally challenging moment at the risk that he might just get mad at the whole experience. It turned out fantastic, so we might just pull it out again sooner than later.

Before I could blow bubbles he had to give me a B word--they all wound up beginning with b sounds, but I would have taken a middle or end B if he had suggested it. I gave hints for words, but I could tell by his responses that he was definitely thinking in terms of the B sound. He would give words that I wasn't even thinking of! We came up with a lengthy list of words which in turn gave me several ideas for other activities and conversations this week. It was a hit!

chalk on black construction paper

2007-11-10T15:35:00.000+12:00

First I wrote his name on the paper to show him how it worked.

He was into pushing really hard and making lots of chalk dust. Then he decided he needed to rub that dust with his hand after every mark he made. So his hand was covered in chalk.

Finally he somehow connected black paper with his black race car, ran in to grab one, and contented himself with coloring it with chalk.

food coloring paint

2007-11-10T15:18:00.001+12:00

We pulled out the old food coloring and water in an ice cube tray trick for a bit of painting fun. I explained to A at the beginning that he needed to rinse off the brush every time he dipped it into a new color otherwise it would spoil the colors. For the first five minutes I would say "Rinse!" each time his brush approached the paints. After that he was great at it...when he wanted to. Sometimes he would start at one end and dip his brush in every color just for fun. So the yellow was a bit green and the blue was turning purple. Oh well. He loved it.
At first I let him be creative and do what he wanted. After five pieces of paper I started drawing simple pictures for him to color in. He enjoyed both types of canvases. Several days later we did it again, but this time I made some 'educational' pictures to be colored: the number and letter we were studying for the week. It was an easy and fun activity for us both.

counting hands

2007-11-10T15:17:00.001+12:00

I traced A's right hand and left hand as templates and then made some counting hands. I did alternating colors to differentiate evens and odds up to 20. The left hands were blue and all odds, the right hands even oranges.
Activities: I laminated them so it would be easy to pull out of a bag one at a time for various activities. A can determine if a number is even or odd or put the numbers in order lowest to highest or highest to lowest. He can match 1-10 with the equivalent in 11-20, and we can use the hands in simple math problems.

Then I made another set to teach the concept of 10, 20, 30, 40, etc. I put number stickers on all the fingers and the ten set on the palm of the hand.
The project did require a lot of cutting for me (I still have a sore thumb from it), but we used the scraps for a fun collage project as well. It took several pieces before A realized they were cutouts of his hands. He was excited to see them in both forms.

O is for...

2007-11-03T18:57:00.000+12:00

Halloween Week

Letter: O

Number:
Science: Bats and Owls
Art: Orange

Geography: Ocean