Ponds

N wanted to school about snails.  I took the liberty of expanding our topic a little (mainly for my benefit. I didn't want to do snails for an entire week.  And it's good I did, because we got a little busy and this unit stretched into 3 weeks!)  Part-way though she requested a "binder" (folder, as a lapbook), so we ended up putting some of the stuff in there and the other stuff didn't get in.  Oh, well!

Snail Lapbook

• Snail enemy wheel
• Snail fact graduated book
• Story starter

Pond Preschool Pack

• Word tracing
• find the word in the story
• Graphing - N really enjoyed this.  We said that the animals were racing to get to the top.

Pond Facts Cards - N is crazy about facts.  So I made these cards, printed them on cardstock and cut them apart.  We lined up the animal cards, then N read the facts and decided which animal it was talking about.  I told her that each animal had 2 cards.  She used these herself on other days, so I'm taking that as  a 'like' activity!

Snail Art - This does require live snails.  And baby powder (or talc powder or flour), and black paper (I cut ours to 4x6 and it was a great size!).

 Place your snail(s) on the paper and wait for them to crawl off (or use A's method and move them off).

 Shake powder of your choice onto their trail.  Remove excess (we were outside so we just let the wind take it away).  Place snail back onto paper and repeat.

A loved this project!  I think it was mostly for the shaking, but hey, I'll take it!

Didn't get to but planned on:

Duck Painting

Penguins

I know that penguins are a slightly odd thing to learn about as summer is beginning, but N was interested and wanted to learn, so I said, "Why not?"  We ended up (both of us!) learning a lot and having some fun.  Here's what we did and used:

Library books - again, not any specific title, we just took all that looked interesting and on a level that N could understand.  We even found a few that she could read herself!

Lapbook Lessons -

• penguin life cycle - really good!  N liked to turn the paper around to see one part at a time.  We glued the bottom part into her lapbook.
• math file folder game - I have to admit, this was not my favorite.  The subtraction fact pictures were hard to understand and really confused poor N.  I should have looked a it a little better, especially for a kiddo who has done very little subtraction. The addition part was great, though, so maybe next time I'll just do that part.
• penguin label - Very good.  It was a good way to introduce new vocabulary (beak and bill being the same, webbed feet and why penguins would need them).

My Penguin Book - We used this as a first day, introductory, see what you know activity.  It didn't have much in it.  Sadly, we haven't finished it (and probably won't) to write what we learned.  

Penguin Poems and Songs - We didn't do the puppets, but the songs were a hit!

Word Search - N loves highlighting, so she loved this!

Easy Crossword Puzzle - this was our first crossword puzzle, and it was a good one to start with.  N had a hard time at first with the words sharing letters, but she seemed to catch on.  We'll be doing more crosswords.

Penguin Fact Cards - I made these up.  Some are true and some are false.  N read each one and we sorted true/false.  Then, we threw away the false ones and made a pocket in her lapbook for the true facts.  She enjoyed pulling these out and re-reading them.

We also made fingerprint penguins!  They turned out so cute!  A had fun making the fingerprints, and I drew on their body parts.  N had fun for about 10 minutes, then she was ready to make fingerprints with A.  Apparently we need to do more fingerprinting....

We (okay, really the kiddos) slid like penguins down our couch cushions.  They did it every chance they could!

We waddled like penguins!

Things we didn't do, but planned to:

Penguin from an Egg

Penguin Maze

Penguins