Tot Tuesday Beginnings

I have a goal to post what "J" is doing, so that when "S" gets to be the age she is now, I don't have to figure it out all over again.  So, this hasn't been all we've done, but it's a start...

Clothes pins on a cup.  These were mini-clothespins, so they came apart more easily.  She like the activity, though.

I put a bunch of containers with lids in one of her boxes.  She loved it!  It was her #1 choice all week.

Jenga blocks.  She sorted, stacked and built.  Not a favorite, but it was chosen a few times during the week.

Transferring Water...

with medicine droppers.  The kidlets had been carrying them around, playing all morning.  When J went to down to nap, I set up a quick activity for transferring water, adding food coloring for fun.

When the kidlets started mixing colors, we expanded a bit to allow for more color mixing and not so much fighting, as well as maintaining a true container for each color.  They had a great time and only stopped because J was waking up and I didn't want her to get involved this time.  When we do it outside (next Spring/Summer) she will love it!

These ice cube trays (from the Target $ spot) were a great size, having lots of holes for a lot of color mixing.  The only down side was that because of the colored bottoms, they were hard to see what color had really been mixed.  

Sidewalk Paint

I saw this idea over at Shannon's Tot School and, since our girls have had similar interests in the past, thought I'd give it a try.  

I mixed up a double batch (2 cups water, 2 1/2 cups cornstarch, and a few drops of dish soap), then separated it into the our craft muffin tin.  Using our 8 colors of food coloring, I was able to make 12 different colors for the kiddos to paint with (one I left white).

It was so pretty!  I found some of my less favored paint brushes and let the kiddos have at it.

"A" told me this was a fish and the spots above it were the bubbles.  I love that he's started to create and not just scribble!

"N", who I thought would love this, since she loves all things art (as long as it's open-ended), lasted 10 minutes (maybe).  Not a big hit with her.

However, "J" loved it!  We were outside for well over an hour and she was constantly painting - though not always the sidewalk!  After washing she had some color left on her legs, but it only lasted a day or two.  And most importantly, she had fun!

Overall, we will definitely do this again, if only for "J"!  And maybe next time I'll bring out some paper.  The texture of the paint when it dried was chalky and that would be fun to feel and rub into paper.

I'm not sure how it washed off.  We went out of town the next day and apparently it rained A LOT during the 5 days we were gone.  What I do know, is that there was no sign of paint on the sidewalk (or children's legs) when we got home.

Birds

We've been learning about birds.  In a very laid-back, easy going way.  We've read books and done fun activities.  We took some things from the Bird Packs found here.  I pull out 3 activities a day and we rotate through them.  Some are too easy for N and others are too difficult for A, and J doesn't really have a clue about any of them, but she likes to be included.

We had fun with the bird watching idea found here.  I laminated the birds and the guide, so that we could do the activity multiple times.  The kiddos had fun making the binoculars, but didn't really use them.  The had fun trying to find all of the birds though, and marking them off on their guides.

I made them a new felt board, but forgot to put it up until today.  J has taken to just taking it all off and scattering it around the house.  We'll see how it goes...

We've read a lot of books about birds and the kiddos are all noticing the birds around the neighborhood.  A can recognize robins and finches, and N is especially excited when she spots a quail.  It's been fun to get back to doing school, and have some fun together learning.

Grow Capsules

I recently purchased some grow capsules (I'm not sure that's what they're called, but I hope you know what I mean) at the target dollar spot, thinking they'd be fun to use with our animal school we've been doing.  Today we had some antsy kiddos, so decided to use them.  

I showed them the capsules and told them that they were going to turn into sea creatures, and then we made a list of possible animals they could be.

We then placed each capsule in it's own muffin tin filled with warm water and watched to see what they were going to be.  All the kiddos loved watching it!  Afterwards, we revisited out list to see if we had guessed/predicted any animals correctly.  Fun, quick, frugal and easy!  N has already come up with several plans of how we're going to use the sponges!

Our New System - Week 2

"N" recently started kindergaten at a local homeschool coop.  She goes twice a week, with me teaching her class (k-2) one of the days.  The day that I teach, "A" goes to the preschool class.  On the days she stays home, we still have work to do, so I came up with this workbox-ish system that has been working well for us (for all of 2 weeks).  "N" and "A" both have their drawers with activities.  Before "N" can do her drawers, she needs to write in her journal and do a math lesson with me, and then do her math workbook (the co-op uses Saxon, and she's in the math 1 book).

"N"s drawers are on the left.  This week she has: 

• Tens and Ones
• I made up some numbers onto squares of paper and gave her a tens and ones chart, along with 4 rods of tens and 10 ones.  She chooses a number, then illustrates it with her manipulatives.
• stamping words
• she's not doing spelling per se, but I have old spelling lists from when I taught first grade that I gave her so that she can choose words to stamp.  She mostly just does the family's names, which is great!
• chalk
• We have a chalkboard that we made out of a cake pan and chalkboard paint.  "N" loves all things art, so this is just a drawer for her to have fun with.

"A"s drawers are on the right.  This week he's doing 

• Find My Name
• Last week in the preschool they were working on recognizing their names, so I wanted to tie it with his home "school".  I printed 5 of his name and one each of the rest of the family's names and he puts them into 2 columns.  He needs a LOT of help with this activity.
• circle stickers onto dots
• This is good for practicing fine motor skills.  "A" loves stickers!
• magnets
• I put some magnets on a cake pan and he plays with them.  So far he's lined them up by color, put them around the edge of the cake pan, and figured out that all magnets don't hook to each other!

When they get done with their drawers, they get to use the sensory bin.  This week (and last) they have wheat, with a variety of scoops, funnels and containers.  The red tablecloth underneath the bin is for containing some of the spilled wheat.  It's worked really well.  And both kids enjoy using the brooms to sweep up what doesn't land on the tablecloth.  A child-size broom is on my list to buy...

 Here "A" is doing his circle stickers onto dots activity.  I figured he would do on page a day and move on.  Not so!  The first day he did all four pages!

This is the sheet "A" used for his stickers.

Sponge Play

Sponges and water make a great combination and there are probably a thousand different ways to play with them.  Here are some of our ideas:

• Transfer water from one container to another, squeezing the water out of the sponge.
• Throw them onto the sidewalk to make "Sponge Paintings"
• "Paint" the sidewalk
• Wash your bike

Please tell me what you do with sponges and water!