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!

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

Butterfly Week

N is REALLY, INCREDIBLY interested in butterflies.  So I planned a Butterfly Unit.  We did a lapbook for the first time and I was impressed.  I really liked having it all in one place.  Not everything we did went into the lapbook, but a lot of it did.  And I've seen her looking through it still, even though we're done with the unit.  I originally planned it for one week, but she was having such a good time and loving school so much, that we did it for two weeks.  N could have done more, but I was out of ideas!  So we've moved on.

We checked out a million some books from the library about butterflies.  Some were books for N to read, and others were Mommy Read books.  The titles don't really matter, but having a lot of books does!  See what your library has and use them.

We did our art projects in the morning, while A could do them with us.  Then we did our school activities while he and J were napping.  It was the first time that I incorporated A in N's school, and I really liked how it worked out.  He didn't learn nearly what N did, but he was exposed to a lot of it.  Maybe something will stick.

Homeschool Share had a lot of material.  We used the Butterflies Eat Shape Book, Butterfly Math, Butterfly Defenses, Butterfly Shape book, and Butterfly Diagram.

Rhyming Butterflies - Download and print this file, cut the butterflies out (I did squares around them with my paper cutter.  It was incredibly easier than cutting out each one), then cut in half.  N had fun finding the rhymes, then we played a "Catch a Butterfly" (A butterfly version of "Go Fish").  Then we put them inside a pocket in her lapbook, so that she could have them when she wanted them.

I used the amazing handwriting worksheet maker to write some butterfly words (butterfly, caterpillar, egg, life cycle, chrysalis, legs, wings), then N traced them.

We did a painting activity.  I cut out butterflies, and N was instructed to only paint them on one side, then fold it in half (it was already scored, since I folded them in half to cut them out) and rub it to get the paint onto the other side.  We called it, "making it symmetrical".  We learned that you really have to blob the paint onto the first side, or there won't be any to rub onto the other side.  

We watercolored "butterfly" pasta, then let it dry.  Then, we glued our butterflies onto blue paper to let them fly in the sky.  I was impressed with how well the pasta took watercolors.

Butterfly Life Cycle - I couldn't find a fill-in-able Butterfly Life Cycle that I liked, so I made this one.  The words are there, but N drew the pictures.  We glued it inside her Butterfly Folder.

We made a handprint butterfly.  It also had a TP tube chrysalis, but the chrysalis didn't really work.  So we took our butterflies and flew!