The Olympics- The List

E was pumped up for the Olympics after our MOMS club did a big Olympic event the Friday morning before the opening ceremonies.  For that event, we made torches, flags, USA colored ribbon streamers, and medals for the kids to introduce them to some of the more iconic parts of the Olympics.  We watched the opening ceremonies to see a lot of those icons.

We are sports junkies in this house, so when the games started, I knew that we needed to find a way to make watching hours of sports interesting to E.  The first morning of the Olympics, we made a list of all the sports that we would have a chance of seeing over the two plus weeks of the international event.  

After we saw an event on TV, E would come over to the refrigerator, grab a sticker, and put it next to the sport.  We worked a lot on letter sounds to help her find the sports, making this a great time filler, but also a great phonics activity.  Also, each day we would count how many events had stickers by them.  This had her practicing counting up through the twenties.  We will definitely do this activity in two years for the winter Olympics, and probably each Olympics after (don't tell anyone, but E's parents love this activity just as much as E)!

Filler Activity- April Fools' Day

For April Fools' Day, I found this adorable book at a discount store called Garden Ridge. If you have a store by you, it is worth a look through their books. Books there are typically less than $5, usually closer to $3. I would much rather spend a few dollars on a book than close to the same amount on a card!

Anyway, this book called Lettuce In by Tina Gallo. Each page is a knock-knock joke with a door flap. Knock-knock jokes are great exposure to the concept of puns and multiple meanings. Some of the jokes are too difficult for E to fully understand, but she definitely finds humor in the ones that are based on sounds (such as "Boo who?). We have read this book at least 10 times since the first reading. She now understands the sequence of a knock-knock joke, and has memorized most of the book!

Springtime- Four Season Picture

We hosted a preschool play date where we also discussed the four seasons. I was the leader, and to go along with the book and cling activity, I wanted to do an art project with the kids to work on their fine motor skills and to have the kids give a reason they like a certain season. These are the examples I made so the kids could see what theirs could look like. I had the moms trace and cut out the arm and hand of each child, then the children used glue sticks to put it onto a blank backdrop. Each child then chose the season he or she wanted to make his or her tree. Beforehand, I cut strips of paper-- green for summer leaves and red and orange for fall leaves were for cutting, and the white for winter and pink and green for spring buds were for punching.

After the kids punched and cut, they put glue onto the fingers to attach the leaves, snowflakes, or buds.

Finally, the kids dictated to their moms what their favorite season is and why. I think if E and I did this activity on our own, it would have been fun to do each of the seasons instead of just one, plus it would have given her the opportunity to have practiced the fine motor skills of both cutting and punching.

Springtime- Feed the Birds

Being outside and enjoying nature is something we love, especially in the spring. We haven't had a bird feeder hanging up in a while, so I finally picked up one to put on a shepherd's hook near our patio in an area where we can see the birds from the inside of the house. E stopped riding her bike (hence the helmet) and had to go in and get her sunglasses because it was a sunny morning before we could get to business on filling the feeder, working those motor skills.

E helped me to put in the birdseed (we used black sunflower seeds). Believe it or not, that mess was because of me, not because of her. She did a great job of unclogging the funnel to keep the seeds going in. While we were filling the feeder, we were talking about what birds eat and why it is important for them to have good nutrition in the spring because the mommy birds have to get strong to have baby birds.

Here is Ms. Fashion plate with her newly hung feeder. She has since spent a lot of time watching for birds on the feeder. We both enjoy talking about the colors of the birds that land on the feeder and watching the birds come in and out. This is a fun and easy activity to enjoy nature!

Springtime (??)- Letter Recognition and Sounds

We have been staying so busy with visitors, MOMS Club activities, soccer, and illness, somehow we have lost Springtime and landed ourselves right into summer! We upgraded our very tiny blow up baby pool into this bigger 8-foot blowup pool to beat the heat and enjoy even more time outdoors. After two days of just fun in the pool, today we added a set of foam letters to work on letter recognition. At first, E was just grabbing any letter, identifying it, and bringing it to me to put into the collection bucket. She was doing pretty well, especially considering that some of the letters were upside down, facing the wrong direction, etc. I would ask her to manipulate them into the right position before removing them from the pool.

The second round we mixed things up a little. This round I would ask E to go find the letters, one by one, in the order of the alphabet. When she brought them to me, we would talk about things that start with that letter, focusing on the sound of the first letter. Sometimes E couldn't locate the letters (mostly because with all the letters, toys, and even her big ole mama in the pool, it was difficult to find each little letter). So, this started a couple of other skill games. The first one she learned the basic of in a game of hide and seek with her grandparents during their visit. That was the hot or cold game. As she would "swim" around the pool, I would tell her if she was hot and close to the letter or cold and far from the letter. Another way I would narrow it down for her was to tell her what color the letter is. I think there are six total colors, so that was a great way for her to have less to focus on.

Now, I guess I need to decide on our next unit since the springtime seems to have come and gone here in OK!

Springtime- Matching Cling Activity

I found this great sheet of clings at the dollar store and thought it would be perfect to use to help match the season name with the signs of the season. We first spread out the word clings on the window. Notice the horrible weather outside!

Then, E began pulling the picture clings off of the sheet to group with the words. Since she can't read (yet!), I had to do a lot of reminding about what each season word said, and we had to talk about what we read and about the seasons in the book, as well as discussing our own experiences ("Today is the first day of spring. Could we go out and build a snowman today? Do you remember when we played in the snow? What season does snow happen?).

If I was to do this activity all over again, I would probably talk about each season individually. For example, I would have E pick a word cling, then I would ask E to find the clings that go along with that season. Changing the activity just a little would help to eliminate the challenge of the word clings being confusing for a nonreader. I'm sure we will enjoy these clings over and over.

Springtime- Scavenger Hunt

Pinterest pages have been filled with the great idea of using an egg carton as a place to collect items on a spring scavenger hunt. So, I drew up a sheet of items that I thought we would be able to find on our walk through the park. I went over the items on the sheet (my drawings aren't the best) with E, and off we went to look for: a brown leaf, a rock, a stick, a yellow flower, a feather, a brown weed, green grass, a green leaf, a piece of bark or mulch, berries, a purple flower, and a pine needle.

Going on this walk was a great way to talk about the big ideas of the unit such as the grass growing green, the trees budding, bugs reappearing, etc. I would occasionally review the items on the list when they would come into view. E did a great job of collecting and exploring.We went through an old "barn" at the park, and E paused for a pic by the fence. Spring is definitely in the air in this pic!
Here E is getting a brown leaf to put into her egg carton from a tree that didn't drop its leaves the fall before. By the end of the walk, we found 10 of 12 items, and we had a great time in the process!

The Five Senses- Review and Phonics Activity

For the first part of this activity, I created two sets of note cards, one set with the five senses written out, and the other set with pictures of the body part used for those senses. I had also picked up the rubber face puppet that E is holding to use with this activity. I used the funny puppet to read the letters and then the words on the cards to E using a fun voice. It was her job to match the picture card with the word card. This acted as a review for all that we have been talking about. Some of my pictures were not so great, so the puppet would ask her to point to his body part if she was confused by the picture. E enjoyed the puppet part of this very much, and matched up all the cards between giggles.For the second part of this activity, I had sorted through a box of lettered short bread cookies to find the letters that match up with the senses words on the cards a few days beforehand. E then would take a cookie our of the container, tell me the letter, and look for a letter to match it up with. We had never done an activity like this before, but she did a great job. She had a few letters she didn't know, and a couple she couldn't match up, but I was very surprised with how easily she accomplished this task. Of course, she kept asking if she could eat a cookie.

And, as she completed a word, I did let her eat the cookies for that word. I love the built in motivation and reward of this activity! What a fun and productive half hour!

The Five Senses- Touch Card Making

E's best friend and cousin is turning four in a couple of weeks, and I saw the idea of making a birthday cake with a hand print on Pinterest. I thought having E make a card for her using the hand print would be a fun activity that uses the sense of touch. E picked out all of the colors for the different parts (the pink and blue make up the cake, the white is for the candles, and the flames on the candles are a mixture of yellow and orange), and I painted her hands using round stencil brushes and regular paint brushes. There was a lot of giggling from the tickling the brushng caused on her hands. We left the thumb blank for this activity so that the palm would be the cake and the four fingers would be the four candles on the cake. We made two prints (which I didn't take a picture of :().

After the prints dried, E decorated around the handprint with sticker fours. She then put happy birthday stickers and balloons on the inside. I helped her to write her cousin's name and her name on the inside of the card. Finally, she practiced her letter identification by using letter stickers to label the outside of the card.

I cut out the second print to make the tag for the package. The prints came out very cute, and E loved working on this project for her best friend.

Filler Activity- Dr. Suess' Birthday!

After a visit to the library where we learned about and discussed Dr. Seuss and his works, we pulled out a couple of Dr. Seuss books to celebrate his birthday. There are some other amazing activities to go along with his birthday out on Pinterest, but we decided to keep it simple...this time.

The Five Senses- Listening Activity

Like most toddlers, E loves music and instruments. I thought incorporating these instruments into a listening activity would be both fun and challenging for E. I pulled out about seven of her instruments with varying sounds. I took a picture on the iPad to act as a reference for later in the activity, then I let E play around with the instruments to make sure she was familiar with the unique sounds that each one makes.

Then, I took the instruments over behind the puppet theater, leaving E with the picture of the instruments on the iPad.

From behind the puppet theater, I played each instrument, one at a time, and had E identify what I was playing. Being able to look at the iPad pictures was a very helpful step that I would suggest to not leave out. One thing I would do differently if I did this activity again would be to make sure to review the names of each of the instruments we were using. There was a lot of "the shakey thing" and "the whistle." I missed an opportunity to expand on vocabulary on the front end of the activity. In the end, though, E enjoyed this simple activity!

The Five Senses- Texture Activity

While shopping at a dollar store (one of my favorite places to find materials to use with E), I found this plastic dish with two compartments (a dog or cat bowl, I believe), which I thought would be a perfect container to have on hand to do sorting activities. So, I created this activity to work on feeling different textures of ribbon and twine. I knew I wanted to use the materials in this activity to do a measurement activity later on, so I cut the ribbon and twine to a short length and a long length for that activity.

I then labeled the sticks and added example ribbon to help to show what rough and smooth feel like. We discussed the words rough and smooth, we talked about how it feels on our fingers, then E began the sorting! She actually did a great job of determining the texture. The was a simple and fun activity.

The Five Senses- Touch Activity and Journal Activity

On Pinterest, I saw (possibly pinned?) filling balloons with play dough as an alternative (and less messy) sensory activity. They reminded me of those original stress balls that were filled with a similar type substance. I loved them when I was a kid! So, I thought it would be cool to try to make balloons filled with various substances to continue working on the sense of touch and discussion of texture.

I really should have taken pictures of me trying to fill these balloons because it didn't go so smoothly. I used a funnel, a turkey baster, and my brute strength to get the balloons filled. There are balloons filled with play dough, sand, candy hearts, air with a few pieces of rice, and water.

When I brought out the balloons, E was immediately intrigued. Balloons, I had prewritten the journal fill ins to guide our play and discussions. The sentences say, "The _____ balloon feels _____ like there might be _____ inside." We spent a lot of time (probably like 15 minutes) feeling the weight, texture, bounciness, and even smell of these! I did get E to give answers to fill in each blank.
We were then getting ready to go to bath time, so I thought it would be fun to add on another element by asking about what ones she thought would sink or float. We made predictions in the journal, as well. She loved playing with them in the bath as much or more as she loved playing with them on the table! So, I guess the struggles I had with filling the balloons was well worth the outcome of having fun and learning with this activity!

The Five Senses- Introduction, Activity, and Journal

To begin this unit on the five senses, we started by reading the book Look, Listen, Taste, Touch, and Smell by Pamela Hill Nettleton. It is a great overview of the senses and the body parts we use for those senses. Parts of the book go into more detail than what E probably understands, but the great illustrations by Becky Shipe keep her entertained. She has actually asked to read the book a couple of times since that initial reading.

After we read the book, we then used E's Mr. Potato Heads to work on matching the sense with body part. I would say, "put on what we use to hear." E did a great job of finding all the correct parts and wanted to do the second potato head. I made the clues for the second one a little more tricky, such as "if I am baking cookies, what might you use to know they were in the oven?" Once again, she did great! She even got the question right (also discussed in the book) for what someone might wear if they can't see well (that's why Mr. Potato Head has on glasses), and what we can wear to protect us from the sun (that's why the Mr. Potato Heads have on hats). The mustache is just for fun :).

Finally, we did a journal entry where E took the parts off Mr. Potato head and traced them. After she traced them, I had her dictate the labels and the corresponding sense to me. This whole activity was so fun and really solidified the background information for the whole unit!

Exploring Valentine's Day and Emotions- Book and Transition

As we wrapped up our discussion of Valentine's Day and Emotions (which, of course, I didn't get to everything I wanted to), I ended with another book we have read for a long time, Hugs and Kisses by Christophe Loupy and Eve Tharlet. This book is about a dog named Hugs who gets kisses from various farm animals who love him like a horse, a duck, and a butterfly. All of the pages are textured, and use description to tell how the kisses are different from his mother's kiss.

All of the texture and description lead us perfectly into next week, when we will begin discussing the five senses! I have been doing a lot of prep work, and I will dedicate my next blog post to the planning behind a cohesive group of activities around a theme.

Exploring Valentine's Day and Emotions- Book and Math Activity

The Karen Katz book, Daddy Hugs, has been a favorite of Ella's for a long time. It tells about ways a dad shows a child love, using numbers (like 10 "I Love Yous"). Before we read the story, I spread out foam numbers around the room on the floor. As we read the story, we would act out what the daddy in the story did (pat pats, hugs, dancing on Daddy's feet, etc), then E would go grab the number from the floor.



It was a fun way of showing love and working on number recognition. This is a good activity for even those kids with a little less number recognition experience than E because they can see the number on the page then go find the number, making it more of a matching activity. At any rate, I would suggest this book (and most Karen Katz books) for a fun activity!

Exploring Valentine's Day and Emotions- Crystal Growing

All over Pinterest, there have been crystal growing recipes and methods. We did ours as part of exploring what the heart symbolizes. We also did it in conjunction with exploring the states of matter (liquid, solid, and gas) since boiling the water is one of the parts of getting this project to work.

We used the recipe from http://chemistry.about.com/cs/howtos/ht/boraxsnowflake.htm. We began by shaping pipe cleaners into hearts. I asked E to get two red pipe cleaners from the box, and she grabbed a metallic one and a regular one. I'm not sure that affected the outcome of the experiment or not (using the metallic one), but I didn't have the heart to tell her to put it back. She also helped me get the yarn to tie the hearts onto the popsicle stick we used to hang the hearts across the jar.

As the water was boiling, we measured out the Borax into a cup to dump into the Mason jar. I made sure I was very careful with this project. After all, we were using boiling water and Borax. I did take E close to the pan on the stove to discuss once again the recent activities we had performed to see water as a solid, liquid, and now a gas. We talked about how we could tell the water was boiling, and how it is important to never go near the stove unless she asks Mommy and Mommy helps her.

We finally got the mixture all ready to go, and set it up to see the crystals form throughout the day. Unfortunately, about five hours in, we still didn't see any crystals. So, I added a little more Borax. The crystals started forming almost immediately.

This is the final outcome of the project. Although I enjoyed the process, especially talking about the states of matter, I can't say I would do this again. It was relatively boring and lacked a lot of hands-on interest for an almost three-year-old child.

Filler Activity- Color Matching

I love naps. I love taking naps, I love when E takes naps, and I especially love days we take naps together. Most days, though, I use E's nap time to accomplish something, and lately it seems that when E decides to come out from her nap, I am right in the middle of finishing something (a blog post, perhaps??). So, I thought I would try to get into the habit of getting an activity out on her table ready to go for when she gets up from her nap. The activity will need to be something I can quickly explain so I can use the few minutes she does the activity to wrap up whatever I am working on.

I love the busy bags it seems everyone has some version of posted online, but this filler activity can be something that doesn't fit so well in a bag, too. Today I took this desk supply organizer that I bought at a garage sale last week for $.50, put colored scrap book paper in the divided trays at the top, and put a bunch of different colored "things" in the bottom tray.

When E came out from her nap, I showed her what to do, and set her free to do it. She seemed to enjoy playing with the "things" more than sorting them. But, I think with continued practice, I will be able to squeak out another 10 minutes or so to finish up my nap time projects.

Exploring Valentine's Day and Emotions- Journal Entry

The official title of this journal entry is "Things I Like and Love." Before we began on today's journal entry, I talked about some things that I like and things that I enjoy. I had cut out a bunch of "things" I thought may appeal to E one night when I was going through magazines for another project (thank you, Pinterest). I placed all of those items out on the coffee table, and we talked about what some of them were. I then told E to choose 5 items that we would write about in her journal. She picked out her items.

Today she did struggle a little bit with elaborating on why she liked the things she had chosen. I did some modeling (Mommy likes ice cream because it tastes good, it is fun to go get ice cream with you, and because I love chocolate). She still had some trouble, but we finally got through it. I know that by working through those tough learning experiences she is beginning to understand that she can eventually get through a challenging situation, and she is smarter than what she even thinks she is! I have been reading a lot lately about the importance of fostering resiliency in children, and I think working through challenges without giving up is a good way to build that important characteristic. Also, she is hopefully beginning to understand that her Mommy will not give up on her...another important lesson!

Exploring Valentine's Day and Emotions- Book and Journal Entry

Today we read the book I Like It When... by Mary Murphy. As the title and cover imply, the book is about actions that make the baby penguin and parent penguin happy, such as holding hands, helping around the house, and reading stories. We read the book, and then went through the book a second time with E reading to me, using the pictures to help guide her. No...she is not able to actually read YET, but she practices all those other literacy and comprehension skills every single day. You would be amazed at how many middle school and high school students I have worked with over the years who do not have skills like using graphics to help further understanding and rereading to help solidify comprehension.

We then did a journal entry where E answered questions (and I wrote the answers) to finish the statements "I like it when Mommy/Daddy/our dog/my friends..." Her answers are surprising, hilarious, and simple. Try it for yourself!