On a Golden Springtime

On a day like today who could stay inside?




Food always tastes better at a picnic!



Where are you eating lunch today? Where is your favorite picnic spot? How are you enjoying spring?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hopscotch and Sidewalk Chalk

One of our favorite things to do when the weather is good is draw with sidewalk chalk. This particular time we drew fishes and whales (and the latter eating the former…)

And then I had a stroke of genius. Teach my kids hopscotch!

So I drew a simple hopscotch board (complete with numbers) and taught the kids how to play. Baby mostly just jumped up and down the squares, but Little caught on to dropping the rock, skipping it, and picking it up on his way back. It was a great activity to help with gross motor skills like jumping, standing on one leg, and bending over to pick things up.

An added benefit was learning the order of numbers, and my favorite – they were wiped out and completely ready for naps afterwards!

Faith is like a little Seed

As part of our spring themes, we planted wildflower seeds in a little pot and watched them grow. Unfortunately, they weren’t very hardy and died before they even flowered, but it was fun to see them emerge from the soil!

We talked about how faith starts as a little seed, and if we give it water and sunshine (that is, if we study and pray, and are obedient) then the seed will eventually grow and flourish (that is, our faith will eventually grow into a testimony).

Spring Sensory Tub

Ever since I saw the sensory tubs over at No Time For Flash Cards, I have been in love. I think they are a fabulous idea, and I knew that Little E would love them. So I decided to start with this one, since it went along well with our theme of plants and flowers and gardens this month.

You can look over at No Time for Flash Cards for the materials, and I basically got what she had in hers.

I had large white lima beans (I forgot to get some green ones – bummer), white beans (great northern beans), orange lentils (which were actually “red lentils” at WinCo), and some mini farfali (Bowtie pasta). I added some split peas and regular lentils from my own stash of beans, and I found the little pots at the craft store. The little tiny ones were super cute, and I thought they would be easy to use for little hands.

Turns out they were perfect for scooping the mix up into the bigger pots, and Baby even joined in the fun (she loved this activity!)

  Little E loved scooping “all the stuff” into the big pot using the little pot. I tried to encourage sorting by saying, “I’m going to put just the small white beans into my pot.” and then proceeding to sort, but he didn’t really seem interested at first. 

Persistence pays off, though, and eventually he started sorting, too! “The big pot is for the big white beans.”

To add a little math, I put five small white beans into a small pot, and five large white beans into another small pot and asked “Which pot has more beans?” to which he (developmentally appropriately) responded, the pot with the big beans. I then suggested, “Why don’t we line them up together to make sure.” So we practiced one-to-one correspondence and number conservation with our number of the month (5!)

Later after Baby went down for a nap, E kept playing with the tub and would bring me a pot full of one type of something (bean, pasta, etc) and would ask,  “How many are in here?” to which I would respond by counting with him. The time he brought over the pasta, he had fifteen pieces, and he said, “Fifteen is this many.” and held up three fingers. Ha ha. So I held up both of my hands, fingers spread, and had him hold up one of his hands, and I told him “Fifteen is both of my hands and one of your hands!” “That’s a lot!” Little E replied.

Love this kid. Such a smarty smart.

 

On the left, he had finished sorting his lima beans so he put a bunch of other “stuff” on top – because that “finished” it off… on the right, he planted a “seed” and a “flower” grew. Little pot = “flower”.

This tub was a great idea!

Have you tried sensory tubs? Do you have posts on your blog of sensory posts that you could share? I would love to see more sensory tubs! These things are awesome!!

May Flowers

“April Showers Bring
May Flowers”

This little saying was the inspiration for our theme this month – which is plants/flowers. Because where we live right now, the earth is coming alive with all kinds of plants and flowers. We have been working outside in the yard (when it hasn’t been snowing or raining – yes, there is still snow in April… and May, even sometimes) and Little E and Baby E have been “helping.”

I have posted our “lesson plans” for the month on a new page, which is linked to at the right. Each month I’ll update those. Also, I posted the form I use for our “lesson plans” over on the “How We Learn” page. Feel free to print it out for your personal use.

To kick off our theme this month, we cut out flowers for The Front Window.

And remember those reusable strips from Scotch? Apparently they really are reusable, and what was once holding up our rainbows now hold up our flowers. I’m actually really glad I found them, because they are clear, so you can’t really see them on the flowers from the outside. The sticky putty stuff would have left a big white blob in the middle of our flowers. So, needless to say, I am very happy with my investment, and highly recommend the little strips.

Well, there are the flowers that will hang out on our window for May. Any ideas for something to stick up there in June? Suns maybe? I can’t think of anything else that reminds me of June. The summer is so sunny here. In July we’ll probably do an American Flag, and then we’ve got August before I can do fall leaves (September) and ghosts or jack-o-lanterns (Oct) and then all the holidays make for good window themes.

Sensory Tubs and Big Plans

This month we have been talking about water and mountains and where water comes from, and different kinds of “water” (ice, snow, rain, etc).

We did this sensory activity with different water temperatures, and then just played in the water. It reminded me of Allison’s sensory tubs over at No Time for Flash Cards. I love the different tubs, and I especially love that she just stores the contents when her kids are done and pulls them out later to use again. I am excited to start making these, and will probably start doing them once a month.

Mostly I just wanted to link to her site with the sensory tubs, because I think they are SUCH a great idea, and such good slightly-parent-guided play for kids! Her son is younger than mine, but I think my son will have just as much fun playing with these tubs.

We’re going to be doing the Spring sensory tub next month for our “May Flowers” theme, along with visiting the local Conservation Garden, a local nursery, and planting some of our own wildflowers. I can’t wait for next month! I am so excited to share all the fun things we will be doing!

In the mean time, for the rest of April (only a few days left!) we will be doing some more “water” activities, including a field trip to the small river near our house and hopefully a hike up a mountain – not to mention a few smaller at-home play activities/crafts. I have been such a slacker this month about doing activities, but I will be better, I promise! I’m going to try to do a bunch of my planned activities in the next four days. You will know if I succeed because I will have a lot of new posts!

I Like to Look for Rainbows

Well, we finally updated the window. We took the hearts down at the beginning of March, but it has taken us a while to make the rainbows. We painted some rainbows a while ago, but we didn’t put them on the window (because they were more like papers full of different colors than rainbows). We also took a detour for a little and cut out some letters from cardstock.

I got the idea for these rainbows from No Time for Flash Cards (basically my favorite pre-pre-school blog). I didn’t have a lot of crafty bits and pieces, so I made some with construction paper, tissue paper, and old pipe cleaners and some sticky sponge letters.

I threw the “concoction” in a rubber maid drawer, put out some containers for sorting, and had them go for it. E was pretty good at sorting, but Baby just liked to put them in any of the containers, regardless of color (and she liked to move colors from one bin to another – I think we need to work more on colors and sorting with Baby). E was pretty good at fixing Baby’s attempts at sorting.

When they were done sorting, we had a nice rainbow of crafty pieces. Then I took pieces of butcher paper and drew a rainbow on them. I wish I had remember to get some Elmer’s glue, but all I had was hot glue – so we learned about being very careful around hot glue. I helped Baby with hers, and E did his mostly by himself. His turned out really good, and mine and Baby’s was pretty great, too. Mostly I just put the stuff on and she sat in my lap and watched and played with the pieces of paper and pom poms.

The one plus to the hot glue was that we didn’t have to wait for it to dry. We just cut out our rainbows and stuck them on the window. Speaking of sticking things, I went to The Big Box Store the other day to track down some sticky tack – you know, that stuff that is like silly putty that you use and reuse to hang stuff up? Well, they didn’t have any, but I did find some reusable tape strips by Scotch that seem to work the same way, but are a little neater (i.e., they don’t leave blue marks behind). I’ll let you know how they fare when it’s time to take the rainbows down next month – we’ll do flowers for the end of April – April showers bring May flowers!)

(although right now it is snowing… again…)

Find this post (and more great kids' crafts!) over at the


linky party over at delicateCONSTRUCTION

Março

Also known as March to us English-speaking folks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The calendar is paying off! Spring weather is always pretty unpredictable, no matter where you live, and our home is no exception. Just last week the weather was warming up – getting into the mid 50s. And then Tuesday we had a freak snowstorm, and now we’re back to mid 50s. Well, it has made for a frequently changing calendar, since we put a “weather word” on the day.

In the morning, we looked outside and chose the correct weather word to describe the day. The day it snowed (before it was snowing), it was partly cloudy outside, so we put the “neblado” sticker on that day. By the late afternoon, it was snowing. I think I was on the couch reading when Little E ran to me and said “I put the snow sticker on because it’s snowing!”

Today, the same thing happened – only opposite. This morning when we drove to a friend’s house to pick her up, it was quite windy, so when we got home, we put the “está ventando” sticker on today. Later, as I was in the living room chatting with said friend, the sun came out full force. Little E ran to me again, this time saying “I had to put sun on! Because, look! The sun!”

So I have to say the calendar has been a major success. He hasn’t been learning much Portuguese from it (although I have). But he has been learning about the weather. And most importantly, he has learned that the weather can change.

Era Uma Vez

We’ve been getting quite a bit of snow lately, and a while ago, while Baby E napped, Mr E took Little E out to build a snowman. When I went out, this is what I found! A Mr E sized snowman!

Little E loves building snowmen, and playing in the snow in general. Later I found out that he was disappointed in the big snowman, though. We were at the grocery store and Little E saw the bulk carrots in the produce aisle and wanted to buy one so we could make “a E-sized snowman.” Because he couldn’t reach the face of the big snowman he had made with Mr E. He wanted to make a snowman that he could reach so he could put the carrot in on his own. Cute kid.

A few weeks ago, Little E wanted to build a snowman, but there was no snow outside. Then he asked for a big carrot, which we also didn’t have. Then I told him I could make him a carrot. So I pulled out the construction paper and made carrot noses for the babies. It took a little convincing for them to let me tape them on, but after they figured out that it wouldn’t hurt and they would look like snowmen, they consented.

Then we sang this song:

http://judahhimango.com/FlashAudioPlayer/player.swf

Era uma vez um homem de neve (Once upon a time there was a snowman)
Um homem de neve alto assim (A snowman tall like this)
O sol derreteu o homem de neve (The sun melted the snowman)
Até ficar bem baixinho assim. (Until he was small like this)

 

You do the actions and stand up really tall, and then crouch down on the ground as the snowman melts.

Here are the words in English:
Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman,
Once there was a snowman, tall, tall, tall!
In the sun he melted, melted, melted,
In the sun he melted, small, small, small.

There is something magical about snowmen and playing in the snow. Maybe because it only lasts such a short time (unless you have below freezing temperatures for a week or more... then it sticks around for a little longer). Maybe because it brings out the kid in us. Either way, we love the snow, and Little E can’t get enough of his snowmen!