Mammals Day 1

We did our usual warm up stuff, our book for our new letter, our path, writing our letter and then our new number, counting and writing.

For our topic, we talked about mammals.  We read a book from the library about mammals and talked about what makes a mammal.  We looked at pictures of animals and tried to determine if it was a mammal or not.  (This is really hard for a 3 year old).  haha

We then made marshmallow mammals!  :) Idea found here.  She enjoyed this, though I'm not sure if she enjoyed making the mammals or eating the marshmallows more.  Haha

(Can you tell what they are??  haha)

Birds Day 2

I know it has been awhile.  This past month has been crazy busy.  It seems like every one of us was sick at some point and then there have been appointments and out of towns and warm weather...  So school has been on the wayside.  I guess you can say I took a long spring break.  Haha.

We did finish up birds a few weeks ago.

We started with writing her name (tracing it), matching upper and lower case letters using this site,

then our letter building puzzle (she LOVES this and asks to do it just about every day.  And even though she has lost half the pieces, they are easy to replace!!).

For numbers practice, she rolled 2 dice and counted/added them up.  Then we flipped over the card showing the total of the dice until we had done them all.  (Idea found here.)

She then decided to be done with school for the day, so we didn't do the other bird activities I had planned.

We were going to dissolve an egg in vinegar so we could see what an egg looks like on the inside (it takes a week+ so be prepared to wait to see the outcome!)  You can find this online in a hundred different places, but here is one with step by step instructions.

We were then going to make bird's nests using stuff we have around the house based on this activity.  I also had a bird's nest book to go with it. We read the book, but that was it.  And that's fine by me!

Animals: Birds Day 1

Ok, back on track.  Ready for some school this week, since it is my spring break from teaching, so I'll have a little extra time.  Since it is April, we moved on to animals!  (I realize I never did summer, but I couldn't really think of any activities to do with summer and we did do the seasons tree activity at the beginning and read a book so at least she got some exposure to it.  I'm ready to move on).

For this first week, we are going to be talking about birds.  Or course we did our usual Letter and Number warm up for the letter L and the number 12.

Then on to birds.

We read Birds by Kevin Henkes (the same author that wrote Lily's Purple Plastic Purse).  Super cute book.  It gave a good, basic introduction to birds.

We then made a picture of birds following this template.  (The link doesn't work for me, so I just saved the image, opened it as a word document and printed it from there).  She colored, then cut out the pieces and assembled it herself, following the small picture.  It looks awesome!  We talked about all the pieces as we were putting it together and what else a bird has that is not in the picture.

We then focused on bird beaks and did a little experiment.  I got four bowls of "bird food" (mini marshmellows, raisins, chips, and water) and four "bird beaks" (toothpick, tongs, tweezers, and a straw).  She then had to try each beak on each food and see which one worked the best.  We looked at some pictures of bird beaks and talked about how they are different and why they need to be different.  She had so much fun!  And she loved eating the chips and marshmellows when were done.  And yes, she continued to use the "beaks" to eat them.  Haha.

Letter Puzzles

Thursday I had planned for all this fun Easter stuff to do.  I wanted to read Curious George, The Story of the Easter Bunny and then make toilet paper roll bunnies and stained glass flowers  and torn paper easter eggs.  I also had some fun ideas for working on letters and numbers, but frankly, it didn't happen.  Like I said, I was overwhelmed last week.  So maybe we can do some of these things later, we'll see.  Or next year.

I did make a super cool letter puzzle game for her and she LOVED it.  I got the idea and the blackline here.  I used some craft foam I had to cut out the pieces, then put all the pages in pocket protectors in a small folder and let her go to town.  She did an awesome job and loved doing it!  (Note, the page says to cut out two of the small rectangles, but the "E" will require 3 small rectangles, so cut out and extra!)  Have fun!

Seasons: Spring

Last week I kinda had a burn out.  It's amazing how going from working full time to part time and I feel like I am busier now.  I shouldn't complain because I know there are tons of amazing moms who work full time and still make it through the day.  I know it's hard, because I've been there.  But lately I have felt bogged down with... stuff.

Anyhow, last week we really only did one full day of school (besides regular preschool.  That's what is pulling on my motivation...).  And, I didn't take any pictures.  Lame, I know.  So I'll at least let you know what we did and give you the links so you can do it yourself!

Tuesday:  Warm-up for letter K.
Letter book.
Writing our letter of the week.
Letter path (we used the stamps again, she loves using stamps).

Then we practiced counting and writing the number 11.

Then on to our seasons stuff.  We read a book about Spring.  I didn't love it, it was mostly about experiments and things you can do in the spring time.  Very wordy and not super explanatory about what happens in the spring time, just what you can do.  Anyhow, we mostly used the pictures to talk about what to expect during the spring time, as well as looking outside and seeing what changes we could see.  No leaves yet, but our plants are going quite well from when we planted them a few weeks ago.  :)

We then used paint and markers to make a thumb print flower.  (Of course, ours ended up with thumb prints all over it, but hey, I was just impressed she was willing to get her hands dirty to do it.  Haha).

Then we made paper towel butterflies.  This was super fun.  I put some water/food coloring in cups, then folded up a paper towel into sixteenths.  Brooklyn got to dip each corner into different colors, the we opened them up and put them outside to dry.  The next day we got some pipe cleaners and scrunched up the paper towel and twisted the pipe cleaner to make the body/antennae.  So cute!

Seasons: Winter

I decided to add a new thing to our daily routine... writing her name!  At this point she will only be tracing it, but it should help her learn to recognize her own name and the more she practices writing the letters, the sooner it will be that she can write it on her own.  I got the tracing from this website.  You can type in whatever word(s) you want and it will produce a tracing sheet.

For our letter practice today we did some shaving cream letters.  I smeared shaving cream all over the table and then she practiced writing the letters in it.  I showed her the letter card so she would have a reference for what they looked like.  I thought she would enjoy this a lot more than she did.  I forgot how much she hates to have her hands dirty.  (She was excited at the beginning.  When I first sprayed it on the table, she yelled, "What? Are you crazy?"  Haha)

For our numbers practice, I wrote a number on an index card and she used a hole puncher to make that many holes in the card.  (This is also good for fine motor skills.)  This was actually a little harder than I thought, since the hole punch is new and very stiff.  So we hole punched together.

After she finished, we then put the numbers in order from 1-10.  Idea found here.

 Our theme was more about the seasons.  It worked out perfectly since it snowed today and I had planned to talk about winter.  :)  So we started by reading A Snowy Day and Millions of Snowflakes.  We then used paper to make some of our own snowflakes.  I'm sure you can tell which ones I did and which ones she did.  Haha, she loved using "mommy scissors" to do this.

 Then we painted a snowman.  My original intention had been to use cotton balls to make one, but apparently I don't have any.  So I used this painting idea.  (I had been thinking of using this paint idea, but found the other one first.  We'll do this one on another day.)

I guess I should have gotten a picture of the final product.  It's pretty awesome.

St. Patrick's Day 2

I know the holiday is past.  But who cares?  Today we talked about some of the legends of St. Patrick's Day.  We read a book about St. Patrick and some of the legends, and did a few more crafts.

Well, let's start back at the beginning.  We are on letter J this week.  (For Jessy!)

We did our usual warm-up.  Calendar, "J" book, "J" path, writing/drawing J's.  (She got really in to this today and made sure to use lots of different colors, then erase them so they were "naked" (haha) and did them again and again.

(For our paths today I bought some letter stamps and let her use the "j" stamp to stamp on top of the js on the paper.  She LOVE this).

We practiced the number 10 and related it to our hands and feet.  At one point she counted her toes and got 11.  Hmmm....

Anyway, for our St. Patrick's Day stuff we made a leprechaun who dances .  She colored it and started to cut it out, but then wanted my help, so I finished cutting for her.  Then she tried using the hole punch and needed some help for that.  :)  Then we got some brads and attached it.  She needed a little help with that, too.  But she still had fun and likes to make him dance now!

 We then practiced some math and got a bowl of Lucky Charms.  She had to pull out the marshmellows, then graph them, then we counted them and found the most, the least, etc.  And then she ate all the marshmellows.  :)
 (We only have the Malt-o-Meal version of Lucky Charms and the chart uses the real kind.  Did you know the marshmellows are different?  I just taped a marshmellow at the bottom of the chart to cover the pictures so she would know what went in each column).

Fine Motor Friday: St. Patrick's Day Rainbow

Well, I didn't get a picture because she never finished the activity.  I think I have done a bit too much with pipe cleaners and beads lately.  We need something fresh.  But I'll send you to the link of what she was supposed to do.  Cuz it's pretty cute.

Enjoy!

St. Patrick's Day Rainbows

Holiday: St. Patrick's Day

We took a break today from our seasons and did some St. Patrick's Day things since that's coming up on Sun.

We did our calendar as usual, then played a new game to review our letters.  (Not that she wouldn't have played memory again, but I needed something new).  I made a game board (inspired by this idea) and put it in a pocket protector.  Then I drew on the letters A-I with permanent marker (using a whiteboard marker will erase it later) using both upper and lower case letters.  We then used my letter cards and followed the same rules as Candy Land (a household favorite around here).  I added pictures to my letter cards and they helped a TON.  At the preschool where I teach, we use a program called Zoophonics.  Not that I am endorsing it or saying it's the best option out there, but it is an option and it's the one we use at school.  Anyway, the pictures I put on the cards correspond with the animals from Zoo-Phonics, so when she pulled a card, she could use the picture to make it more concrete and less abstract.  She did AWESOME today with her letters.  She would pull a card, then be able to say "G guh gorrila" and then move her piece to the corresponding spot on the board.  I could see a HUGE improvement from just the card with the letters.

And I won.  :)

For our numbers practice I pulled out an egg carton and I labeled each spot with a number.  She then used popcorn kernels to put in the corresponding amount.  The original idea suggested using tweezers to do it, but today was a long day and I didn't want to deal with that.

Then we did St. Patrick's Day.  I messed up my library books so I didn't get the right book for tonight, so we just chose a book to read that didn't necessarily pertain to the activities.  So we just talked about how Sunday is St. Patrick's Day and what that means.  We talked about lucky shamrocks, so we then used a green pepper to stamp some. (Apparently I don't have green paint).

 I thought they were pretty cute!  She then decided she wanted to color them in.

By the end, she had decided to color the whole paper pink, so now it's just a solid pink page with shamrocks somewhere in there.  Haha.

Lastly, we made a shamrock hat she can wear.  The paper plate was really hard to cut through for her, so we cut together using mommy's scissors.  She would squeeze with both hands while I would guide the paper plate.

Both St. Patrick's ideas came from this site.  I plan on doing a few more of them either on Sunday (if I am still alive then... I usually am so exhausted by the end of the week that Sunday is my relax day) or on Tues when we do school again.  Who says you can't celebrate a holiday after it has past?!?!  I do plan on serving Marshmellow Mateys and green milk to her on Sunday for breakfast and maybe dying whatever is for dinner green.  :)  I love holidays!  Even little one like St. Patrick's Day!

Nature: Seasons-Fall

Tuesday we continued with nature by focusing on the seasons.  I figure that would fit nicely with the trees we just talked about.

We did our warm-up:  calendar, new letter book, new letter path, new letter writing and drawing, new number counting, new number drawing

Then we moved on to fall.  We read a book called The Four Seasons to introduce our next few classes. I printed off a picture of a tree in each of the seasons for her to color.  I can't find the link now (nuts!) but this activity looks pretty fun, too.  Or this one.  Same idea.  (Ok, just found the original link.  Here is the picture we printed out and used).

From there I told her we were going to focus on the season of fall.  We discussed what she saw in that picture and I showed her a few pictures on the iPad of trees in fall.  We then read The Leaf Man.  It is ADORABLE.  Throughout the book, the leaves are being blown and they form different shapes.  She enjoyed guessing what the different shapes were.  Then she took some leaves that I had cut out and made her own leaf man.  It kinda looks like a turkey to me, but she made it and calls it a man.  :)

Finally, I have her some leaves I had cut out of foam and a shoelace and she laced them together into a leaf necklace.  Same idea as lacing cards, it's good for fine motor skills.  She got them all laced together and then wore them the rest of the day!

Fine Motor Friday: Pipe cleaner math

I took some pipe cleaners and used a post it to stick a number to it.  She then had to use the beads to put that many on the pipe cleaner.  It helped that on the back of the number I had drawn dots so she could count them to make sure she was doing the right amount.  She got through about half of them (I had made 1-8 since that's how far we studied) and then she was ready to do something else.  I left them on the table and she went back later and finished them.

Nature: Landforms Day 2

Last Thurs we studied more landforms.  Actually, now that I think about it, it has nothing to do with landforms.  We studied plants and trees.  It was fun!

I got my calendar from my school stuff and we started doing that again. If nothing else, it helps give us another excuse to look at numbers and count.  So we started with that, then moved to our letters and numbers review.  Of course, we played memory.  This is getting increasingly hard with the addition of so many letters.  She is still really good with A-C, but she gets confused with the rest.  It's a very abstract concept, so I'm not too worried.  She is getting better all the time.  And she's only 3.  We probably played 10 times.  Ok, I'm exaggerating, but it is her favorite game still.

Then we matched the spoons again.  She is really good at matching them, even if she can't say them all by name.

For our numbers practice, I got the eggs that had a number on the top and dots on the bottom and she had to find the match, then count that many pastas to put in.  She does really well with 1-5.  She can quickly identify those, match them to the number of dots and quickly count that many pastas.  I feel like she is gaining some number sense of those, which is my goal!  6-10 are still in progress.

For our theme, we did plants.  We read a book called How A Seed Becomes A Plant or something like that.  I had bought some seeds so we pulled them out and looked at them.  Throughout the book we talked about the different parts of a plant.  Then we planted our seeds!  I had bought a little $1 greenhouse kit from Walmart that came with soil and seeds, so she helped plant them.

Then we made our own tree picture.  She helped me draw the trunk and roots (she mostly wanted me to do it, so she put her hand on mine while we drew) and then we put the leaves on using a hot glue gun and crayons.  Disclaimer:  cheap crayons for whatever reason wouldn't go in.  And although we could get the whole crayon through, it mostly squirted out of the gun instead of dotting like the original idea.  But she loved squeezing the trigger.  And yes, I ran a stick of glue through afterward and it continues to have a slight greenish hue.

Nature: Landforms Day 1

Last Friday there is no Fine Motor Friday listed since we repeated a previous activity and she used the clothespins to match the letters.  (See previous post here.)

This week is a new month, so we are going to study nature this month.  I want to focus on major landforms and the seasons.  So this week we are doing a couple of major landforms.  Tues we did mountains and volcanoes.

Letter H:  book, identify the Hs on the path, practice writing Hs.  Then we practiced the number 8, counting to it and drawing them.


For our theme time, we read a non-fiction book about Mountains.  It was awesome since it was VERY simple and perfect for her to understand.  We focused on the pictures and then looked at a few more on the internet.  We then made a mountain out of rice krispie treats.  :)









Our next step was to talk about mountains.  We built a mountain out of legos next and put a cup of baking soda in the middle.  So we of course had to erupt it by pouring in vinegar.  She LOVED it. (And it was an easy mountain to clean and no wasted playdough).

We then watched some youtube videos of real volcanoes and talked about lava.

The best part was after, during quiet time, she chose Ice Age.  I was in the kitchen working on dinner and I hear her shout, "Mom!  I see the fire! Come look!"  And lo and behold, there was a volcano on her movie.  :)  Success!

The Body Day 2

Last Thurs we started with the usual number and letter reviews.

We practiced writing the letter G a few times, then played our usual memory.  We then used little plastic eggs that I had written on.  There was the upper case letter on one side and lower on the other.  She had to match them together.  It was easy this time since she mostly matched the colors, but we made sure to check the letters as well. (Idea found here.)

Then we did some addition with beads and pipe cleaners.  She picked a number and put that many beads on the pipe cleaner in a color of her choice.  Then I picked a number (to make sure the total was 7 and under, since that's all we know so far) and she chose a different color to put my number on.  We then counted how many total beads.  We didn't do any writing, this time, just counting and oral addition.  (And then of course she had to make a bead bracelet when we were done.  :) )  (This idea I actually came up with myself.  Believe it or not...)

We read You Can See Your Bones With Binoculars and talked about how we have bones inside of us. I think for the most part she understood.  Then we used white paint on her hands to make a handprint that looked like a skeleton.  (Idea found here.)

 And then we used Q-tips to make a skeleton man! (Idea found here.)

And then we used Q-tips to make a skeleton man!

Brooklyn had a great time!