See Spot

I love the spot books, probably as much as my kiddies do. I just found this website with great stories and educational games: Fun with Spot.

G is for Giraffe

1. Online jigsaw puzzle, found here.
2. Learn about giraffes here.
3. Make this fun giraffe craft!

F is for Fall

1. Collect fall items: leaves, acorns, pinecones
2. Sort
3. Make a fall wreath and leaf book, instructions found here.
5. Learn about falling leaves here.

E is for Elephant

1. Measured the size of an elephant, instructions here
2. Learned elephant facts, found here
3. Made an elephant puppet
4. Snack: elephant biscuits

E is for Egg

1. Learned about animal eggs here
2. Painted tin foil eggs, instructions found here
3. Had an Easter egg hunt without the candy
4. Snack: Sandwiches cut in the shape of eggs

D is for Dinosaur

1. Read "How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?"
2. PBS Dinosaur Train
3. Made Pipe Cleaner Dinosaurs
4. Snack: Dug for dinosaur fruit snacks in chocolate pudding

C is for cat

1. Read the Cat in the Hat
2. Played Cat in the Hat online games
3. Read Three Little Kittens Nursery Rhyme
4. Played Littlest Pet Shop

B is for Bear

1. Read this book
2. Read Goldilocks and the Three Bears online
3. Watched Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
4. Played this matching game
5. Did this pattern worksheet
6. Made a hibernating bear craft, as seen here.

B is for Butterfly

1. We talked about the life cycle of a butterfly

2. Watched The Very Hungary Caterpillar

3. Flew like butterflies

4. Made a butterfly snack: add colorful snack food to a ziplock baggie, tie the middle with a twisty tie. Eat!

5. BBC online book: The Butterfly Trail

A is for Astronaut

1. Snack: Make astronaut food! Add instant pudding mix and milk to a ziplock bag. Shake, refrigerate, eat! Snip the corner to eat right from the bag.

2. Go to the NASA Kids website

3. Make your own spaceship! Cover a laundry basket with a white sheet, add steering wheel and buttons. We had one astronaut costume and used an adult white shirt for the other space suit.

Preschool - Apple Theme

Summer camp is over and school has begun! I wanted to spend more time with my little girl this year, so we are doing preschool at home. I thought I would post my lesson plans, 2 or 3 times a week.

We are starting with letters, and right from the beginning.

A is for Apple

1. Play hide and seek with an apple
2. Sample three apples (different varieties). Make a chart, writing down the name, the color, and a smile or frown depending on the taste. Gala and Golden apples were well liked, Granny Smith - not so much.
3. Cooking lesson: applesauce.
4. Art project: draw a tree and use a red ink pad and fingers to make the apples.
5. Field trip (planned for later this week): visit an apple farm.

Cooking / Science Camp

We took a break from our summer camps and went on vacation. Much needed.

This week is Science/Cooking Camp!

Ideas:

Food Art
Bubbles Recipe
Rock Candy
Farmer's Market

And as many activities as we can fit in from this website:

http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/sci/

Water Safety

We are off to the pool! Found this website with a download study unit on water safety - it's 40 pages but I just printed off a few. I found the safe swimming rules and buoyancy experiment especially useful.

Grass Heads aka Homemade Chia Pets

We made grass heads! A boy and girl with no names, as of yet. Here's how we did it:

1. Eat applesauce, yogurt, or pudding and wash out the containers.

2. Find an old pair of nylons, cut off feet

3. Add about 1 tsp of grass seed to nylon foot

4. Add about 1 cup soil

5. Tie a knot

6. Keep about an inch of the tail and cut off the rest.

7. Work the seeds into the soil a bit (you can see them a little on the top)

8. Fill container half way with water

9. Place grass head on top with tail submerged in the water

10. Decorate, place in a sunny location, and watch them grow!

11. They will need a hair cut from time to time.

Scout Camp

This one has been a little harder for me to plan. I have no experience with scouts, except a faint memory of my brothers repeating the scout motto over and over again. None the less, here are my ideas:

1. Visit the county fair, see all the animals

2. Indoor camp in a new room each night

3. Go on a hike with a map and compass

4. Bike Safety

5. Water safety at the pool

6. Knot Tying

7. Have a Pinewood derby race

8. Geocaching

9. Fire in a can and roasting marshmallows

10. Rock Museum

The Wetlands

Made a trip to the wetlands this week. All were impressed! So much wildlife in such a small area. I'd like to go back again (with a bird book), maybe in the spring?

Animal Facts

The plan is to have the kiddies pick a favorite animal, do a little research and then tell us all about it at the zoo. Here are a few useful websites:

National Geographic Kids

Yahoo Kids

Scavenger Hunt

It's amazing how much more you pay attention to things when you're hoping to check off a few little boxes. We had lots of fun on our outdoor scavenger hunt. We crossed a stream, found blue dragon flies, ate wild blackberries, and crossed a few things off of this list.

Camp Wild Things

Here is my list of fun things to do this week:

1. Go to the zoo
2. Go to nature park, bird watch and make nature bracelets
3. Outdoor scavenger hunt
4. Bug catching
5. Make grass seed heads
6. Make plant cuttings

Art Camp Wrap-up

So much for posting every day. Turns out my art camp aspirations were a little high, but we did get two more projects in:

Sock Beanies

Materials:
Small Socks
Glue
Sharpee Marker
Beans or Lentils
Googly Eyes

1. Fill a small sock with beans or lentils (used a funnel from a magazine).
2. Tie a knot in the end
3. Glue on eyes and color in face
4. Done!

Rock Pets

1. Paint rock
2. Dry
3. Decorate! We used pom poms, googly eyes, rick rack, flower lace, & cross stitch floss (made excellent hair and a mustache).

Art Camp - Day 1

So, I looked really hard for shrinky dinks (actually, I just went to one store) and could not find them. Perhaps they are not as popular as they were in the 80's. Anyways, I found these instead:

I found them at JoAnn's in the dollar section. The kits came with a metal frame, crystals that melt in the oven, and a suction cup. The kiddies loved them, but I used the tweezers a bit more than I care to.

We also made creature collages, cutting out random heads, legs, and arms from magazines.

Art camp has already been declared a success! So far, so good.

Summer Camp

I took a long break, but I'm ready to go again! This summer, to entertain and educate the kiddies, I am setting up camp. Each week will have a different camp theme:

Week 1: Art Camp
Week 2: Camp Wild Things
Week 3: Scout Camp (a suggestion from my not-yet-old-enough-for-scouts child)
Week 4: Sports Camp
Week 5: Cooking/Science Camp
Week 6: Pioneer Camp

The plan is to have 2 activities (one for morning & one for afternoon). I will start posting results next week. Wish me luck!

If you want a little preview, this is the master list for Art Camp:

Twig name plate
Watercolor in nature
Collage of creatures
Friendship bracelets
Apple heads
Crayon scratching
Log cabins
Rock buddies
Sock beanies
Shrinky dinks

Word Games

My preschooler has recently taken to sounding out words. I have found a few effective teaching tools for this reading stage:

1. Word Wheels

2. Upwords

3. And for the more advanced readers, my first grader loves this one.

Chore Charts

Chores are a bit of a struggle around here, even I struggle with my chores - every day in fact. I often change my routine, just to keep myself motivated, and one day I realized that my children probably need a change of pace as well. Here are a few ideas to keep everyone moving:

Chore Dice

Chore Chart

To Do List Jars

A House of Cardboard

I'm a big fan of cardboard, and the creativity involved with it. The possibilities are endless! I have made a castle from scratch before (inspired by this, but in a much more simple form). This time around, I took the lazy approach and bought a pre-made cardboard house. The house had white walls, so we took the opportunity to add a few decorative touches, namely a flower and vegetable garden.

Want to make your own? Try this: Makebabystuff.com.