Muffin Tin Monday

We did Muffin Tin Monday today, but I was pressed for time and didn't get a picture before letting them chow down. Today was our first "back to school" day (which means I had my rear in gear) and I took the boys to the park this morning....meaning that I had to get lunch together quick when we came home, and they were starving. Seriously, my boys are always starving.

Anyway...I got LOTS OF LOVE for this particular muffin tin collection because of something SO simple. I cut the pb&j into the shape of a HEART! You'd have thought it was made of gold. Three was SUPER excited, and said "I love, love, love, love, LOVE you!"

:)

Other items in our tin: pretzels, applesauce, green peas, peaches and marshmallows. If I had thought about it before last night...I would have tried to put together an all green theme in honor of our frog week, but alas...sometimes I'm just flying by the seat of my pants!

Frogs

Frog paper bag puppets, because Three has thrown it down that "We *never* make puppets." Oh yeah...take that.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/puppets/paperbag/

I printed out frog coloring pages (you can google it.) Look at google images and noted the wide variety of colors frogs can come in, and then color the pic.

Discuss where you would find frogs, and where you find those beautiful colored frogs we find on google images. Map printouts are your friend.

Print out the life cycle of a frog, and go over it. Print out a 2nd one, and cut it into separate cards to be placed in the correct order.

Focus on the letter F....seriously, Three has a mental block about this letter, so we keep visiting it. Someday.

You could do color mixing here as well: blue/yellow to make green frogs.

Rhyme: Five Speckled Frogs! (I love this rhyme...shhh don't tell.)

Lily Pad craft: I cut out a green circle, used a coffee filter and let them paint the middle (or all of it in Three's case) yellow. After the coffee filter dries, glue the flower onto the lily pad. These turned out cute.

And, we may do the tadpole craft from notimeforflashcards (one of my FAVORITE sites): http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/category/frogs There are other good ideas, you should check it out. :)

Community Helpers

Firefighters, Police, Construction worker, Mail Carrier, Veterinarian

Nursery Rhyme: Ladybug, Ladybug Fly Away Home

Police Craft: Cut out badge shape from cardboard. Cover with aluminum foil. Use the handle part of the paintbrush to "draw" on the badge.

Discuss what police do--speed limit signs, stop signs, litter laws, etc.

Construction worker craft: make a safety vest out of paper bag;

Build with blocks in the "construction zone"

Firefighter craft: Paint a fire-red/orange/yellow paint, add a cut out of a house.

Draw flames with sidewalk chalk, use hose (or spray bottles) to put out the flames.

Tour the local firestation

Mail carrier craft: http://familycrafts.about.com/od/potatochipandpeanutcans/a/Pringles-Can-Mailbox-Craft.htm

Cut out mailbox shapes put a letter/number/shape on each mailbox. Make an envelope and put the matching/corresponding item on the envelope. Have child match them up.

Mail something!

Veterinarian:

Pretend play "vet" with stuffed animals.

Community Helpers Puzzle: Create this (if you don't have one) by printing a coloring page, color it, and then cut it into pieces for your child to put back together. If you have a laminator, or access to one, laminate the page prior to cutting it.

Math Skills: We'll use the blocks on our building day to make some patterns. We'll also make towers and count the blocks (we are working on higher numbers.)

Four will be learning the color red, and we'll work on matching. I'm going to make a "color red box." A color box is a school supply box (like a stiff cardboard pencil box) and I will put various RED things from around the house in it for him to discover. We'll look at the box each day.

Another project I'd like to complete this week is a color match wheel. You cut out a cardboard circle, paint sections of the circle in different colors. Paint clothespins to match. Have child pinch the clothespin to clip it on to the matching spot on the circle. I plan on doing this 2 times. One with just 4 colors (for Four) and one with more colors (for Three.)

Planning

Today my goal is to go over my preschool skills checklists to see where we are. I'm trying to decide if Three will be ready for Kindergarten level work by fall, or if we'll just continue on with preschool. He wouldn't go to Kindy this fall, because of his Jan birthday, but homeschooling allows him to do school at a different level than his social skills set....which wouldn't be at all ready for K. Two started Kindy when she was still 4, she has a late Dec. birthday and would not have gone that year, but she was academically ready.

I'm using two skills checklists:

http://www.worldbook.com/typical-course-of-study-preschool-curriculum-guide.html

http://www.reocities.com/Heartland/Forest/2468/skillslistage4.html (this list is often considered advanced, and I'll bear that in mind as well.)

This weeks theme, which will be put up tomorrow, will be Firefighters, and other community helpers. :)

March Week 5--Spring

I have been in a funk since the beginning of the month. My apologies. Three and Four have done very little "organized" school because of my funk. I'm snapping out of it (I can feel it...) and have planned this coming weeks unit. We'll be talking about spring. I know in many parts of the country, it's not really feeling like spring so maybe they can use these acitvities to help them feel "springy!"

Counting--flower stickers; Make a field of flowers, counting as you go.

Science: Make a birdfeeder--using paper towel/tp rolls and pb and birdseed. Here is a link: http://www.kinderart.com/crafts/easybirdfeeder.shtml

Science/Craft: Make a birds nest--go on a scavenger hunt and glue the nature items to the inside of a coffee filter making a nest. Talk about how birds look for things for their nest.

Craft: Stained glass eggs; Discussion of eggs being new life that occurs in spring. Observe the nest building in our yard (we have a bird box, and a ledge on our porch where there is current nest building going on, YAY!) Cut out the outline of an egg (2), have child pick 2 or 3 colors of tissue paper then cut it or rip it into small pieces, stick it to clear contact paper then cover with another piece of contact paper. Hang in a window and let the sun shine in!

Science/Craft: March is windy-discuss how wind moves the clouds (and observe it!) Make a cloud out of cotton balls.

Plant seeds. Water them (this is my boys favorite activity.)

Fly a kite.

Craft: Make a kite out of construction paper.

Importance of Honeybee's discussion and a bee handprint craft: http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/insects/mhandprintbee.htm

Splashing in the Puddles (gross motor activity from www.brighthub.com)

Set small mats, such as those used for naptime or activities, around the room to make a disjointed path. Then have each child stand on one mat and jump up and down, singing the following song (to the tune of “We’re Following the Leader”):

We’re splashing in the puddles,

The puddles, the puddles,

We’re splashing in the puddles,

One, two, THREE!

When they reach the last line, children should jump forward three mats. You may want to instruct children to remove their shoes before starting this activity. If you’d like, you can tie this activity into the book that you’ve read by discussing how it might feel to splash in real puddles.

Read more: http://www.brighthub.com/education/early-childhood/articles/63311.aspx#ixzz1HndQzD9h

March Week 2: The Big Red Barn

Math skills: Estimation...use a farm related item (dried beans, unpopped popcorn kernels, toy farm animals, etc.) place some in a jar and have the child guess how much the jar contains. For this, I think I'll show him groupings of 10, 25, 50 before hand and then let him estimate as I don't think he has ANY grasp of this concept. He could prove me wrong though, woudln't be the first time.

Play "The Farmer in the Dell."

Sing Old MacDonald Had a Farm.

Craft: Milk Carton Barn.

Science: Food from the farm. What foods do we eat that grew on the farm? Another discussion about healthy eating.

Science: Duck feathers repel water. We have a local pond that has lots of ducks. I'll go collecting some feathers from shore, and we'll spray some water on them to demonstrate how they repel water.

Craft: Stick Horse http://www.everythingpreschool.com/lessonplans/farmanimals/art/art1.htm

Science: Make butter! It's really simple. Put some whipping cream in a jar, add a marble, and shake shake shake! Enjoy it on some bread. Mmm. Mmm. Good.

Craft: http://stepbystepcc.com/farm.html Pig of Many Pinks (I will see if I can find some other shades of pink tissue paper at the store, all I have is HOT pink. If I can, we'll do this, it sounds cute!)

Craft: Alternate for the above, but I may do both! MUDDY PIGS- Cut large pig shapes out of pink butcher paper. Give each child a pig shape with a small amount of brown fingerpaint in the center of it. Let the children cover their pig shapes with the brown fingerpaint "mud." (MUDDY PIGS- Cut large pig shapes out of pink butcher paper. Give each child a pig shape with a small amount of brown fingerpaint in the center of it. Let the children cover their pig shapes with the brown fingerpaint "mud.")

F is for Farm. For some reason Three cannot remember this letter to save his life. Ok, I take that back, recently (since it's the beginning letter in "Get Ready For the Code" he's been doing better. He knows several letters, and we've already covered F, but for some reason he always forgets it.)

Math skills: Counting a dozen objects, and using the word dozen. :) We'll use plastic easter eggs in a carton, and maybe these flashcards: http://www.first-school.ws/theme/printables/flash-cards/numbers-shapes.htm

Reading: http://www.first-school.ws/theme/fables/farmer-and-his-sons.htm

Cooking: Make haystacks with chowmein noodles, peanut butter and butterscotch chips

We'll also be doing "Food From the Farm" for Muffin Tin Monday!

Sensory: Coffeee grounds make great dirt for tractors to plow! (Awesome idea from http://www.angelfire.com/fl/preschoolfunzone/farm.html)

Sensory/Science: Different forms of corn. Corn starch, corn meal, corn kernels, popped corn.

I also have a game that I got from a GamesForLearning yahoogroup that is called "Farmer Farmer What Do You See?" it covers both colors and counting so I'll use it for both boys (colors for Four, counting for Three."

Lastly, I printed a game AGES ago...seriously, One was a toddler that is a big red barn and several small animals. You have to match the animals to the farm, since some of them are not farm animals. We'll defineatly play that as well. Three has played it before, but it's been awhile. I googled and couldn't really find anything similar to what I have, but you could EASILY make your own version of this.

Week in Review

This is how you make a Venn Diagram interactive.

It's hard to see the ribbon outline in this shot, the original idea was to use hula hoops, but alas, I didn't have 2 hula hoops on hand. So, ya do what ya gotta do to make it work.

Helping me make the cupcakes.

Watching some newly emerged butterflies dry their wings. Sadly, one butterfly did not fully emerge before his wings dried. But, it was a good lesson in life.

Painting his coffee filter with watercolors.

Three's finished product.

And, after assembly.

Three painting his egg carton caterpillar.

Adding eyes.

Adding some of the food the caterpillar ate.

Sequencing.

We did the life cycle cards, he enjoyed them, somehow I didn't get pictures. This weeks theme is "The Big Red Barn." We are visiting a farm next week, so we are preparing for that. Plans to come shortly.