Tuesday, June 25, 2013

June Highlights - Part 1, of Bird-feeders and Breakfast

Since our first official start of our Pre-Kindergarten / Kindergarten program started on June 1st,  I thought I would just share a few highlights of our few weeks and start posting weekly updates in July.

 I try to include Chandler is as many of our daily activities as possible. I find he delights in playing the important roles of animal keeper to chef. Here he is cracking eggs for breakfast. He was so delighted when he managed not to lose any bits of shell into the bowl!

One of the favorite toys has been our magnadoodle. His drawings of people have come a long way from a circle with 2 legs and 2 eyes. This is Batman and Robin. I loved the amount of detail he put into this from memory. Notice that Batman has pointy cowl ears and a cape while Robin's cape is shorter and flows behind him?  I had never see him drawn circles with dots for eyes like he did for Robin so I wonder if this was his attempt at a mask or a new style of drawing eyes? Either way, its very cute!


When we were outside in our classroom garden he noticed that some of the leaves had holes in them from bugs nibbling away at the leaves. He asked what we could do about it and I said we could make something to keep the bugs off,  but birds would help to eat them too.  He leaped at this idea and made it his mission to help bring birds to our yard. To do this I found a wonderful bird feeder craft. I cut out  a large hole on the side of the milk judge and let him paint the jug with acrylic paint.


Then we went outside to gather leaves and small twigs


He glued the leaves, and a few star stickers to the jug and I covered the jug with modge-podge and and secured the lid with duct-tape. I took a simple spoon and wrapped it with the same tape before sticking it into the jug below the hole for a perch. He loved counting the scoops of seeds to put into his feeder.  Now we draw all the birds that we see come to the feeder! Its an on going project and a lot of fun with many chances for expansion.


 I normally HATE ditto sheets or worksheets of any kind but Chandler found this in one of his coloring books and wanted to do it, so I welcomed his desire to have a place to practice his letters. I always keep out plain paper, construction paper and coloring books for any option in our art center. He did a wonderful job and I am very proud of him!



We love a good chance to get a little messy and finger painting was that option today! I started out with four dots that I created and then put six paints out for him to figure it out and finish the pattern. He didn't struggle with this at all, so we may start moving to 4 or 5 sequenced patterns next.


Even though he only needed four fingers he insisted on using a new finger each time because he wanted to give me a "colorful high 5"! Messy but so worth it!


He had so much fun with this project I know we will be doing another very soon with paints and patterns!



 We have had a lot of rainy days so we decided to do some "science-magic". I took five empty containers  and let the kids pick drops of food coloring for each bowl. Some just had red, or blue while others put different colors in the same bowl. We marked on the bowl what was in it an set it out in the rain.  As the rain water gathered the colors mixed. Suddenly, our bowls marked red  and blue - HAD PURPLE WATER! They were so amazed we had to do lots of other color mixing that week!


He haven't gotten to do to much sorting so I decided to create a little learning try. It was super simple and absolutely free as I just compiled stuff from around the house.

  • Three containers of various size.
  • Paper and marker to mark the sizes of the bowls.
  • Tape to put the label on the bowl
  • Kitchen Tongs.( Mine had holes in in so I covered them with tape to make catching things easier at first)
  • Pom-Poms 
  • Tray (easy transport and a place for Pom-Poms to be sifted through.


He had a blast! This tray wasn't much of a challenge for him, but the tongs were. He had never used them before. For parents who are scared to give their kids scissors, tongs are a great way to practice that pincer motion with out risk of cut clothing or hair. He was very proud of his accomplishment and is looking forward to tomorrow when we sort by color and create patterns!



Thanks for reading our first blog of activities! Let us know if you like one you see or have any suggestions for further our discovery!




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