What a wonderful way to end out our first month doing a home preschool! Chandler has had so much fun and to tell you the truth - So have I! It has been a delightful challenge to come up with something new and exciting for each new day as we learn and grow together. I wanted to share our activities for the rest of the month of June with you. If you try them with your children, please - LET ME KNOW! I would love to know how they enjoyed it!
PUFFY CLOUD LETTERS - LITERACY / SENSORY / SCIENCE!
Needed Items:
- Large bowl
- Can of shaving cream
- Scrapbook letters
- Bottle of glue
- Popsicle sticks
- Square of poster-board or card-board.
How to:
- Mix shaving cream with glue in bowl. I use a 3 to 1 ratio when mixing, with three parts shaving cream.
- Use the Popsicle sticks to mix them together into a foamy froth.
- Use sticks to make little poofy piles - they will spread a bit so give some space.
- Gently put the stickers on the 'cloud' and let dry over night.
- They should feel like a marshmallow in the morning, but don't wait to long or they will fizzle away.
- Grab your kiddo and make a game of calling out or drawing letters and letting your kid poke or smash the cloud. NOT a messy activity, because the glue keeps it all together! We had a blast!
Finished project
Chandler touching the clouds!
I think he enjoyed himself, don't you?
Needed Items:
- Magnadoogle
- Child
- Creativity!
How to:
- Just let them draw!
He drew Batman and Robin. I love the detail beginning to show up in his art. How batman how cowl ears and robin has a 'mask' over his eyes. Notice they both have capes!
Needed Items:
- Egg
- Container, just in case it explodes
How to:
- Place an egg in the back of your fridge if it gets cold enough to freeze or the freezer.
- Make sure its in the carton in case it explodes before the contents are completely frozen.
- When you see the shell crack, take it out and examine it. Let the kids look at the yellow inside through the cracks and discuss why nothing is oozing out.
- Gently peel the shell back from the egg and invite the children to touch or hold the frozen egg. Look at it closely. Can you see the yoke? Is it all just gold? What happens if you leave it out?
Chandler poked it with his finger but did not want to hold it because it felt slippery.
He was amazed and tried to crack the egg before the shell came off.
He also liked the smell ...
not sure why :-)
MY VERY FIRST PENPAL - FINE MOTOR / SCIENCE / TRANSPORTATION!
Needed Items:
- Paper
- Markers
- Envelope
- Stamp
- Address of a place to send your letter.
How to:
- Allow children to draw a picture or a story for their penpal
- Write out what they would like to say and if they are writers, let them address it.
- Make children part of the process. Let them take it to the mailbox.
- We also made a chart and sent out a few letters to guess how long it would take for each letter to arrive. The letters in our state took 2 days. We are still waiting on the one to his cousin in Florida.
Drawing a picture of MacKenzie
This is his finished picture. He informed me that she had on a pink dress, pink shoes, pink arms, pink hands and a pink head. Her eyes are blue, her ears are blue, her belly is blue and her neck is blue. Her teeth are grey and she has blonde pigtails. She is also wearing one of his shoes as well as hers because he wanted to share with her.
Because he couldn't draw himself beside her, but wanted them together - he drew himself on the back.
Signing his name at the end of the letter he dictated to me.
His letter. He wrote her name and his!
Licking the envelope - he didn't care to much for the taste :-)
And into the mailbox it went! This was also a great time to work on road safety!
LOW COST MAGNETIC - NUMBER AWARENESS AND LITERACY!
Needed Items:
- .99 cent ABC magnets
- .00 cent Number magnets
- Cookie sheet from the kitchen
- little bowl with ABCs and NUMBERS drawn on it - I used upcycled bojangles containers.
How to:
- You can do various lead activities, but since he has a good awareness I just offered him the option and stepped back and let him set his own path to discovery. He didn't let me down!
We haven't really written out any addition but we have been talking about it while adding food to the cart at the store, or feeding the animals. 2 scoops plus 1 scoop means Snowflake gets three scoops etc. I was in the kitchen when he came to me all excited and wanted to show me what he had done. This honestly blew my mind, I am not sure where he got the symbols right as I only scribbled it out a few times to show him what they looked like - but here this was! I was one proud Momma!
Next he put all the numbers in order.
And sorted them by color.
PAINTED PAPER PLATE TURTLE - ART / SCIENCE / LITERACY / FINE MOTOR!
Needed Items:
- Green paint (and white if you want a lighter green)
- Green construction paper
- Scissors
- Bottle of glue
- Paper plate
- Googley eyes.
How to:
- Let children cut up green paper into small pieces
- Gather the pieces into a small bowl to one side
- Let children paint half a paper plate green.
- Let children glue the green pieces onto the shell and talk about the plated design of a real turtle shell
- Let children glue pre-cut out legs, tail and head to the back of the plate.
- Glue googley eye onto the head
- Write out the letter T or have them write the letter T and add it to shell.
- Enjoy!
We found this little guy during outdoor play.
They were very excited to look, touch and talk about him.
This is what I mean by learning on their excitement.
We hadn't planned anything turtle related - but upon this discovery they loved
the idea of making a turtle!
Painting the shell
Adding glue
Gluing down the paper he had cut earlier.
Finished turtle!
TIE-DYE MILK - SCIENCE!
Needed Items:
- Tray or plate with raised sides. You can also use a pie plate
- Milk - Room temperature works best
- Liquid food coloring
- Drop of dish soap
How to:
- Pour milk into container - let stand til milk is room temp
- Let children add drops of food coloring to milk - Don't mix them.
- Then add one drop of dish soap and watch the colors swirl!.
The set up. Next we added drops of food coloring.
Then with one drop of Dawn - SWOOSH! The colors swirl together!
If you are wondering how or why this works by the way - Its the power of dawn :-)
Basically the soap breaks up the fatty acids in the milk causing the movement.
PET ROCK - ART / FINE MOTOR!
Needed Items:
- Smooth River rocks (ours came from the dollar store with lots left over for other activities)
- Acrylic paint
- Q-Tips
- Googley eyes
- Cardstock
How to:
- Invite the children to paint with the Q-Tips.
- Add eyes when done
- Make a three sided house with cardstock and invite your child to decorate it
- Name the rock and let them enjoy their new house!.
Getting started
Painting our new pet
Just add eyes, I drew the smiles on with a sharpie.
Design a house and give him a name!
The smaller rock he made for his pen pal and we will mail it on our next letter.
BAG SORTING - MATH / SCIENCE / FINE MOTOR!
Needed Items:
- Grouping cards (I got these for a dollar at walmart or you can print your own)
- Brown paper bag
How to:
- I taped the word of the group and an example on each bag.
- I did the first few cards with him and then let him run with it.
- Simple or as hard as you want to make it - Absolutely an activity that can grow with your child!
He had a blast doing this, and started turning them over to create his own matching game.
I heard him sounding out the words while he worked,
so maybe next time I'll skip the pictures on the bag to add an extra challenge.
Needed Items:
- Old Egg Carton
- Acrylic paint
- Pom poms
- Tongs
How to:
- Paint the inside of each space with acrylic paint to match the color of pom-poms.
- Use Tongs to pick up each pom-pom and place it in the matching space.
- I can not stress how many times I have used these tongs and these pom poms I got for .88 cents at the store. It is all about thinking outside of the box! You can teach your child for next to nothing don't get tricked into buying the high end materials in teacher catalogs - lets face it, kids are creative - we should be too!
He nudged a few together that were the same color.
He wanted to pick up more than one at a time.
Got it!
We ended our month of June with a water day!
This is my muscle man showing off how strong he is!
I also created a really cute job chart for him this week but I think I will make another post for that. This one got a little long! Remember to check back each Tuesday to see what learning activities we have done that week.
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