V is for Volcanoes (and a lesson on St. Patrick too!)

Letter V week brought us some fun with volcanoes. It was a pretty low key week.  We spent two days on volcanoes and an hour or so today talking about St. Patrick's Day. With only W,X,Y, and Z left to cover in the alphabet we are starting to wind down for the year. But, since its only March, we are not in any big rush. We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our composting worms to go along with W is for worms week. Since they have not come in yet, we will have a review week next week and then spend the week before Easter exploring the Easter Story and having some Easter themed fun! 
Here are a few pictures from our week! 

Books:
Volcanoes By: Franklyn M. Branley
Volcanoes By: Seymour Simon
Patrick Patron Saint of Ireland By: Tomie dePola
St. Patrick's Day By: Brenda Haugen

The sensory table is usually the hit activity of the week and this week was no different. Over the course of the week Ava and Dominic have literately spent hours at this table. If they are really into something, I hate to stop them just to start a new activity. We didn't get everything accomplished I had planned this week. But, I'm okay with that! I made a batch of gooey gak (as we like to call it) and dyed it red to represent the hot lava of a volcano. I cut the bottom of two plastic cups and covered them with tinfoil to make volcanoes. I also added some plastic dinosaurs. Oh, and the kids love cutting the gak, so I added some scissors too.  

The recipe that I use for the gooey gak is one part glue to one part liquid starch. Keep it in an airtight container. I highly recommend wearing a smock or old shirt. It does stick

 

The kids were quite fascinated by the idea of erupting volcanoes. We tried out the classic volcano experiment with baking soda and vinegar. The kids built their volcano out of home made play dough that I made back in October and was ready to be cycled out anyway. I gave them small cups of baking soda and vinegar to add to the craters in their volcano. They took adding the ingredients very seriously.

Here they are adding the vinegar. 

Ava's face says it all. They thought the reaction created by the vinegar and the baking soda was cool. They wanted to keep trying. They experimented using different amounts of baking soda and vinegar to see if they could create more of an eruption. 

Here Ava is working on her weekly handwriting sheet. 

 I searched a long time for some volcano project ideas and finally found this idea on the blog Some of This and Some of That. I liked this idea because it was simple and provided the opportunity to work on cutting skills. I also liked that the erupting lava was the letter V.

Ava created a mini letter V book from First School.  

So, this was way off the Volcano topic. With St. Patrick's Day coming up, I wanted to incorporate the topic into the week..We read a couple books about St. Patrick's life and created a shamrock shaker. Since it has been said that St. Patrick taught the people of Ireland about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being one using a clover, Ava labeled her clover. I am finding that the more opportunity for her to do her own writing, the more letters she is able to write without assistance or having to see me write it first. It is fun to watch things click! 

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