The Worms Have Arrived!

There was much excitement today as we were about to head out to bring Ava to church school. Our much anticipated worms arrived! 

Checking out the package that was just delivered in the mail! 

Ava in her glory! A bag of 500 worms and she didn't even have to spend hours digging in the dirt to get them! ( I think she likes digging in the dirt too!)

Now that our worms had arrived we had no choice but to get our worm composting bin ready to go. After all, our new worms needed to eat! First step was to collect some dry leaves and a few cups of soil. 

Shredding paper for the bedding kept Ava and Dominic busy during that hard to fill hour before dinner! I had them use scissors so they could get some cutting practice in at the same time! 

Everybody joined in when it was time to assemble the bin. First we had to put the shredded paper. 

Next we had to add the leaves and dirt. 

The final step before adding the worms was to spray the bedding to make it moist. 

The kids were most excited about getting their hands on the worms. They were quite lively things despite there long journey to get to us! 

While we observed the worms, we looked for the worms' saddle (or ring as we call it) and tried to find the head and tail. 

Into the bin go our 500 worms.

It was fun to watch them in their new home. Their first meal was a banana peel and orange peel the kids made sure to save from their lunches. 

Now that our worms are here, we are ready for our W is for worm week! Next week I will be taking a break from blogging, but will be back after Easter with our W is for worm activities. Wishing everyone a very happy Easter! 

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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Learning About the Letter U and Under the Sea

We are still having fun talking about our recent trip to the Newport Aquarium. Introducing the letter U using the under the sea theme was a perfect extension to our fun day visiting the sharks and other great under the sea creatures! 

Books: What Do You See Under the Sea? By Bobbie Kalman 

It Could Still Be Coral By: Allan Fowler

Under the Sea By: Dr. Frank H Talbot

I Spy Under the Sea By: Edward Gibbs

Shells! Shells! Shells! By: Nancy Wallace 

Let's Look at Opposites By: Nicola Tuxworth 

 

To start off the week,we answered the question,"What lives under the sea?" Both Ava and Dominic had some great ideas and had fun remembering what we had seen at the aquarium.

This week we practiced using directional words such as near, beside, between, under, over, behind, etc..  I gave the kids sea creatures. They had to listen to the directional words and put them in the correct arrangement. We also spent some time reviewing opposites such as under/over, near/ far, sink/float, etc... 

The kids had fun creating their own under the sea habitats. They started by  finger painting to create the water. I showed them how to use their fingers to make waves in the paint.   

I printed out sea animal clipart. Ava colored and cut her own. She used beans for the sand/rocks and  Easter grass for the seaweed. 

Our sensory table this week was an ocean theme. I added plastic sea animals and gems (we pretended they were rocks and coral reef) to some water. This activity was a hit. It practically looked like the kids had gone swimming once they finished playing in it each day. I am glad the table is in the basement, because we would have had some really wet floors!  Even Lilly joined in the sensory activity for the first time and loved it! 

One of the math activities this week involved Ava counting bubbles and matching each numbered fish to the correct amount of bubbles. We worked on counting and recognizing numbers 1-20. 

Ava went deep sea fishing for rhymes. She had to fish for a picture, say its name, and find a picture on her rhyming mat that it rhymed with. 

We spent some time talking about the concept of sink and float. Before testing if the objects would sink or float, we made predictions about the outcome of each object. 

We tested our predictions.Our foam letter U floated just like we thought! But, we were surprised that our mega block sank to the bottom. 

This fun shark project idea came from the blog Almost Unschoolers. Dominic is making his scary shark face!  

Ava decided to make her shark differently and said her shark was nice. I liked how she made it her own creation! 

Ava practicing writing the letter U

Our language arts project for the week was scrapbooking our pictures from our visit to the aquarium. It's not completed yet, but coming a long and the kids are having fun with it. Ava has been working hard to label the pictures and decorate the pages. Dominic has been enjoying decorating the pages too! 

I found this free sea animal measuring activity at Peterson's Pad. Using foam cubes (found at the Dollar Tree), Ava had to determine the length of each sea animal. She then recorded her findings.  She took this activity very seriously and kept saying, "this is fun"! I have been wanting to do more with measuring with her. This activity was a good introduction.

We'll be moving onto the letter V next week. Plans are still in progress, but I do know the week will include building our own volcano! 

Teeth, Tea, and Trains all start with T!

Recently, I have been super thankful for other educators and parents who take the time to share their ideas on websites and blogs. It's basically how I have created Ava's first year of preschool. I love being creative and coming up with my own ideas. However, with 3 little ones at all different stages, it is really challenging to find any time during the day to get creative on my own. A quick search on Pinterest can be quite inspiring and get my creativity going! Sunday night I found myself in a lesson planning slump. We had a busy weekend, it was late, and I had nothing planned for Monday. I knew a few things. This week we would be working on the letter T. I wanted to have one day on teeth, one day on tea parties, and one day on trains. Pinterest pulled through once again and led me to some fun ideas! 

Monday: T is for teeth! 

All of these fun teeth activities were inspired by a visit to the blog From the Hive. 

Book: Going to the Dentist By: Anne Civardi

After our introduction to the letter T and reading the story Going to the Dentist, we took some time to talk about things that are good for our teeth and things that are bad for our teeth. Ava and Dominic took turns picking a picture and deciding if it should go with the happy healthy tooth or the sad unhealthy tooth. 

Our art project today was simple, but allowed more practice using small amounts of glue. Ava was given a large mouth without any teeth. Her job was to put the teeth back in the mouth. She is getting better at not using large globs of glue on small pieces of paper! 

Our math activity worked on using a dice. We took turns rolling the dice. The number displayed on the dice was how many teeth we were allowed to add to the mouth. The game ended when all the teeth were added to the mouth. I like these types of games because there is no winner. Everyone plays for the same goal! Dominic joined in too!

Ava practiced writing her letter Ts. Notice the lines are colored. I found this idea from http://blog.maketaketeach.com/strategies-for-improving-handwriting/ It has really been helping Ava understand the concept of size when she writes. 

This activity I knew would be a hit! I boiled eggs in tea. The tea stained the eggs. The eggs represented teeth and the  tea stain represented what happens to our teeth when we don't care for them. I gave Ava and Dominic each a toothbrush (new of course), water, and tooth paste. They went to town brushing their egg. Though the egg never became as white as it was in the carton, the brushing and toothpaste did help clean it up a little. 

Ava brushed her egg for a long time (like maybe 25 minutes!) After all that brushing the egg cracked. She asked if she could see what it looked like inside. I said sure and then the phone rang. That 5 minute phone call led to some unsupervised time with the egg. Before I knew it, Ava had quite the concoction of mashed hard boil egg, toothpaste, and water. It was all stirred together with her toothbrush. Oh well, she had fun and I was going to throw out the toothbrushes anyway. 

For a treat at lunch, I made the kids mouths using apple slices (for the lips), peanut butter (for the gums), and mini marshmallows (for the teeth). 

Tuesday: T is for tea party! 

Tea parties are the new activity of choice at our house. It only seemed natural to have a T is for tea party day. Actually it was a tea is for tea party evening. Kyle took the little ones out for the evening while Ava and I had our school time. 

Book: Miss Spiders Tea Party By: David Kirk 

As we read our story, we had a little tea party for two. We took out some very special teacups that my grandmother gave to me and Ava shortly before she passed away. Ava was excited to use real teacups and have real tea. 

The pattern for this craft came from Kiboomu. Since I didn't have to juggle my time between 3 kids during school time,  I did the project with Ava. We each decorated a teacup and Ava assembled it on her letter T. 

I actually did create one of my own ideas this week!  This activity was  created to review capital and lower case letters. I made a teacup for each capital letter. Together, we put the teacups in alphabetical order. Ava then had to take the lowercase "tea" (brown ovals that fit at the top of each cup) and match it up with the right teacup.

We worked on identifying and writing the numbers 17 and 18 

Wednesday: T is for trains!

We didn't accomplish a ton of official school time today. The older two were having so much fun planning and were getting along so well all morning, I didn't have the heart to stop them to do school work.  

Book: Trains By: Gail Gibbons 

We made name trains to go along with the theme. The activity was a great way to  practice writing our names. Since Ava's first name is so short, she also added our last name. She drew train tracks and added a person on the train. She said her train was a passenger train. This idea came from Tippy Toe Crafts. 

Dominic has been really into Thomas the Train lately. He is not one to usually sit through many projects, but he was excited about this one! We worked together to find all his letters and put them in the right place.


The kids also worked together with Daddy to put together the Melissa and Doug alphabet train puzzle, but I didn't snap a picture of this activity. 

Next week we will have a week filled with the under the sea theme! 

S and our 5 Senses!

This week we learned about the letter S and our 5 senses. We took our senses on the road and had some fun having our school time at a hockey game and the Newport Aquarium! I have to say, having school out in the community really appealed to Ava. She did some really good work this week and not once did she complain about a school activity. I know we can't realistically have school like this everyday, but it just made me more excited for the possibilities that home schooling presents! Take a look at our week! 

We started the week off with a family trip to the Cincinnati Cyclones game. Since it was President's Day, Kyle had the day off. Our neighbors came a long too!  

Prior to heading to the game, I introduced the letter S. We talked about words that start with S. We also read a book on the 5 senses and pointed out that the sense of sight and smell start with s too! I explained to Ava that while we were at the hockey game, she was going to use her 5 senses. She had to draw pictures in a journal of things that she heard, saw, smelled, touched, and tasted. 

At home, Ava practiced writing the letter S. 

We reviewed our letters through a few fun games of Alphabet Go Fish! 

We used one of our snack times this week to focus on the sense of taste! I blind folded Ava and Dominic and had them taste a marshmallow, pretzel, piece of dark chocolate, raisin, lemon, and we ended with a yummy treat of ice cream. As they tasted the different foods with their eyes covered, they identified foods that were sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. We also talked about how they knew they were eating ice cream, not only by the way it tasted, but also by the way it felt in their mouth. 

Ava taste testing! 

We used the Melissa and Doug number puzzles to practice numbers 1-15. 

We focused on the sense of smell by doing a painting project with Kool-Aid. I mixed different flavored packets of Kool-Aid with 2 TBS water each. The mixture created scented water colors. The kids had fun painting with them and identifying the different scents. This paint mixture does stain, so I highly recommend covering up clothes! Dominic has very blond hair. I was nervous he would try and paint his hair (because I wouldn't put it past him). Doesn't Kool-Aid dye hair? It was a very supervised painting project. 

Ava created a letter S mini book from First-School

One of the highlights of the week was the trip to the New Port Aquarium! We had some much fun that we went through twice! Same as the hockey game, we went knowing that we would be putting our five senses to work. Ava even picked up on the fact that she heard different types of music as each exhibit  As we walked through the shark exhibit she said the music made her feel like the sharks were going to bite! 

Watching the otters was a lot of fun. They were very lively and jumping and flipping in the water. A biologist was checking in on the exhibit and asked it we had any questions. Ava asked her what the otters eat and why they like to jump so much. 

One of the highlights of our trip to the aquarium was getting to feed the birds! Dominic wanted so badly for the birds to land on his arm. The bird keeper tried. Once food was involved, the birds were all about visiting with us. 

We used our sense of taste at Tom and Chee.

When we arrived home from the aquarium, Ava worked on completing another Five Senses journal describing our trip to the aquarium. 

The last activity we did was write postcards to Mimi and Papa and Grandma and Grandpa telling them all about what we saw at the aquarium!