Preschool: Week of the The Penguin

Tommy's Penguin

  I have done some tweaking on a curriculum for Tommy and have decided to focus on one theme for a few weeks.  We will be doing different activities based on the theme we are learning about.


This week we started our Winter theme of Penguins.   When Penny was hospitalized for RSV, my dear cousin Amy from Montana sent us a copy of Don't Be Afraid, Little Pip by Karma Wilson & Jane Chapman.  Ms. Wilson is a personal friend of my cousins and therefore signed the copy for our little Penny. It was so thoughtful of both of them!


We started off by reading the book which is about a sweet little penguin named Pip who desperately wants to learn to fly but is told repeatedly that she must swim instead.

After reading our book we made penguins out of model magic.  I told the boys what characteristics they needed to make or how to roll the clay etc, but they
did everything else.  Their creations could not be any cuter!!


I had hoped to use the penguins to make snow-globes with, but we all agreed that they were just too cute.  See, I am learning to go with the flow! :)
While I was getting our supplies out I set the boys up with a cute video  from National Geographic about penguins.  They learned how scientist tracked and counted penguins by placing bar code chips in their feet and then having them walk over long pieces of metal that they disguised in the sand.  The penguins were so cute!

Another fun activity was making snow cream.  I got the idea from Susana, who is my wealth of knowledge blog friend!  Trent gathered some snow from the front yard (we had plenty to spare!), I added some milk, vanilla and a little sugar.  The boys added sprinkles and ate away.  Charlie said it was ok but too cold, Tommy accidentally dumped about half a tube of sprinkles on his and thought it was "gwoss" (gross) and Trent said it tasted like watered down ice cream.  I think we will try it again next year when I can taste it and make it better (no dairy for me because of little Miss Penny).  It was fun  though and something we did as a family, can't beat that!

Tommy also did some worksheets from Starfall.com on the number 3 and the letter C.  Our neighbors had also given a ton of odds and ends preschool workbooks.  I have given one to Tommy as his school book to do with us as Charlie finishes up his seat work.  Tom loves it and it makes him feel so big.
 

Hammering his ABC puzzle

Color match game I made him.

The boys also had some fun in the tub with  a full bottle of shaving cream (our fake snow) and a few chunks of colored ice.  I took different plastic containers and filled each of them with water that was different colors. I then just put them outside for a few hours and later that night brought them in when it was bath time.  We let the boys play in the shaving cream with the chunks of ice and they loved it.  Since they were in the bath it didn't matter how messy it got.  In the end the boys had fun, they were clean and I had a squeaky clean bath tub! Win, win for everyone!!

 We made these adorable penguin footprints and a snowman snow-globe out of more model magic.

Linking up to:

Preschool Corner and 5K too

Read.Explore.Learn 

Kids Get Crafty

Weekly  Wrap Up

stART
No Time For Flash Cards
ABC and 123 Learning 

Ice Cube Sun-catcher

This was a very cool activity for the children and myself.  It took a few days to complete but the end result was worth it!  Isn't our ice cube sun-catcher pretty?!

 We tied this project into Charlie's science lesson on measuring liquid. It also turned into a spontaneous art class when the boys mixed different colors of food coloring to make the colors that they wanted. We used our fun tropical ice cube tray from Grandma Candace for the ice cubes. We put the tray outside for a few hours to freeze them. Again linking into Charlie's science lesson on temperature. That is one of the cool aspects of homeschooling, that lessons over lap and the younger ones can be learning right along with the older children.

Once the ice cubes had set we filled a cup with water and placed it in the middle of the black flat bowl.  The water in the cup keeps it from moving around when we filled the black bowl with yellow colored water. It also makes a smaller circle in the sun-catcher that we can use to hang the sun-catcher from a tree etc.We placed our sun-catcher outside again (I guess temperatures in the low teens are good for something!) and let it freeze over night.

 

In the morning we brought it in and ran it under the tap for a few seconds to loosen our suncatcher from the mold.  Our ice cubes did not hold their "tropical" cute shapes but melted into small round balls.  Regardless, we all thought it turned out very pretty.

Daddy hung it from the playscape in the backyard and we will continue to enjoy it as long as the weather permits.  This is one of those projects that we will certainly do again and the possibilities are endless!

Linking to:
Something for the Weekend
Kids Get Crafty
Preschool Corner and 5K too
Creative  Connections for Kids

Preschool Theme: Winter/Snow

 This week we focused on all things Winter/ snow for Tommy's school time.

We read a lot of fun books.

We made snowball cookies. Tommy loves to help in the kitchen.  He calls me "Big Chef" and insists that I call him the "Little Chef".  Oh, how I long for him to stay this sweet forever!!

For a fun craft the boys made snowmen out of shapes.

We also made an ice cube sun-catchers. 

We all had fun doing resist snowflake paintings. I used a white crayon and drew snowflakes on a piece of white paper. Then the boys painted with water colors over the paper to "find" the snowflakes. Tommy loved watching the colored water pull away from the wax on the paper. It was a fun project!

Tom also did a few worksheets from Starfall.com focusing on the letter A and the number 2.

We practiced our letters in flour and then made paper mache snowman faces.

Tommy continues to amaze me.  We are just starting to do formal instruction with him with regards to the alphabet and number recognition.   He can write his name and can correctly identify most of the alphabet.  Yesterday at lunch I was reviewing the sounds that all the letters make with Charlie.  Tommy knew every single one of them and answered with lightening speed.  I was shocked but very proud of our sweet boy!

Linking up to:

Preschool Corner and 5K too

Read.Explore.Learn 

Kids Get Crafty

Weekly  Wrap Up

stART
No Time For Flash Cards 
Creative Connections for Kids
 

S is for SNOW / Winter/ Arctic week 2

We painted with different sponge shapes, including our "snow" packaging noodles!

The boys made an igloo out of packaging noodles, q-tips (icicles per Charlie), and cotton balls.

Charlie found some dice in the dollar bin at Target and wanted to buy them for his math bin. He loves this!

Cutting and taping penguins together so that they can keep warm in the cold Arctic air.

Penguin writing sheet.

Polar Bear maze.

Making a Popsicle snowflake.

Dressing up in winter gear and doing our daily exercise (laps around the house).

S is for snow.

Charlie had to follow the directions to make his own Penguin, very cute!

Mommy and Charlie doing the blubber experiment. This was so neat (Thanks Susana for the idea!) and Charlie really understood the concept.

Worked on more thank you cards. One of the pictures that Charlie drew on the card.

It was to cold to play outside so we brought the snow inside and had lots of fun!




We also did our weekly assignments in Explode the Code and Kumon. This is the last week we will be using Kumon as Charlie really dislikes it and is becoming resistant to doing his math book workbox. So, next week we will only focus on FUN math games and worksheets to revamp his enthusiasim with Math!