Week 4/18 - 4/23 ANIMALS

This week we moved on to animals. I had the kids each pick a few stuffed animals & then we talked about characteristics of each of them, their habitats, what they like to eat, etc. We also talked about how each would take care of their young.

We talked about pets & how they differ from "wild" animals and what they need to live & be happy & how people take care of those things for them.

It's also Easter week so we did some combining of Easter & animals w/ these bunny bags that we then later used for a shape Easter egg hunt for the preschool aged girls.

We colored eggs which is a first for me since childhood. But my kids all like boiled eggs so I figured why not! They had already eaten 3 before I remembered to take a pic of their creations. We talked about what kinds of animals come from eggs. What kind of animal would these eggs have been if they were kept warm under their momma?

And of course we ended the week with Easter at Grandma's where the kids hunted for jelly bean filled eggs w/ their cousins. It was another fun week :)

Week 4/11 - 4/16 PLANTS

I've been wanting to do potato stamps & found the perfect occasion for it! Shape flowers! Great for the girls too who are still working on shape identification. So the kids stamped paper with their paints... And once they dried we drew on stems & leaves to make flower gardens. Turned out cute. We also talked a lot about different vegetation & foods that come from plants.

The grand finale' was when the kids planted their own flowers which have just started to come up! The kids were thrilled :)

Week 4/04 - 4/09 MATH

1/2 & 1/3 were pretty fun to teach. Michael loved the idea of sharing a pie with his sisters. I think he was digging the 2/3 & 3/3 idea even more :) Money! We work several days on money. I put a pile of coins out & had Michael separate them, calling each by name & their value as he went. What kid doesn't like playing with money! Later I lined some out as shown above & had him write what it was and their value. Sorting & creating patterns. We also worked on: If Mom wanted 8 cents, what coins could you give her? Which combo would give her the most coins? And the least? Michael chuckled through most of that, which is his way of saying he gets it & loves it. Counting by 2's was a snap when we used shoes. Can count by 2's up to 20 now. Counting by 5's using fingers vs. hands concept. Still working on that one. Trying to come up with another way of teaching this. Michael's doing addition & subtraction, but I realized there were some basic concepts that I hadn't covered yet. Fun week for Michael cuz Math & Science are his favs! Gearing him up for telling time :)

Week 3/28 - 4/02 CALENDAR cont.

This week we finished creating our 2011 calendar, talking about each season as we went. We continued by focusing on the days of the week. Michael was already pretty confident in their order from our calendar making (repetition). I had him write out each day as shown above.

Then I tested his ability to identify the right order of the days by putting 3 rows of days and him picking the one in the right order. Then I took one set of days and mixed them up and had him put them in the right order. We did that a couple times. He even mixed them up himself and put them back in order for variety.

I also (tried) to teach him a couple songs to help him memorize the days of the week. Didn't work well with him cuz he's not a big singer guy, but could definitely work for others (like my girls). Here they are:

*(sung to tune of The Bear Goes Over the Mountain)

There are 7 days in a week

There are 7 days in a week

There are 7 days in a week

And I can name them all.

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday,

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,

Saturday is the last day,

And I just named them all!

*(sung to the theme of The Munsters)

Days of the week (snap, snap)

Days of the week (snap, snap)

Days of the week,

Days of the week,

Days of the week (snap, snap)

There's Sunday and there's Monday,

There's Tuesday and there's Wednesday,

There's Thursday and there's Friday,

And then there's Saturday.

Repeat

* (sung to tune of Clementine)

There are 7 days

There are 7 days

There are 7 days in a week

Sunday, Monday,

Tuesday, Wednesday,

Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

We had a low-key week. Reviewed months, days, and just had some fun. Even went to the beach in the middle of the week just cuz we could :)