Desert Silhouettes

Paint chips.

They are so awesome they deserve their own line.  If you have searched Pinterest, then you have seen the abundance of crafts using paint chips.  Really, why not when they are free and come in every color you could dream.  We used paint chips to make desert silhouettes and I adore the results.

Ladybug - Can you guess who likes purple?

Mister - I know that he isn't a huge fan of art, so I made sure to model how to cover the entire paper with paint chips.  

The Wee One - Her picture sparked interest in collage.

Ladybug's desert colors collage

First we looked at pictures of silhouettes and talked about what they all had in common.  Then, we talked about dessert sunset colors and read Listen to the Desert.

Desert Activities

Now that the twins are finished with all their summer activities and there is a small break before their preschool programs starts, we have been back in our room.  It feels good to be back to school and everyone seems refreshed after a fun summer.  Mister is loving all the desert animals and Ladybug and the Wee One are into all the art projects.

Math - Mister and Ladybug are obsessed (their word) with time, whether it's how long something takes to the actual time.  I took this opportunity to introduce the clock.

Match the time on the cards - All cards are on the hour

Making a clock - We will redo this activity with stamps because the stickers kept falling off.

Literacy - We are still working on word families and CVC words.  Ladybug is fully reading and Mister is not too far behind.  We have talked about blends here and there, but nothing formal.

Making words - CVC with one CVCC

Writing words - CVC

Sensorial

Desert colors - paint chips from light to dark

Desert photos 

Art

One dollar snakes from Michael's.  I replaced the provided colors with  desert snake colors.  Before we painted, we looked at pictures of snakes in the deserts of the Southwest.

Desert Colors

The Wee One picked up on colors relatively early and she loves matching, so I put together a desert color challenge.

Dark and light yellow and dark and light pink - One set is taped onto the magnetic board and the matching set has magnets on the back.

Shades of pink - This was difficult because the two middle colors are very close in color.  She still doesn't have it down, but we are working on it.

Holy Frijoles - Part 1

We have only done these activities a few times this month.  So far they have seemed to enjoy them.

Math

Mister and Ladybug put the correct number of links on the soccer ball and then add (join) two of them together.

Roll a graph - Mister and Ladybug rolled the die six times and added a sticker to the correct column.  

Literacy

The -et family

Ladybug is very excited to write and for a dollar I made her day.

Practical Life

We are still working on Mister's pencil grip, so I put out "Things from Mexico" pushpin.

Cultural/Geography

The Wee One

This work was first presented to Mister and Ladybug as an introductory lesson to colors in Spanish.  We did a group lesson on the rug and took turns matching and saying the colors.  Also, it's on the Wee One's shelf for color matching.  She finds is really easy and has attempted to say the Spanish words a few times.

There you have it.  Next month I really want to study Mexico and I have plans to include an artist study among other things.

I'm Puzzled

The ages on puzzles make me question my own puzzle ability.  Admittedly I am not very good at puzzles and it seems like my children have fallen in my foot steps.  The Wee One picked out a set of three puzzles at the store the other day and I couldn't say no because they were $3 plus she really loved them.

I set out the color puzzle on her shelf and I knew that it would be difficut for her.  The shapes are odd and they are hard to fit.  I had an "aha!" moment when I was looking at the puzzle and the pieces.  Using the dot markers, I put a dot where the piece should go.  Now, with my help to get them to fit, she can complete the puzzle a little easier. 

Cloudy Days

We had a week of sunshine outside and clouds in our room.
Literacy

Raindrop to Rainbow word family

Letter writing practice in the clouds

-og family - writing in the clouds

Sensorial

Cloud Dough - The Little Hands Art Book by Judy Press

1/2 c water

1/2 c cooking oil

2 c flour

2 c salt

food coloring - omitted

peppermint oil - omitted

This made the biggest mess, but they loved it. 

Shaving cream clouds - the preschoolers and the toddler loved this.

Science

Cloud in a bottle - no matches needed.  Warm water and an ice cube. 



Mister and Ladybug were very interested in how the clouds were formed especially the part about the sun evaporating the water, so we did our own evaporation.  They were curious to see if we could make a cloud.

We made a few observations and added to our predictions. 

We poured water on the deck and made predictions about what would happen.

Using the pictures of cirrus, stratus, and cumulus clouds they made their own cloud books and put on the correct lable for the cloud type.

Cloud matching

Three part cards



Art

Cloud crayon resist watercolor

Texxture painting a cloud

Dot painting from Make Learning Fun

Food

 

We're Up to Four

Colored popsicle sticks and my childhood cups make an easy color matching activity.

Every Rainy Day Needs a Rainbow

Mother Nature gave us the clouds and the rain and we made the rainbows.

Art

Mister and Ladybug helped me paint the rainbow that they use as reference to make their own rainbow.

Dot Marker Rainbow

Math - This was our second graphing activity and they did very well.  After they finished graphing I asked questions like which had the most/least. which were the same, and as a bonus how many more does ___ have than ____. 

Mister and Ladybug went CRAZY for the Fruit Loops...sugar, kids who would have thought?

Science

I gave Mister and Ladybug the primary colors and asked them to make the rest of the rainbow. 

I had Mister and Ladybug line up the cups in ROY G BIV minus the I.

Literacy - We read a few books and the letters that made up RAINBOW.

I am not huge on handwriting sheets, but Ladybug is starting to get into writing and wants to write each letter correctly.  Confession of a Homeschooler has an entire rainbow unit.

Food

Mmm blue dip and purple yogurt. 

Rainbow cupcakes

The Wee One

I put a Fruit Loop in each muffin space and let her match the rest in the bowl.

Sticker, Sticker, Sticker

The stickers have made another appearance and this time the Wee One did the stickering since she loves stickers.

Pom-Pom Color Match

I bought a pack of rainbow circle stickers for this month and they have proved to be very versatile.  I have used them in for the Wee One and Mister and Ladybug. 

First the Wee One helped me put on the stickers (she had insisted on putting the same color of stickers over the stickers I already put on) and then she matched the pom-poms to the color.

This activity reinforces one-to-on correspondence.