Rrrr, I'm Gonna Eat You - March Work

This month we have been talking about food chains and dinosaurs.  Honestly, I am not too interested in dinosaurs as a stand alone topic and neither is Ladybug, so to appeal to more than one person in this family I have attempted to combine the two.  

We started the month talking about herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores and the dinosaurs that fit into each category.  The dinosaur toob has been a great resource for this month.

Each time I have introduced a dinosaur I have given a fact sheet and a coloring sheet from Enchanted Learning.

Match the carnivores with the picture and name.  Each dino has their name on the underside.  We also discussed features that made the carnivores alike.

We have also talked about the animals that are not extinct.

After Mister and Ladybug had a good grasp of what eats what we moved on to who eats who with food chains.

Simple Food Chains 

Apparently a cactus grows in the savanna.  Mister and Ladybug pick a producer and two consumers to make a food chain.

More Complex (Complete) Food Chains

Chose the pictures to make a food chain and label the omnivore, carnivore, or herbivore.  

Art

How to draw a dinosaur!

Math

Number writing practice because who doesn't love a white board?

Fill in the missing numbers on the dinosaur eggs.  This was defiantly a challenge activity for Mister and Ladybug.

Game for two

Literacy

Dinosaur egg sight words (Mister's word) .  Ladybug is reading Biscuit books (her choice) and Mister is reading sigh word readers.  

Sight Word Soup - This game is played like Scrabble Soup, but with sight words.  Each sight word is written on a card and a chip.  One person picks the top card and shows the sight word.  The players put in their spoon and scoop out sight words written on wooden circles and blank circles.  When they find the the sight word they call it out and put it on their board.  When the cards are all gone the person with the most wooden sight words wins.

Practical Life - Name Writing

The Wee One

Two of the things on her shelf

Sensory

Dino feet prints

Dinosaur eggs

March?  Not so much in the tundra, which is why we are still in our pajamas in some of these photos.  I mean it's hard to get out of them when the windchill is still hovering around 0.

February Leftovers

A little of this and a little of that from February.  By the way it was really cold last month, which meant zero motivation to get dressed and less laundry for me!

Practical Life

This was a great activity to practice the pincer grasp.  

Math - What is Valentine's Day without candy heart activities?

Sensorial

Candy heart sorting.  How many do you think were ingested during sorting?

Literacy - A lot of sight word practice this month.

The Wee One's letter practice - Letter M

Art - Watercolor coffee filter hears

March - Rrrr I'm Gonna Get You!

Long time no see.  Lots of stuff, to get technical, going on over here and it has left me with little energy to do anything other than veg when I have free second.

Mister and Ladybug are loving the Magic School Bus chapter books and we are reading about food chains and food webs.  Mister has taken to dinosaurs to the "delight" of his sisters so we are combining the two this month.

• Green rice
• Fish aquarium plants
• Pom-poms for rocks - Our rocks are under a few feet of snow and frozen to the ground.
• Blue petri dish - lake
• Big rock - mountain
• Blue paper - river
• Pipe cleaner - waterfall (Mister's idea)
• Dinosaurs
• Funnel
• Spoon

I was informed that I forget the source of all energy: the sun.

More More Money

The Wee One, who is only 2 years younger than Mister and Ladybug, feels frustrated that she can't do the same activities so I always try to give her some things along the same thing.  I am amazed at what she picks up from Mister and Ladybug's work, but I want her to feel successful at her work on her level.  Here are a few money related activities on her shelf.

Money transfer

Money imprints - First she used her hand to make the dough flat and then used a roller.  

Where does it go?  For some reason the Wee One loved this activity and she made me make more cards.  She had to match the coins to correct pattern.  As an extension we counted each type of coin.

January Sensory Bin - It's All About Money

In our house we don't call coins money, but "lucky day(s)" and it makes me smile every time.  Mister and Ladybug are interested in "lucky days" and how we are able to buy things.  I am sure it stems from me asking them if they remembered to bring their money when they want to buy a new toy or candy.  This month we are going to revisit money.

What's Inside

• Coins (real and pretend)
• Piggy bank
• Items to buy with price tags attached
• "Credit cards"
• Zipper coin purse
• Paper money

Ladybug took the sensory bin and created a store on the table for our shopping pleasure.

Built-In Art Studio - Part 1

The Space

Our basement playroom has two little square spaces that seemed to always collect junk.  I tried to make one area a dramatic play center, but it took too much work to change it as much as I would have liked.  The other space, now the art center, was an unfinished dancing stage.  At one point Ladybug asked or a dancing stage and as soon as we finished making the stage she lost interest.  It sat untouched for over a year until Ladybug asked for an art studio.

Supplies

• 1x2 pine boards
• Pegboard
• Laminate shelving
• Brackets
• Screws 
• Power Tools 
• Paint

The How-To

I started of by painting the entire space Benjamin Moore White Wisp and the trim Benjamin Moore Super White.  I wanted the art work to be the focus and the walls a backdrop and I am having a love affair with gray.

The wall where we wanted the pegboard was measured and cut at the store.  I painted it Benjamin Moore Bahaman Sea Blue.  The color was chosen by Ladybug off the fabric from the art signs.

Next we decided on a height for the laminent shelving table and installed the brackets adding 4" for the stage height.  The brackets were held in place by toggle bolts.  You can read about which kind is right for your project at This Old House.  The laminent shelf was installed on top of the brackets by screwing screws on the underside of the brackets.

The brackets are 12" so if they decide to stand on them (I woudn't put it past Mister) the table won't fall.  

After the shelf was in place we decided how big of space there should be between the shelf and the pegboard.  One of the biggest challenges was making sure the table space wasn't covered by peg board and making sure the kiddos could read the pegboard.  This space was created for preschoolers, so everything has to be low.

A frame was made for the pegboard, so the pegboard could be removed, there wouldn't be a lot of holes in the wall from the permanate fixtures, and hooks could be rearranged and heightened as they grow.

We checked to make sure the boards would make a nice frame for the pegboard

The frame was created using a Kreg Jig.

To hold the pegboard in place white plastic screw buttons.

My dad testing the screw buttons to make sure they were in the correct place.  We used 12 of these screws.

The pegboard is now ready to be mounted on the wall.  For decorative framed look we added a pine corner guard molding painted in Super White.  The frame was only added attached to the peg board so we could remove the pegboard as needed.

The bars and baskets are from Ikea.

Now, you have the start to an awesome art studio!  Check back for the rest of the tutorial.

Candy Corn and Holiday Cards

We are still struggling with sorting out the Wee One's activities from Mister and Ladybug's activities.  Te Wee One wants to do Mister and Ladybug's activities and they want to do her activities.  Of course what child would pass up the opportunity to work with candy corn?

Simple activity for practicing transferring and a lot of smelling, and probably some tasting too.

Another quick activity:

The kiddos like to put together picture puzzles rather than greeting card puzzles, but we have an abundance of greeting cards.  

What's On the Shelf - October

I love October because there is so much fun to be had and so much to do!  Here's the first activities on the shelves:

Practical Life

These chopsticks have a tendency to overlap, so just the right pressure has to be applied.

I have cringed at the cutting work  Mister and Ladybug have brought home from preschool, so  for some fun practice they can make a jack-o-lantern and cut it out.

Science/Sensorial

My body wooden puzzle

Human body x-rays

This is a challenge because the pieces are small.

Literacy

Halloween card making

After we played with this, I changed some of the verbs for more variety.  DK should have included blank pieces.

For Fun

JoAnn $1 section

Usborne cards 

Potato Head family