May Sensory Bin - Holy Frijoles

This month is brought to you by El Skippito Friskito and Mexico.

Mister and Ladybug were given SkippyJon Jones for their 3rd birthday and it has sat on the shelf mostly unread.  A few times we have tried to get through the book, but it wasn't until we listen to the audio version with Judith Schachner that Miser and Ladybug that they fell in love with series.  Even the Wee One walks around saying, "Not your beans!" I am taking their love for El Skippito Friskito, as he is known around here, we are doing a country study of Mexico.   It's time to dust off the Spanish (four credits shy of my degree) and take a trip to Mexico.

Edit - Never, ever try to take a picture and do a post before your first cup of coffee while your children are recovering from being sick. 

Farm - Part 3

This is a roundup of the final activities we did for our farm unit.  

Literacy - We read every book in the series, Life on a farm and now Ladybug has almost refused all meat since reading the series.

Mister reading about tractors

The -en family: Ladybug is sending mail to Farmer Brown by matching the picture to the correct word envelope.

Math - More money honey.

Coin rubbings

This is an adaptation of a unit on money I created.  Mister is looking through a "toy catalog" and buying toys with his pennies.  For older children I have used an addition sheet and book orders to practice buying things.

Art

Milk painting - We tried this two ways.  The first was with powdered milk, water, and food coloring and the second was condensed milk and food coloring.  Both are nontoxic for tasters.

Cow Prints

After the paint dried they wrote the word "cow" on their paper.

Tractor painting and color mixing

Practical Life

Milk pouring 

Farm Find

Whoa, it has been a long two weeks.  We took a mini vacation that was a disaster and then over a week of sniffles, sneezes, coughing, and snot.  The good news is learning at home means that we can take time off to heal our bodies rather than push through district and state mandated time lines.  

I found this plush barn at the Goodwill and we have used it a few times this month.  The latest thing was for the Wee One to do a farm animal match.  She started with four pictures and four animals to match, so she wouldn't feel overwhelmed.

When I could tell she felt confident and successful in her work, then I gave her a farm book (Goodwill again) and more animals to match.

She really enjoyed this matching activity and making the animals sounds as she held up each animal.

Open and Shut Them

The Wee One, like most kids her age, love to open and close things, so on her shelf is a farm animal open and close.  She likes to open all the boxes and put the animals in one container and then move the animals to another container.

Farm - Part 2

Last week was all about chickens!

Science - Life Cycle of a Chicken

Modified from here

Gross Motor/Fine Motor - Egg Race and Egg Toss

March was hot, well hot for March at least, so when I planned my egg activities I wanted to use real eggs outside.  However, Mother Nature decided to throw me a few curve balls and I just couldn't bring myself to use real eggs inside.  I am learning to tolerate messes, but that was out of my comfort zone.  Also ignore the clothing...my children picked their outfits out alone.

Walk the line.

She might do better with her eyes open.  We used hard boiled eggs from Easter.

Math

Find the correct sum for each equation.

Match the equation in pictures to the equation with numbers.  I want Mister and Ladybug to be able to represent equations in more than one way.  Unfortunately this didn't last too long since the Wee One removed all the stickers.

Literacy - We did a lot of reading in our sight word readers, brainstormed the -EN family, and read Little Red Hen, Where Do Chickens Come From?, and many other books.

Life on a Chicken Farm

Piggy Says What?

An easy and quick activity to put together and do, which kept the Wee One happy for some time. Each time she put in a coin she would let out an "oink" and a snort.

Farm - Part 1

We started our farm study with talking about pigs.  We read If You Give a Pig a Pancake and I Like Me.

Art

Pig in the mud

Math

What's the sum?

The equations were writtin with numbers on one side and dots on the other. 

Literacy



Practical Life

Cow squirter water transfer

Putting on a washer and screwing onto the butterfly.

Mister needs a lot of work on correct pencil grip (he still hasn't decide if he is lefty or a righty yet!) and this tweezing activity helps develop those fine motor skills.  The Wee One liked to tickle herself with the feathers.

Sensorial

Farm babies puzzle

I mixed in a few Easter activities for no other reason than they are fun.