E is for Elephants!

We studied about the letter Ee this week,
and, of course, we had to learn about Elmer the Elephant!

I found this printable here.
We used dot markers to decorate them.

This cute book about this Elmer who is different.
He celebrates who he is and stays true to himself.

We had them act out the Elmer book with the puppets they made.

For our snack we made some tastey elephant treats!

We took biscut dough and stretched it around a marshmallow,
dipped it into melted butter,
and dipped into cinnamon sugar.
For the ears we used cinnamon rolls cut in half.
Then we cooked it according to the biscuit container.
Thanks Acts Homeschool for the idea!

I know I should make healther treats,
but I like to make them memorable for kids! ;)

Next we moved onto patterns
This is my favorite way to introduce patterns.
I lost my hippo I used to have when I quit teaching,
so this was the perfect opportunity to make another.

My hubby sketched out this elephant in 2 minutes.
I should have used him before to do my art work!

So I used a stencil to create a shape pattern onto word strips,
you can also use stickers.
When teaching you pull out the first part of the pattern
like if it's an AB pattern pull out the first three shapes,
and then you have them guess each subsequent shape.
It makes them feel really smart.

Then we went to the classroom for math center.
I made these the summer before I started teaching first grade.
All I used was the pattern block die cuts and glued them onto small word strips, and them laminating them.

All I used was the pattern block die cuts and glued them onto small word strips, and laminated them.


The kids loved doing this.

I also made these during summer time.
 I made a black line copy of the maze,
and colored in a pattern that the children extended.

This link and this link aren't exactly the same as what I had, but you could adapt it a little.

Weather Unit: Melted Crayon Rainbows

This is day one of our Weather Unit.

March is the BEST time to study weather because the weather is so versatile in March.

Ever since I saw these hearts I knew I wanted to make my own wax paper/melted crayon project.

We read the darling book, What Will the Weather Be Like Today?

By Paul Rogers.

This book is a MUST for weather units,

the pictures are great and each page is filled with cute rhymes.

We were lucky enough to inherit this book from my mother-in-law who is an AMAZING Kindergarten teacher. 
Right now this book is listed on Amazon for $85, so if I were you I would check it out from the library, or try to snag it at a Thrift Store or library book sale.

The book ends in a beautiful rainbow with the rhyme,
"And sometimes the rain and the sun come out to play,
and make a beautiful rainbow in the sky that day."

We talked about rainbows and then we practiced the sequence of rainbows, which was a new concept for M.

Then we got out our less used cheese grater and grated some crayons in rainbow order.

Then I used our iron placed old rags on top and on bottom to iron the crayon and wax paper together.
(If you do this use old rags, because the rags get stained and waxy.)

Here's what they looked like!
We did not iron them on the ground. :)

Then I cut them out into arches and let M. practice rainbow sequence again.

Then I taped them onto a string and hung it in our window.

I'm hoping our cheese grater will make a full recovery...
But if not it looks kinda pretty like this.

Here are some old posts about

Rainbows from our weather unit last year:

Taste the Rainbow

  

Let's Build A Rainbow

 

And Edible Finger Paint

Sense of Sight

Learning about the Sense of Sight was fun,
especially since we did it on the same day we went to the circus!

First we read the book
Seeing by Sharon Gordon

This book is great!
Seriously, it is!
In the book it talked about how your pupils dilate when it is dark because they want to pull in as much sunlight as possible.

So I had M. put on my sunglasses
for a minute so we could check it out.

Then, we ran in the light bathroom and she could see her pupils shrink until they were very tiny.

We did this a couple of times because it was so cool!

Before learning time,

I had taped some colored cellophane on the windows so they could see things in in different colors.

Super easy and fun!
(Yes. Baby H. has a pen he's coloring with on the window.)

Then in preparation for going to the circus we made colorful glasses.
She could watch the circus in whatever color she chose.

Her cousin loved them as well!

It was such a fun little circus, because it was so small we could see everything really well!

Then when they tired of the glasses,
they made great containers to hold their Nerds candies.

Here are some other My Oatmeal Kisses Posts that also explore the sense of sight:

Mural Painting inside,
Where we went crazy with finger paint,
and later cut it out to make butterfly wings.


Let's Build A Rainbow!
Where we colored our own noodles and strung them on pipe cleaners rainbow fashion.

Binoculars

We made a simple pair of binoculars,

and went for a walk to try them out.

Shining Sun

Where we made our own shining sun.

Ice Water Balloons

Where we filled water balloons with color to create a wet fun time.

Playing with the Colors of the Rainbow
Where we mixed the primary colors together,
to get all of the colors of the rainbow.

Going on a Bug Hunt
Where we got to look for teeny tiny bugs.

Sidewalk Painting
Here's my recipe for cheap easy sidewalk paint.
Fun and colorful!
(I can't wait for summer!)

Have you done anything with light, color, or sense of sight?
List your link in the colors below and I'll add it to this blog post!

Here are all of my posts on the Five Senses:

Sight:

Smell:

Hearing:

Touch:

Taste:

IT SNOWED!

Yay! Finally we have snow!

We bundled up in our winter fashion, and headed outside!

My babies have been in LOVE with spray bottles lately,

So I hurried and put some food coloring in them,

and we went outside.

M. had a great time spraying and spraying the snow.

H. just held his bottle and ate snow.

 But the major bonus from spraying the snow, is they stayed outside a lot longer out it in because they didn't get so cold!

It was magical to find our sidewalk chalk rainbow from the day before.

Which she sprayed too.

 

Spray bottle fun!

Then when the spray bottle lost it's excitement,

She made snow angels,

With Daddy's help,

Made her own mini snow girl,

And was pulled around and around in the sled!

 Bless the Snow!

 And Daddy for being so dang amazing!