Exploring Seattle Part One

Okay, I have an announcement....

I'm pregnant with baby number #3!

Aka why I haven't posted for a while.

But now that I'm {mostly} over morning sickness,

I'm ready to get back to work!

We had the chance of a lifetime to take a vacation to Vashon Island, WA.

Which is an island in between Seattle and Tacoma.

Our friends live on a six acres oasis.

One morning while the boys were working out,

we decided to go exploring.

I gave the kids their own baggie with their name on it,

and they could pick anything to put in their bag.

It was such a gorgeous day, I ran and grabbed my camera.

They had a ball picking beautiful things,

and claiming them as their own.

It was a fun activity that used many senses.

We headed back inside,

and they were all thrilled with what they found.

This picture feels like such a time piece.

I can almost imagine all of them in the same pose in 5 years.

We went inside and made some flower art.

Then they exercised, just like their daddy's did.

Just look at H.'s face, he wants one too!

Pirate Adventures

It's Pirate Time!

Miss Sassy decided she wanted to be a pirate for Halloween.

So we decided to learn all about it!

I found a letter P coloring page,

(But I don't like worksheets, I like learning pages.)

So we poured pirates gold on the letter P

aka glitter.

Children get such confidence from doing things on their own,

She painted the pirate and the parrot.

We also made a pirate hat and eye patch,

Which isn't part of her costume, it's just fun to make your own!
A few days later she went in the classroom,
and made an exact replica for her brother.

She went and played outside with her ensemble.

I also made a pirate treasure chest felt counting board.

Perfect for practicing.

Swimming Sea Turtles

We are moving on to the world of Reptiles!

We started by learning about turtles.

And their life cycle...

We loved the book One Tiny Turtle

By Nicola Davies

It shows beautifully how a sea turtle lives,

and eventually lays her eggs in the sand.

It's great because it doesn't start at the "beginning".

So it's perfect way to learn a life cycle differently.

We decided to make sequencing cards to learn

about the sea turtles life cycle.

We started by painting glue on for our sand.

I love how Baby H. helps out lately.

We did an egg mosaic for the turtles egg,

And did tear art for the grown turtle.

Although it is a fairly simply project,

I had to work really hard to keep her attention to the end.

I promised her she could dance afterwards.

Here she is pretending to be a turtle in an egg,

She danced while I clapped my hands

and sang about a turtle growing up.

Later she pretended to hide the turtle eggs in the sand.

Dancing is a fun way to reinforce concepts,

and it works for preschoolers through sixth graders.

Here are the reptile books we are reading this week:

The Mixed-Up Chameleons

Chameleon's Colors

Fun Facts about Turtles

Franklin Goes to the Hospital

Apples, Alligators and Astronauts (Letter A Wrap-Up)

There are so many fun things to do with the letter A!

Here are a few things that we didn't have time to do,

But are fantastic ideas!

I love creating a resource for anyone
Who needs lots of ideas for a unit.

The first idea is from the fabulous Kristin at Preschool Daze.
She teaches preschool and has tons of original ideas.

She had her preschoolers make apples out of scrunched up paper bags and wrapped them with tape.
Then the kids played pretend by making an apple store.
Go here to see her other apple ideas.

The Iowa Farmers Wife created
An Apple Tree Felt Game.

She adapted this felt idea from a computer game.
Her little girl can now sort the capital and lowercase letter As.
Go here to see exactly how to make your own.


The last idea is from an adorable blog I just found,
Creativity Takes Flight, created an astronaut craft.

Go here to see exactly how her little boy made this!

I love how many wonderful and fun ideas there are out there.
As always, for more letter A ideas head over to Pinterest boards!

The Letter A Preschool Fun!

Today We Started Preschool!

We learned about the letter A.

We started by reading My "A" Book

By Jane Moncure

 

This is an oldie but a goodie.

Little "a" puts things in his box that start with the letter A.

When the box breaks,

An astronaut comes and puts it back together for him.

That inspired me to have the kids pretend to be astronauts,

and build their own space ship.

I got out an big box that I had and my scrap paper.

They cut out their own art work and glued it on the space ship.

Then we took it outside and they pretended to be astronauts.

I made astronauts helmets out of paper mache.

Go here for my paper mache recipe.

We also learned how to form the letter A

By putting Cheerios in the do a dot circles,

From Confessions of a Homeschooler

They ate Cheerios one by one when they finished.

For our snack, we made "apple trees".

We used a Ritz cracker, green frosting, a pretzel stick,

and fruit loops.

They had a lot of fun making these on their own.

And most of them made two.

(I separated the red Fruit Loops,

but they crashed to the floor just before everyone arrived.

So we had rainbow apples!)

These are the other Letter A books we are reading this week:

The Adventures of Abby Alligator

I like all of the reoccurring letter a words in this book.

My favorite part of this book is the picture page in the back.

The children point to the things that start with A.

Up, Up, Up,

It's Apple Picking Time

I love this book!

It is so fun for harvest time.

Alligator Alphabet

I like the artwork in this book.

I also like how every page is a different animal.

There's an Alligator Under My Bed

I haven't actually read this book yet,
But I love Mercer Meyer and I'm excited to get to know it!

Life Cycle: Fish

The life cycle of a fish is so cool!

So we decided to act/dance/draw it out.

I got onto You tube, but the best fish life cycle video for kids is

Finding Nemo

I decided a fun way to do this would be to make a fish costume.

My inspiration came from a duck towel we have.

I cut out my fabric with pinking shears (so I didn't have to finish the edges.)

Don't be overwhelmed by using fabric.

You could make a small fish costume out of a brown grocery sack.

I also sewed a small fish for her to decorate.

She painted it with puff paint.

And added some fabric frills.

Then when the costume was complete we headed outside.

To represent the fish eggs she blew bubbles.

To represent the baby fish she ran around the yard

with the fish she had painted.

Then we went inside and put on her favorite music

and danced it out.

Dancing is a great way for children to understand sequencing.

This is her pretending to be a little fish egg.

Next she walked around on her knees to be a baby fish.

It was fun to have her pretend to be a fish!

These are the books we are reading with our fish theme.