V is for Volcanoes

Today we learned all about the letter V.

Here are our upside down V volcanoes.

We painted the V with brown paint,

and the hot lava with gel paint.

Last night I prepared a little volcano science experiment.

The best way to spice up school is with science.

I used 1/3 c. Baking Soda

and reserved 1/3 c. white vinegar (and red food coloring) for the experiment.

Ready, aim, blast off!! 

 For the five seconds that it was happening,

it was totally worth it!

We watched a you tube video of a real volcano erupting,

and we went upstairs to make our own edible volcano.

This idea comes from Craft Interrupted

We did it the same way.

Put chocolate pudding into an ice cream cone,

flipped it over fast,

put pudding around it a little bit,

then made the molten lava flow from it,

we used jelly belly brand cherry ice cream topping.

We also put dinosaur gummy bears on it,

(To link into our unit on animals)

Delicious and nutritious.

Um maybe not so much nutritious.

We then made our own human volcano.

The all had red, yellow, and orange scarves,

and pretended they were lava.

They hid under the blanket

(giggling)

until I said, "The volcano is erupting!"

And erupt it did!

And the lava filled the whole room.

 

We did it about three times,

because it was so fun and silly. 

{And educational, but don't tell them that!} 

Next we read a dinosaur book,

and did some dinosaur math.

The printable is found here.

Because their minds were so excited about volcanoes,

and dinosaurs,

they thought this was the best activity ever. 

 

I paired two children together,

an older one and a younger one,

so they could work on their numbers together.

This was great for team work, one on one correspondence,

fine motor skills, and thematic integration.

Then they played in the sand table with dinosaurs.

For more letter v ideas check out my pin board here.

Dinosaur Week Wrap-up

We had such a great dinosaur week!

I follow some amazing people on Google Reader.

And they have SO many great dinosaur ideas.

The first is from Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas.

She did a whole dinosaur theme.

She bought some "dinosaur skulls" and froze them.

Her girls had a great time digging them out.

Check out her whole unit including some math and literacy ideas.

The next is from I Can Teach My Child

(Don't you love that name!)

She had her kids make painted footprints and a dino print,

And then she had them order them from largest to smallest.

The next idea is from Mama Dani's Musings,

She does Muffin Tin Mondays,

And for her Dinosaur week, 

She made tuna fish dinosaurs, fruit rocks, celery trees, 

and adorable dinosaur print cookies.

Fun!

Go check out all of these fun ideas!

Here are even more great dinosaur board on Pinterest!

Dinosaur (Name) Dig

After all of the Dinosaurs Died,

The paleontologists dug up their bones.

After learning about extinction,

we made letters look like dinosaur bones.

I was inspired by Dr. Deborah Stewart,

over at Teach Preschool

Who used index cards and colored rice

and had her students uncover their names.

I wanted to adapt this idea to our dinosaur theme.

First we made cookie dough and cut out a bunch of letters.

(And I wanted to make it edible!)

We have alphabet cookie cutters,

we also cut out dinosaur shapes as well.

Then we cooked it, let it cool,

and buried it in brown sugar.

(It looks just like sand.)

Then she used my pastry brush to discover

the letters in her name.

It took her awhile because the sugar doesn't move easily.

We were able to talk about how paleontologists

have to be so careful when they dig up dinosaur bones.

It was so delightful to watch her "dig" up a letter,

And work at it until she could see what it was.

Brown sugar was the key to this activity!

It make it last longer,

and turned it into a discovery.

You could use magnetic letters, cookie letters, sandpaper letters,

or words written on an index card.



Dino Days

We couldn't learn about reptiles,

and not learn about Dinosaurs!

We started out by learning how Dinosaurs com from eggs.

We read Dinosaur Babies.

It is great because it shows how the dinosaurs come from eggs.

We then got out our paper mache,

and balloons,

We made our own dinosaur eggs.

She didn't actually love getting her fingers messy,

so I had to finish making her egg.

We let them dry,

And secretly I put some of our dinosaurs inside.

Then I patched up the hole with paper mache.

Then she pretended she was a mama dinosaur,

and I was the predator.

She went and hid her eggs in the sand.

Then she pretended that they hatched,
so she could see what was inside.

Then she played in the sandbox by herself for a while.
(Isn't alone playing time the best?)

Here are the other Dinosaur Books we are reading this week:

First Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Pre-historic life.

The title is a little long and boring,
but this book rocks!
It is full of facts and right on a preschoolers level.

Ten Little Dinosaurs
(with the wiggly eyes)

This book is really fun,
if you can get past pronouncing all of the names.
It is good for talking about how dinos became extinct.

No T-Rex in the Library

is nonfiction, but really fun to realize
how huge dinosaurs really were.

Dinosaur Roar!

Is really great for little boys
aka Baby H.
All of the dinosaurs dance and walk,
and most of the words in the book are different sounds a dinosaur makes.