The Poor Man's Outlet Cover

We forgot to pack our outlet covers with us when we moved so they are now in a box on a container slowly inching its way toward us.  Who knows when they will arrive.  Meanwhile, I have a crawler who, unlike his sister, has an intense desire to get to know those outlets.  Bear helped me make temporary outlet covers.  She drew on a piece of construction paper and then cut the paper into rectangles.  I taped the rectangles over the outlets.  Now J-jo can safely explore.  Interestingly, the homemade covers don't draw his attention at all - nowhere as appealing as little black holes that look like eyes and a mouth.

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Apple Math - A Look at Fractions

We've been working on odd and even numbers (more on that in another post) and every time I cut fruit for Bear, we count the pieces and determine if each piece has a friend.  Here we counted the halves and Bear informed me we had one odd half.  I confirmed that indeed we had an odd number of halves.  

We also talked about quarters and whole.  Bear is not new to the idea of fractions.  She has been playing with the fraction puzzle pictured below since she was 24 months.  She begs for it frequently.  

So when asked to point to the quarters, halves and wholes, Bear did so easily. 

I'm linking up to

 

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Measuring

After a visit to Ikea, where Bear insisted we bring home as many paper measuring tapes as possible, Bear has been wanting to measure everything.  Actually, this obsession with measuring started ages ago with her Daddy's retractable measuring tape.

We found different objects to measure using the tape.  I showed her how to line up the object at the bottom of the tape and to look at the top of the object to find the number for the measurement.

After measuring the popsicle stick, I showed her how you could use that to estimate how long other objects were.  For example the little doll was just about a stick and a half.

Then we used J-jo's bead toy (beads on an sewing elastic) to measure things.  How many things could we find that were 6 beads long.

Bear much preferred the measuring tape to the nonstandard measuring tool.

For more great math ideas, check out Joyful Learner's Math bloghop.

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More Play with Penguins

I was inspired by Joyful Learner's penguin activities. ( I love her blog.  Her daughter is a year older than Bear, so a lot of her activities are being starred for later!) 

We focused on learning the names of the Chinstrap, Emperor, and Rockhopper penguin.

Bear made penguin tracks.

She matched penguins to penguin cards (from Jojoebi at A Bit of This A Bit of That ).  I only gave her the cards for which she had penguins, but some of them were very challenging and I helped her.  She was able to do the three focus penguin on her own though :)

I froze different containers of water in the freezer and we used these as icebergs to balance our penguins.  Bear learned how different sized and shaped icebergs are better for standing on:)

 

We also measured up the wall how tall Bear was and then compared that height to the height of the three focus penguins.  I was impressed with how big an Emperor penguin really is.  An Adelie penguin is short and slim.  Taller than J-jo - the baby - , but a lot less heavy! Hehe.

Then we balanced an egg (toy) on our feet like the penguins do and pretended to hatch it, playing with the chick from the animal toob. 

We read a ton of penguin books.  Did you know an Adelie penguin can jump four times its height?  And that the male Emperor has to go three months without food until the mother comes back with food for the chick? You can see our two favorite fiction ones here. 

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Penguins

We probably should be studying birds or growing plants as it is Spring or almost Spring, but Bear chose a Penguin Toob the other day as a reward.  Consequently, we are taking a look at Antarctica and penguins instead.

Some penguin books we are loving right now:

Penguin by Polly Dunbar
Synopsis: Cute story about a boy who receives a penguin that won't talk.  Surprise twist at end. 
 
A Penguin Story by Antoinette Portis (she also wrote Not a Stick and Not a Box)
Synopsis: Penguin tired of blue white and black everywhere goes looking for something else.

This book inspired an impromptu painting project. We do so little art compared to pre - J-jo days.  It felt so good to be doing art together again.

 We used a stencil to make the penguin's body and a pencil dabbed in paint to make the snowflakes.

 He's wearing the glove from the illustration here, but I forgot to put out orange paint so it's black.  Bear was a little upset with me for that.

 If you have an older child, the project may turn out looking more like the one below, which happens to be the one I worked on.

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Land, Water, Air

Here is a typical land, water, air presentation I did for Bear a while back.  

After I presented the jars and we talked about where land, water, and air were found, she sorted the animal pictures into where they are most often found.  Some cards presented a bit of a challenge and discussion (for example the picture of the frog).  Unfortunately, I don't remember where I found the pictures. 

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A Bear Quote

While waiting for our delayed flight home yesterday (should have left at 9 pm, but left at midnight, putting us home in bed at around 4 am!), Bear befriended a very nice couple going to visit their granddaughter.  The woman asks Bear, "Where do you get all your energy?"

Bear's answer?

"In my bladder!"

We were cracking up!

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A Counting Game

When Bear was learning her colors ages ago, I made her the die pictured above.  We often cover up the colored circles with post-its on which I've written actions for us to do. 

This particular day, I covered the circles with numbers.  Bear or I rolled the die and had to run across the room to collect the correct number of Duplo for our Duplo tower. 

What made this counting game so fun?

It involved more than one modality.  

First, you roll an enormous die, which uses your large muscles. What child doesn't love throwing?

Second, you run across the room, another much loved preschooler activity.

And third, you build with Duplo (or Legos, wooden blocks, counting erasers, or whatever you want to use for your tower).  This part refines those fine motor skills.

Oh, and did you know you also practiced counting?

Many children, especially boys, learn much better by being active.  This is a great example of how you can achieve learning while mixing in physical activity.

The great thing about the die is that once Bear easily recognizes those numbers, I can switch them to other numbers.  This game could be used with higher numbers too, although we wouldn't have enough Duplos for that at our house.

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Counting

Here's a way we practice counting and fine motor skills at the same time, as well as practice comparing different lengths.  

I cut pieces of pipe cleaner in five different lengths to represent 0 to 5.  

(I only had enough cube beads to do these numbers.)

Then I threaded the beads onto the pipe cleaners.  I set up the activity so that the pieces of pipe cleaner with the beads were on one side of the tray and the number cards were on the other side.

First, the activity was for Bear to match the cards to the pipe cleaners/beads, as pictured above.

Of course, Bear decided to slide all the beads off the pipe cleaners, so then it became an activity of finding the right length pipe cleaner for the number of beads and then matching the number card to the pipe cleaner/beads.

Bear does this counting and matching easily with just a bit of help choosing the correct length of pipe cleaner. However, the length of pipe cleaner is almost self correcting because the larger numbers of beads will not fit on most lengths. 

Using a cube bead, as opposed to using a pony bead, adds interest in a sensory way.

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Botany - Poor Man's Flower Puzzle

I'm probably going to be known for my Poor Man's versions of things such as the Mr. Potato Head,and the Spinny Speller.   My latest poor man's version is a felt version of the flower puzzle.

I drew a control card so Bear would know how to rebuild the flower until she remembered on her own.  I also made her labels to label the parts of the flower.  The labels are color-coded to match the part of the flower, but sometimes, like with the calyx and the stem, or the ovary and the pistil, the words are the same color, and then I help her to use letter sound clues.  

"Does the label you have start with /c/ or /s/?"

When she works on it, she talks to herself.

"This the ovary.  This where fruit grows.  Not all fruit for eating, Mommy."

"This the pistil, looks like stem."

I love to hear her talk things through :)

The Real Thing looks like this:

photo from Montessori Outlet.

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Some Montessori and Preschool Activities

Sensorial

 

Sound/No sound sort

 

Sound matching

 

Play dough (green for Spring with animal cutters)

Practical Life

 

 Using a medicine dropper to transfer from one jar to another.

 

 Using the eyedropper to transfer from the jar to the bath math suction cups.

 

  Squeezing (pretend) water from a ketchup container into all of Mommy's plastic containers from the drawer.

(I discovered her like this one morning.)

 

 I moved her to the table and gave her real water to squeeze.  She would have kept going all day I think!

 

I found a small pitcher and some smaller glasses.  She has been pouring herself her own drinks without supervision and doing very well.

Language Development

We've been doing rhyme sorts and sequencing cards, telling stories, reading books and doing the sound sorts.

 

We played this game once this week.  I covered the drawing on the cards and had her tell me each sound, then I repeated the sounds for her and she had to "guess" what the picture was.  She did very well, until we got to the /r/ /a/ /t/.  She told me each sound, I repeated them and when I asked what the picture was, she replied, "mouse!"  Hehe.

After reading this post on What DID we do all Day, I have been trying to play more I Spy games with her.

Numbers/Math

Lots of counting and tracing of sandpaper numbers, but she hasn't been choosing activities in this department much this past week and a half.

Visit Homeschool Creations to see other Preschool activities.

(I usually link up at One Hook Wonder too, but she's on break this week).

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Preschool Sewing

I gave Bear a dull needle and blue wool with a piece of shelf liner to practice sewing. 

It was fast to set up and she enjoyed it for a bit.  I can see this as a way to keep her busy when I want to have a bit of sewing time for myself. 

When she gets more skilled, I will write letters or numbers for her to sew/trace.

(and, yes, she's wearing an interesting mix of pajamas).

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