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Language Arts — Spectrum Reading 0

Language Arts — Spectrum Reading

We have a number of different ways we approach languagearts. LD is a pretty good reader, so he’s had “independentreading” time each day for the past four or five months. Hechooses a book to read and reads quietly on his own. Welet him choose whatever he wants (not even offering suggestionsor comments about how easy/hard a book is).  We also don’t ask him anything about his reading except perhapswhat did...

Airways Exhibit 0

Airways Exhibit

Today after ED’s dance class we went to our local culturalprecinct (with various museums). The kids really enjoyedthe new airline exhibit and especially liked going into theairplane and watching a bit of the video on how camelscame to be in the Outback. Camels were brought overby Afghan trainers for use in the desert here. Now thereare lots of wild camels and interestingly enough, camelsare exported to the Middle East because...

Science Museum 0

Science Museum

The kids always enjoy going into the little science museum.Each time they seem to find something else that piquestheir interest. The first picture is of a dingo, a feral cat eating a galaand a perrente. The second picture is a skeleton of one of the world’s largestducks. The fossils were uncovered north of here. The last two are of various snakes, birds and mammalscommon to Australia. I’ve had it in...

Jack-o-Lantern Math 0

Jack-o-Lantern Math

We have little jack-o-lanterns and some Halloween-themedbeads that we’ve used for math in various ways. Today, DDhad to choose four cards, count out that number of beadsand put them into the jack-o-lantern. It helps with one-to-one correspondence. For LD I’ve used these same items for addition and skipcounting practice (basic mulitiplication groupings). ED just likes to put the beads into the jack-o-lantern whichI let her do if I can sit...

Colored Noodles — Toddler Time 0

Colored Noodles — Toddler Time

For once, this is an activity that I thoughtup! Many people have talked about dyeingnoodles with rubbing alcohol. I didn’t likethat idea because ED puts everything in hermouth. So–I tried dyeing the noodles withvinegar and food coloring. I left them in thevinegar/coloring solution for about 3-5 minutes,then dried them overnight. I took a bunch of skewers and cut off the sharptips, put them together with a rubber band.Then I wove...

Sea Creatures 0

Sea Creatures

I made this with help from DD and LD a while back to useat Kindergym (we had a “Under the Sea” theme for a fewweeks). I’ve put this on the shelf for ED and added acovered tube to the smaller hole. She’s had fun puttingthe sea creatures into the box and retrieving them.

Camping in the Outback 1

Camping in the Outback

This was one of the last opportunities we’d have to gocamping for the weekend as the weather will soon betoo hot. Even as it was, temperatures ranged from 9 to 34Celsius (or 48 to 95Fahrenheit). It was COOOooooldat night (especially compared to our afternoon)! In the first picture you can see our campsite across on theother side of the dry river bed. (Click on the picture toenlarge it.) One little...

Photo Paper Nature Prints 0

Photo Paper Nature Prints

The kids enjoyed this little photo project a lot. Grandmaand Grandpa sent us this “Nature Print sun sensitivephoto paper” from Oriental Trading ($6.00US, for 12photo sheets). Here’s what we did: 1) The kids collected small nature items. 2) I used a cereal box and covered the photo paper overwith the other side of the box whenever they wereselecting their items. They arranged their nature objectsjust so. 3) Then we took...

Tot School 0

Tot School

We had a wonderful weekend camping and I’ll share more about that soon.  Today is DD’s birthday, though, so I won’t spend much time on the computer today. Last night I needed a few more ideas for ED and checked out a website I really enjoy. It’s truly a wonderful resource if you have a toddler or young preschooler. This Mom shares a wonderful assortment of activities for her son...

Halloween Felt Board Scene 1

Halloween Felt Board Scene

This afternoon DD and I sat down together to put togethera new felt board scene. This is based on Five Little Pumpkins .DD and ED had fun making and remaking the jack-o-lanterns’faces. I read the story several times while DD acted itout on the felt board. I took the picture in the book display area I was mentioningin the post I wrote yesterday about reading (scroll down below). By the...

Paint Popping! 0

Paint Popping!

A while back I read about a family who put paint inziploc bags and had the kids jump on them. Nowthat the weather is warming up, we decided to giveit a try. Some of the bags we filled with paint andair; some of them we had paint, vinegar and bakingsoda (to expand the bag). LD was able to pop allthe bags (and the ones without vinegar/bs “lookednicer”), but DD and...