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We talked about what a geologist does and brought out this “land recreation.” LD and DD took turns taking “core samples” from the earth with the straw. They could tell that it was made of different layers. Metamorphic rocks are made when pressure and heat change the rocks. The oven was our ‘heat and pressure source’ for creating these “metamorphic rocks. Then we took rock samples (below) and looked not...
This is an Animal Track and Animal Habitat Game that I brought out for the today. When DD saw the science center set up today, she said she wanted to do more rain forest stuff instead. We hadn’t yet played the animal tracks game (affiliate link) and this was perfect! Each player spun the spinner. Then they had to guess which animal habitat the animal lived in and had a...
Last week LD was very excited about birds (wewere going over the vertebrate groups and talkedfirst for a week or so about reptiles, then for anotherfew days about birds.) He made a bird feeder and we bought bird seed tohang on our front fence. It took a while, but today wefinally had visits from the Port Lincoln (or Ringneck) Parrot.
LD and I hammered together this veryprimitive looking bird feeder. We wanted toattract the Honeyeaters (birds). He filled thecontainers with water, water and sugar, waterand honey, and water and squeezed orangejuice to see which one the birds were attractedto.
Today the theme time table was on bears. At breakfast we read Blueberries for Sal and Bearobics. Blueberries for Sal is such a sweet story. It’s a Caldecott Winner from 1948. I grew up canning blueberry jam (we had lots of blueberry bushes) so I always have a good talk about that with the kids when we read that book. I also really like Bearobics. It’s a rap, counting book,...
ED played with the little panda bears all day! She even took them in the car on errands. We followed up the re-enactment of Goldilocks (post above) later in the day with a cute book called Beware of the Bears, which picks up when the bear family comes home. They follow Goldilocks to her house and wreak havoc there. DD cut out the parts (above) and made a moveable polar...
Just in the last couple of weeks, DD has decidedshe wants to read her books. She is really takenwith Animal Antics (She’s not as interested inBob Books at the moment). These books are goodbecause they build, word by word.. I’m making this up, but it builds like this: The ratThe rat satThe rat sat on the matThe rat sat on the flat mat … you get the idea. The pictures...
I bought foam remninants and made lots of foamcushions of all different sizes years ago from thesmall ones above to the long, 5 foot ones below. My kids have such a great time playing with these! They are constantly building cubby houses.Yesterday, they put on a long “show” for me. LDwas under the cubby (see the hand in the middlepicture) when suddenly an earthquake struck AND… eventually it turned into...
MATH TAIL TAG: Today after Kindergym I told the kids we weregoing to the park to play math games. Theywere pretty excited. Our first game was Math Tail Tag. The kids all had astrip of construction paper with a number on it tuckedinto our shorts. We ran around trying to protect our tailfrom being swiped and tried to swipe someone else’stail. When we got a tail, we looked at the...
We’ve seen lots of snakes skins at the ReptileCentre, but hadn’t ever seen a lizard skin. Ourreadings about reptiles talked about how lizardsshed their skins whole. Today we were excitedto find a nearly complete lizard skin (about 6inches/15cm long) floating in the water. It’s so great when nature reinforces our homelearning!! Yes, LD wanted to take it home and yes(of course) I let him. Sometimes I’m more excitedthan the kids!...
This week I’m moving away from the theme time tableand am focussing on some active math games instead (Ionly have so much energy to get things organized and setto go!). The kids were beside themselves to get outside to seewhat I was up to with the chalk last night! This is a mathsnail. LD is doing the addition problems. DD is practicing either saying the number (in light pink,it’s very...
This is good for coordination and for practicingthe concept of left and right. The kids have tocross one foot across the other.
I drew circles and placed numbers up on theoutside wall. The kids had to dip a sponge inwater and splat a number. LD worked on the 13 number family. If hegot a 7 for example, he had to figure out whichnumber makes 13 (answer=6). This is thefirst time he’s done the 13 family, so there’sa sheet for him to look at for help. Once again DD worked on “comes after.”...
This week our living room carpet has been dectoratedwith math problems (we don’t have a separate homeschoolroom or area). LD’s doing the space themed additionproblems. DD is doing “what number comes next.”And ED can’t ever be left out, so she get to jump on “1,2,3!” I did this earlier in the year (with different problems) and itreally helped cement in some of LD’s addition facts. It waseasy to say “go...
