All About Amphibians & Reptiles

We start out each Monday morning by introducing our topic for the week. 

This week: Reptiles & Amphibains

We brainstorm what we already know about the topic and then I let the girls look at books on their own for a little while to see if they can look at the pictures and come up with any more information or questions on their own before I start "teaching" them anything. They usually find a lot of thugs they want to talk about!! 

Our sensory table this week had river rocks, large and small, along with some water and some plastic reptiles and amphibians. 

On Monday we spent most of out time learning the facts of reptiles and amphibians. We read a lot of books, played in the sensory table, and did a few small crafts. 

On Tuesday, after we knew what reptiles and amphibians were, we took a trip to the Minnesota Zoo for a look at some real reptiles and amphibians. We played "I Spy" to see which ones we could spot. Kinsley was in charge of the checklist and took her job very seriously, checking off each animal as we saw it! 

We had a great time at the zoo! It's always so fun to see live animals!

On Wednesday we spent the day learning about snakes and lizards. We finger painted paper plates which we later cut into snakes. 

We used play doh to sculpt snakes and lizards. I provided google eyes and pieces of pink rubber bands so they could add designs, or tongues. 

We could have spent a whole week on frogs alone. We learned about the life cycle of a frog and did quite a few frog activities. The girls loved this puzzle and also liked reading frog books. Avery espicially liked the "Frog and Toad" books  like the ones at Grandma Grandma's house. 

Kinsley is working on addition. Her job was to roll two dice and add the sum. Then write the sum in each circle on this frog! She did great!

I also had the girls "frog hop paint" by hopping rubber frogs through paint and across their paper! THEY LOVED IT! 

This was great fine motor skills for the little ones, they peeled stickers off and stuck them on each circle on the turtle shell. Kinsley had to match the corresponding number to each circle on her turtles shell. This was a great activity that was easily adapted for both age groups! 

Finger painting paper plate turtles! These kiddos can never do too much finger painting! 

At the end of the week Kinsley journaled about her favorite amphibian and some facts she learned this week.

I can't wait for Avery to start writing in her journal. I have it ready to go, and think that maybe this winter some time she will be ready to share her ideas on paper with the us! 

We had a great week learning about reptiles and amphibians. I was even able to learn a few new things myself!! Next week we are looking forward to learning about nocturnal animals!! Can't wait!!

She Sure Keeps us Laughing...

Avery has said a few things in the past week that make me wonder who she is hanging out with in her spare time ;)

I don't know where she gets these things and although I am not exactly "proud" of them, I certainty don't want to forget about these crazy things that come out of her mouth! 

The other night the three of us were snuggling, reading books and talking about our day in bed. I was asking Avery what she learned and her favorite part of the day. This is nothing new, it's a part of our daily bedtime routine. She looks at me as I am in midsentence and says:

Avery: Mom, stop talking! 

Me: Avery, that's not a very nice way to talk to Mommy. If you are all done talking about our day you could use your manners and ask "mommy can we please be all done" or "mommy let's please read a book instead" ... I gave her several examples that all included the word "please".

So we continued on talking about something else and she kindly asks,

"Mooooommmmmyyy, can you PLEASE  stop running your mouth"? 

Brandon about rolled off of the bed, and I had eyeballs popping out of my head (also trying not to laugh). 

Bless her heart, she used her manner words, she really did try. BUT HONESTLY where did she ever learn to say that?!? 

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Avery's new thing is being massaged to relax before crawling into her own bed. "Sshhage Me" she says! The other night I was so tired I started falling asleep rubbing her back. My eyelids flew open every time she said "Sshhage me Mommy" and I would awaken enough to rub her little back again. After a few minutes of this nonsense I finally told her "Avery, Mommy is just too tired to keep rubbing your back". 

Without a second of hesitation, with the attitude of a 16 year old girl, she says "Mom, you better think again!"

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Avery is really into pretend play right now, puppy, babies, kitchen, resturant.... While playing resturant with Avery she wanted to be the waitress and take my order on her doodle board, she asks me:

 

Avery: Mom what do you want for dinner? 

Me: I would like Pad Thai. 

Avery: No mom, you need to eat your dinner first before you can have pie. 

She sure is a rule follower; no treats until after dinner! ;)

Welcome Fall

This week we welcomed the first day of Fall, it has been a beautiful week in the mid 70's and all sunshine!! We, like we so every week, started out by making a list about what we already knew about Fall. 

A friend of mine, and former colleague, who was also one of Cullen's preschool teachers at Orchard Park joined us for a day at Minnetonka Regional Park for a Nature Scavenger Hunt and to do some outdoor exploring! We got to the park and began our adventure by reading this book:

I made up a leaf identification sheet so we could try and match or name the leave we were collecting and I also made us a scavenger hunt list! The girls were so excited to go exploring! With buckets in hand, we were off!!

We had a great day collecting rocks, mushrooms, leaves, flowers, bugs, and sticks. The girls LOVED walking across the fallen logs and discovering "secret" places in the woods! It was a perfect way to introduce Fall and it have us a collection of new things to bring home and play with all week! We even tried preserving some leaves using Glycerine - they are laying out to dry now (we will see how they turn out in a few days).

I used a paper punch and made a zillion paper leaves for the girls to make projects with the little girls practiced their fine motor skills by glueing and sticking leaves on their paper. They were also working on color recognition when I was asking them "I wonder if you can find a green leaf to stick on your paper"? 

Kinsley used the same leaves to make patterns! I love how easy it is to use the same materials and meet two completely different age appropriate goals! 

Color mixing and finger painting go hand in hand with Fall leaves. A little dab of red paint and a little splash of yellow paint mix into beautiful shades of orange!! The girls spent a lot of time finger painting, they could have gone through a whole stack of paper without getting bored, but lunchtime unfortunately was our signal to wash up and save the paper for another project!

After the fingerpaint masterpieces were dry, I cut them into the shape of Maple leaves and added them to our chalk board! 

Kinsley took some of her leaves from our nature walk and matched them to these worksheets to find the names of the leaves! She did a great job looking at the edges and shapes of the leaves to see where they best belonged. 

When Kinsley was done matching her leaves to the papers she then labeled and colored them in! We cut them out and hung them up to display! 

Another painting project we did was paint the girls arm and hand and stamped it on paper as a tree trunk and branches and then used a leaf shaped cookie cutter to add leaves. 

Kinsley chose some of her favorite leaves to make into clay leaf keepsakes! We used air dry clay and rolled it out, then pressed the leaves in. I used a knife to cut off the excess and a few days later we were able to paint them!

Here is a foil leaf we tried out, it turned out nice, showing a lot of detail, but after a few it was not very engaging. 

As everyone knows, Fall is officially here when Pumpkin-flavored-everything comes back! Of course we had to make a pumpkin dessert! 

This dessert to so easy AND yummy! 

Here is the recipe:

Cooking with kids is ALWAYS so fun; very slow paced and very messy a but always a great experience. Their sense of pride and accomplishment when their final product ready to eat is amazing! 

Kinsley could hardly wait for her family to come home and finish dinner so she could serve up her yummy treat!  

So much learning happens right before my eyes when the kiddos are "cooking" in the kitchen! It's amazing to see what kids can do when you just let them do it and encourage them to try. The best is when kids don't think they can "pour it, measure it, mix it" or "crack the egg" and witnessing the look in their eyes when they do - that look, my friends, is why I love teaching!!! 

Ok... back to our week... we spent a lot of time this week talking about the different textures of nature. So, of course we did some crayon rubbings! To give the girls some things to try and collect textures from, I drew up a sheet with some objectss to try. Once Kinsley could see the different marks these specific objects made she was off running all over the yard making her own rubbings! 

We had a great week with Mother Nature and I am so happy we had beautiful weather to enjoy it all! It is 80* today and we are home this weekend soaking it in before the snow flies! Avery won't know what to do outside when it snows and the frogs, snakes and bugs are gone - the girl is obsessed with catching them!!