Our look at animal life began with We All Went on Safari: A Counting Journey Through Tanzania and Good Night Gorilla. We also referred to the following site for information on animals, including a look at Zebras and their unique stripes. Some of our activities included playing with Bubble Dough from Creative Playhouse, oatmeal sensory with animals, cooking with baby apples and playing with corn flour.
Art was more focused on free drawing, block and rubber band "Zebra stripe"printing and the creation of our t-shirts for our trip to the zoo. We had beautiful days and spent much of our time outside enjoying water play along with the sensory activities while the yard was still relatively "mosquito-free."The t-shirts were created using Crayola crayons, fine sandpaper and an iron as outlined at Alpha Mom.
We had a gorgeous day for our trip to the Zoo and great chaperones. Here are some pictures from our trip.
We began fundraising for our service project. The children ran a lemonade stand with some great results.
Finally, we spent the day enjoying our freedom with some of our favorite activities. We added colored water to salted ice cubes, added food coloring and vinegar to baking soda using a straw, played with bubble solution and painted with puffy paint as shared by Learn Play and Imagine.We also had the opportunity to draw with chalk and even trace our friends. Our next unit includes new art experiences and science ideas from Lisa Murphy.
For Enemy Pie, I used think- aloud questions which included the following, "I wonder why the dad had his son spend a whole day with Jeremy Ross? I wonder what will happen after the boy and Jeremy spend a day together? Why would the boy let Jeremy Ross go inside his tree house? I wonder what is in the pie?" We came up with the idea that spending time with others helps us become friends and made our own "enemy pie," which was really friendship pie.
Some of our math and literacy stations included the following activities. The first is a number heart puzzle match that I adapted from File Folder Fun.
We spent time as beauticians in the home center and worked with our princess folder games.
We also completed open- ended heart crafts throughout the week with stamping, clear contact paper and stickers.
We also explored graphing and science with candy hearts. Our graphing worksheet and observation chart were found at 2 Teaching Mommies.
We also completed a warm water candy heart experiment with a baking soda/ water candy heart experiment. The warm water created the color in the cups and the baking soda hearts floated and fizzed. We also placed candy hearts in Sprite which caused them to float as well. The ideas were found here and at this link.
For our game and music activities, we incorporated ribbon dancers made from crepe paper, action cards made from valentines and a heart-shaped bracelet ring-toss game.
We also spent time with hearts, pink shells and tools in our sensory rices. Later in the week we added our vehicles.
For our light box activity, we added heart-shaped rings, bracelets and a worksheet from this site.
We spent time at the beginning of the week exploring symmetry. The worksheet we used was found here.
We completed our look at symmetry with a squish-art heart activity.
We also completed a couple of book-specific activities. In the book Valentine Mice, the mice end up throwing valentines in the air. I provided tissue paper squares to throw up in the air. We watched how they moved through the air and had a great time doing the activity over and over again.
While exploring The Shape of Me and Other Stuff, we completed life-sized tracings of our bodies and explored shapes with Bendaroos and worksheets from Confessions of a Homeschooler.
We had a great day for sticky snow and I will leave you this week with a picture of our snow man. Next week we will explore poetry, rhyme and rhythm. Have a great week!
