Friday, May 13, 2011

Learning by Heart – May 13, 2011

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom”
– Henry Ward Beecher

mother's day  Mother’s Day 2011
This was taken at the end of the day – I look worn out and
M looks ready to go. :)  That is usually how it is around here! 
I normally wouldn’t post a picture of myself with glasses on (I so dislike how I look in them), but I have to be in SOME pictures on here!  It’s my blog! :)

~M is 4.5 years old~

Literacy

M continues to love poems and these sequencing cards are a great activity.  He can do these all on his own, as long as I separate them into groups for him (one paperclip of cards for each poem):feb 2011 009 

His homemade puppet theater (a tension rod in a doorway with a blanket thrown over the top) has been seeing more action lately, and we made these great little stick puppets for The Three Bears.  This is a fun way of doing more story sequencing and mom and dad get a cute little show to watch. ;)3bears (3) 

And M wants to learn to read.  You can read more about that in this post.

 

Science – Dinosaurs!

M loves the little dinosaur fossil eggs you chisel apart in order to find the bones.  He’s done many, many of these over the winter and early spring.  You can find them at Michael’s as well as Dollar Tree.fossil digging (2) See the little hammer lying on the table?  That quickly got set aside, and M began using his “real”, big hammer.  This kid is all about action, not patience.

fossil digging (1)

fossil digging (3)  fossil digging (4) fossil digging (6) fossil digging (5) This particular one is an Ankylosaurus.  For each dino he’s unearthed and put together, we’ve looked for a book to learn a bit more about it.  I can’t remember the names of the books, but there are a ton of dino books out there (on the odd chance you haven’t noticed)!

 

Fine Motor Skills, Practical Life, and Misc.

After seeing this post over at My Montessori Journey, I thought it would be fun to set something similar out for M.  I found simple step-by-step tutorials for drawing a bird and a dog (look towards the bottom of the web page for the dog), and made instruction cards for M.  He wasn’t as eager to do this as I imagined he would be, and that was fine.  I don’t want to inhibit his own imaginative drawings by making him think things have to be drawn in a certain way.  However, I did enjoy seeing how he was able to go from step to step in order.  Here are the cards (I had each set on a ring):drawing collage step by step
And here are M’s finished drawings:dog and chicken Are these not absolutely adorable?!  :)  He said, “look at my chicken!” – I think he surprised himself, haha.  I have to say I like his chicken better than the bird he was trying to draw. :)

 

M loves to watch me use my sewing machine.  It is an event, let me tell you.  He anticipates it, watches every move, tries to figure out exactly how it works, and begs for more when I’m finished.  Sometimes I think he’s going to break into applause.  Part of it is his inclination towards all things mechanical, but part of it is just a love of the idea that something new can be created.  So I set out a simple embroidery hoop, some muslin, and a little yarn for him.  He wanted to sew a picture, so we started with a smiley face.  He learned to backstitch in order to create a line of stitches (although not perfectly, as you can see!), and overall really enjoyed this.feb 2011 070

 

 

May Day meant a little flower crown for the statue of Mary in our garden.  I used some leftover flowers from a lei, cut a crown shape out, and let M staple the flowers on.  He LOVES the stapler (totally supervised, don’t worry!).  may day crown for mary (3)

may day crown for mary Ok, I guess the garden needs a little work.

may day crown for mary (1)It’s a little big.

We read two beautifully written and illustrated books about Mary:

 

 

Art

Here’s a look at M’s Art Box for spring (which has recently changed into an Art Cart – more on that later).  It was full of things to make flowers and butterflies:art box march 

Here’s a bit of his artwork:  art box march (4)

coffee filter butterflies 
And, my favorite, a ribbon and flower collage on contact paper for Mother’s Day. :)mother's day suncatcher (4) 

I’m linking this post up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up; be sure to check them out!

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

 

10 comments:

  1. Great artwork!
    Stopping by from Our Week in Review.

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  2. GREAT activities! Fun, hands-on! LOVE your printables! I'm going to check back in August when I make my son's new calendar for his work binder! Cute calendar graphics! Thanks for sharing! Stopping by for the first time from Weekly Wrap-up!

    Jessy

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  3. I love all the hands on activities! The art was simply precious too. Looks like you had a great week!

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  4. What wonderful activities!!! This is a great post!

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  5. I love his art with the sun! You always have a smorgasbord of activities. It's always a treat to come here.

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  6. By the way, where did you get those safety glasses? They look cool.

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  7. Joyful Learner - I found the glasses at a hardware store. I'm sure they have them at Home Depot. I've also seen them at Dollar Tree. They are adult-sized, but M makes them work somehow.

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  8. Love the mother-son picture! He looks just so, so happy cuddling with mom. :)

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  9. I LOVE your puppet theater idea. i have been planning to make one forever, but all of the designs are elaborate and I never have the equipment, and I'm lazy, and... well you get the idea. I can make one like yours. Ooh, I'm so excited. Thank you. Sam loves putting on shows, and playing with puppets. I'm SO hoping to get him into a little theater program this fall - he's so shy, but if we can get him up on the stage, he's going to be phenomenal!
    We love those dinosaur fossil digs too! Fun!
    And I love those drawings. Send me some M art to put on my walls? I'll be able to say I knew him when, and sell them for a fortune when he's a famous artist someday! I love that he sewed that. Crumpet likes to sew - we'll have to try that!

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  10. Oooo thanks for the link to the nursery rhyme printables!! Mustang will love them!

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