Learning by Heart – I See the Moon

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

{M is 4 1/2 years old}

      M is in love with the moon.

It all began with If You Decide To Go To The Moon , by Faith McNulty: I heard about this book from Natalie over at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns, and thought M would like it.  Well, he did.  He couldn’t get enough of it and was instantly fascinated with outer space in general, and the moon in particular.  We have previously read books about outer space and the moon, but none of them sparked his interest as well as this one.

So we began a very simple little moon unit. 

We watched the launch of the space shuttle Discovery in February (yes, this is a pretty late post) live on the laptop:It was thrilling, to say the least.  He talked about it for days afterward.  I couldn’t quite get him to understand that they weren’t going to the moon, but oh well. :)  He loved learning about how everything is weightless in space and how the astronauts can float around inside of the space shuttle.  He wanted to get into the nitty-gritty details of how they live in it, especially how they go to the bathroom.  sigh.  It’s all part of learning, right? ;)

We played games with some beautiful space flashcards I picked up from Target over a year ago.I was smart enough to get two sets at the time, although I wasn’t smart enough to think of a way to use them.  But once M’s interest in all things outer space was in high gear, I remembered this post of Ticia’s, where she created a game for her kids using these same flashcards.  Click on the link to her post to get the specific details.  This was fun and as soon as one of us had a card covered we flipped it over and read all of the interesting information on the back.  I think it would’ve gone a bit more quickly if we’d had more than just 2 players though, or if I had separated the flashcards into smaller groups.

We learned a bit about the phases of the moon too. 

We watched this video:

  

We looked at this page of the Starchild website a bit:The website is part of NASA, and has tons of interesting things for children to learn about.  I highly recommend taking a look!  We only went over the moon phases web page, but I think we’ll be back to learn more!

I made some moon phases Montessori-style 3-part cards.  I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted online (for free anyway), so I used a public domain photo of the moon, and edited it to show the various phases:  

We had an art project waiting for us as M matched up these cards and labels, and I felt like he was hurrying through it to get to something more fun.  However, he has since talked about the “gibbous” moon on his own, so I guess some of it stuck! :)

You can download and print the Moon Phases 3-Part Cards here:

M had fun making a little outerspace artwork.  We used black paper, green and blue chalk dipped in water, aluminum foil, scissors, sequins, silver glitter glue, and two circle-shaped lids:
I showed M how to hold a lid and draw around it at the same time in order to draw a circle.  He cut one circle from foil for the moon, and one was drawn onto the black paper with chalk.  He drew some areas of land on his “earth circle” and then colored it in with wet chalk (wet chalk on black paper is fun, and a good art project all on its own).

He drew a face on his moon, then sparkled up the the rest of outer space with some sequin and glitter glue stars: 

On a trip to visit my parents, we were lucky enough to find this amazing book in a box my mom wanted me to look through:I’m not sure if or where it can be found, but it is truly amazing. :)  It is filled with facts, and after reading it, you can unfold the pages:Open it up:And you have a 4-foot long space shuttle model!  M was in space shuttle heaven. :)  There’s a lot of great details, like a satellite in the cargo area:And a pull-out section showing the control panels and the area the astronauts live in:(sorry that picture didn’t turn out so well!)

There were several other moon-related books we read; here are M’s favorites…

The Moon, by Seymour Simon: This is long, but packed with information.  M wanted to read this one several times a day for two weeks straight.

I Took the Moon for a Walk, by Carolyn Curtis and Alison Jay:

Moondance, by Frank Asch:

Happy Birthday, Moon, by Frank Asch:

  (M loves all the Moonbear books by Asch!)

The Berenstain Bears on the Moon, by Jan and Stan Berenstain:

I’m linking this post up to Preschool Corner, and Weekly Wrap-Up, as well as Science Sunday!  Be sure to check them all out!

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Learning by Heart – week 16

 

“The mother’s heart is the

child’s schoolroom”
– Henry Ward Beecher

{M is 4 years old}

We were fighting colds (and losing) this week, so not a lot happened on the preschool front.

Here are a few of the activities I threw together on the spur of the moment for M…

Hammering “nails” (golf tees) into a cardboard box:Honestly, I’m not sure what, if any, skill this works on.   Practical life, maybe?  But it sure is fun.  He used to love doing this with styrofoam, but cardboard does not give as easily as you might think and gave him a new challenge.  He decided to add some colored paper to make a design:And then he turned the whole thing into a surprise for Daddy.  The “design” on the left is a smiley face, and on the right he used the golf tees to spell his name.  What?  You don’t see it? ;)

More “picture pies”, like those mentioned in last week’s post:

 

About a year ago I found a little wooden puzzle on sale at Michael’s.  They are basically tan gram pieces, except the two large triangles that are normally in tan grams were cut into 4 medium-sized triangles.  I’ve looked all over the internet for printable puzzles to use with these, but haven’t had much luck in finding ones large enough to actually place the pieces on.  I finally picked up a book full of puzzles (I can’t remember the name and I’m too lazy to go look right now).  I’ve copied a few of the puzzles and enlarged them.  I’ve been placing a new puzzle on our fridge every few days and M has really enjoyed doing them.  He does need some help, but I’ve been very impressed at how well he’s done with these:

I glued magnetic strips to the backs of the pieces, and used wood glue to make the 4 medium triangles into 2 large triangles like a traditional tan gram set would have.

 

We have had some beautiful weather, and M bundled up to go outside and ride his bike on the cleared-off driveway.  Ah, the feeling of freedom that comes from a bike. :)

 

And, of course, there was some valentine making.  I will not bore you with the hundreds of valentines M made, but I’d like to show you the ones he was most excited about:

These are for Max and Thor, two dogs.  Yep – he loves them and a whole lot of love went into making these valentines. :)

 

We also baked up some yummy valentine cookies, which we also painted.  I think I first saw the idea over at The Artful Parent - she used food coloring and water for the paint.  I’ve been reading MaryAnn Kohl’s book, Discovering Great Artists, and in it she mentions egg yolk painting, which sounded awfully interesting to me, so we decided to combine the two ideas.  We whipped together an egg and some food coloring, painted it onto cut out heart cookies, and had a lot of fun!

  

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

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Learning by Heart – week 15

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

~M is 4 years old~

SHELF ACTIVITIES:

Sewing buttons – M watched me hand sew a quick repair job on his pillow several days ago, and was very, very interested.  So I set out this little button sewing activity for him: 

He used an embroidery needle and yarn to sew the buttons onto the cotton fabric.  Here’s how it turned out: He did a great job and really enjoyed it too.  He had to hang it in the window for the “birdies to see”. {Sigh – we have too many things hanging in our windows for just this reason.  We honestly can barely see out of a few, but it’s hard to take things down!}

 

Tying knots – this was supposed to be for knot-tying practice:

I thought M would love this, but no.  He was disappointed that it wasn’t a lacing card and didn’t have a picture on it.  Then he asked for train lacing cards, so I have made some for next week. (I would just let him use my shoes for knot practice.  I know he would love that, but I’m really not interested in untying knots in my shoes!  I’ll have to find an old pair somewhere.  Or maybe Daddy’s shoes. :) )

 

Pipeline Game – I found this several months ago at a thrift store, and I put it out on M’s shelves once in a while as a fine motor work.  This time we actually played the game, several times, and it’s a lot of fun.  There is a die to roll that tells you what shape pipe you get and the goal is to create a pipeline from your starting side to the opposite side of the board.  Your opponent can block you and “cap” your pipeline, and then you have to start over.  It really is a lot of fun and we’ve all been enjoying it (too bad I don’t have an action shot!): 

 

Design and Drill – this is a new, great little activity for M.  The drill really works, and has 3 bits that go with it, all of which work on the included bolts.  That’s neat in and of itself, but there are also 20+ designs included; M picks one, then puts out all the bolts needed, drills them in, then un-drills them and starts over again.  It’s neat because he has to mentally transfer the design from the card to the board (usually by counting each row to see how many blank spaces there are before the first bolt):

 

Picture Pies – these are from a great little book titled, Picture Pie by Ed Emberley; you can make almost anything by cutting out a circle, then cutting it into a variety of shapes.  I’ve been choosing a design from the book, then drawing the circles and cutting lines for M, and giving him a small drawing showing how to put the pieces together, or simply showing him the design in the book.  This week he did a bird and a mouse:

  I think these will be a feature on his shelves many times in the weeks to come!

 

Biggie Fuse Beads – these were a hit again, as always.  This time, M came up with his own designs, then took a lot of care in getting it “just right” on the peg board.  Here is a car he made, with a road beneath it and sky (with clouds) above it.  You can see the seat and the steering wheel too. :)        

 

 

  “TOGETHER” ACTIVITIES:

Math Skills:

We haven’t done much in the way of Math, although I do think the Picture Pies and Design and Drill mentioned above definitely qualify as math activities.

This week I tried to help M understand why teens look the way they do – he can count to 100, but he is having trouble identifying written numerals.  He’ll say “two, five” instead of “twenty-five”.  (Small digression here – when I say he’s having trouble, I mean it is troubling him that he can’t identify them; I honestly have no problem with it and know that he’ll eventually get it, but since it’s something he’s interested in learning, I’m happy to help him out a bit.)

I printed out some number cards (I can make these available as a printable file if anyone is interested – let me know!), and grabbed our homemade Montessori bead bars.

First We put a ten bead bar to the left and a single digit bead bar to the right (4 is pictured here).  Then we took the 10 card (which he can identify) and placed it above the appropriate bead bar, and did the same with the 4 card: 

Then we “chugga-chugga-choo-chooed” our bead bars together, and counted them – fourteen!

Then we “chugga-chugga-choo-chooed” our number cards together and I showed M how to place the 4 on top of the 0 so that it was right over the 4 bead bar, and the 1 (for 1 ten bead bar) was right over the 10 bead bar: 

Fourteen beads to count, and the number 14 to show it.  We did this with all the teens, and I then showed him how 20 is simply 2 10 bead bars.  It was much simpler to do this than it sounds in writing it all out! :)

He got it, but was ready to quit at 20.  I can’t tell yet whether this really sunk in or not, but the chugga-chugga-choo-chooing was pretty fun. :)

 

Literacy Skills

Rhyming:

M is all about rhyming now, so I stuck the following letter magnets to the side of our dishwasher:We sounded out ‘at’, then picked a couple of the other letters to place in front of the ‘at’ and had fun making up rhymes –”the cat sat on the bat under the mat and gave him a pat” and that sort of thing. :)

 

More Rhyming:

I grabbed a little bowl full of miniature objects and we took turns closing our eyes while the other one picked an object and hid it in their hands.  The person with the hidden object had to give rhymes as clues to help the other person guess the hidden object.  I was surprised that M had trouble making rhymes for words that had more than one syllable.  He always tried to make a rhyme for just the first syllable and nothing for the rest of the word, which made my guessing pretty difficult sometimes. :)  Also, a couple of times I tried to give him hints with the beginning letter and a rhyme, like “it starts with ‘z’ and rhymes with ‘bebra’” and this just completely floored him, hee hee.  We’ll play this again some time; it will be interesting to see how he progresses.

Spelling and Letter Formation:

One day M got out a bunch of toothpicks and wrote his name with them.  This was completely on his own, and he was really very proud of himself:Yes, it’s backwards.  Totally backwards.  This didn’t bother him, but he did tell me that it was too hard to make “baby” letters with toothpicks, so he decided to make most of them “mama” letters.  I think it’s interesting that he has picked up on the fact that only the first letter of his name should be upper case, and I’m just a tiny bit worried about the backwards thing. 

I will be posting about our science experiment of the week on Sunday – don’t miss it! :)

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

Have a beautiful day! :)