Learning by Heart – week 7

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

{M is 4 years old}

{ Happy Belated Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you had as blessed of a day as we did.  I’m still having computer woes (still writing without a connection, then scheduling a bunch of posts out at a time), and my camera broke (great week for that), but all in all it was a wonderful thanks-filled week, and I’m very grateful for all my blessings.  Blessings like a broken camera and computer topping my list of frustrations, instead of something like not having enough food to feed my family. }

Our school time this week…

SHELF ACTIVITIES: 

Die-cut letters (Dollar Tree) and some “better blocks”, which are sort of like legos, but they swivel and you can create things that have moving parts.  I set them out for M to use in forming the letters A through I:

 
A new dot-to-dot book:   

Magnetic pattern blocks and patterns:

Wedgits:

Geoboard with colorful binders.  I bought the geoboard from Amazon last summer, and the hair bands are from Dollar Tree.

This was the first time M saw the geoboard, and he really enjoyed making shapes and designs.  he enjoyed using it to fling the bands around the room too… but well, he is a four year old boy. :)

I remember making these suncatchers when I was little, and I LOVED them.  This is the kind that has tiny plastic beads which you put into the metal frame, then bake in the oven.  I found some at Michael’s, and bought them up.  M tried his first one this week.  It was on his shelf as just a fun item, but I had him pinch the beads to place them where he wanted, so it ended up being a good fine motor activity too.
The finished suncatcher:

There were a lot of beads left over, so we got out some metal cookie cutters, placed them on a cookie sheet, and M used the left over beads to fill them up.  After they baked and cooled, I popped them out of the cookie cutters:With a hole, and different cookie cutters, these would make fun Christmas ornaments to give the grandparents, don’t you think? 

New H and I objects for the phonics box: horse, house, hammer, hippo, ice cream, and ice

We’ve been playing a lot of Mancala lately, so this was out on his shelf too (although it wasn’t really an independent activity):Mancala is a great game for counting to higher numbers too, because at the end of the game all of the stones have to be counted.  It took M a couple of games to really understand all the rules, but he picked it up with no problem.  We’ve been having a lot of fun playing this!  Thanks to The Adventures of Bear for this wonderful idea!

New scissor practice pages.  Thanks to everyone who gave advice about cutting pages a few weeks ago.  I decided to go with a book of activities, since I thought these would engage M a bit more than just lines on a paper.  I wanted to get the Kumon book of cutting, but no store around here seems to carry it.  I am happy with the one I found though: 

 

TOGETHER ACTIVITIES:

Literacy:

Sorting objects by beginning sound:
We played a “go fish” style game with our ABC cards.  We asked each other for the big or little letter of one we needed for a match.  When M wasn’t sure, I was able to help him out by saying the name of the thing pictured on the card.  We did all 26 letters, and this game lasted a loooong time!   

Math:

A little counting game I came up with on the spur of the moment, which ended up being the hit of the week:  I grabbed our number cards, some dried beans, and a pillowcase.  The cards went into the pillowcase and we took turns pulling one out (no peeking!).  We had to set the card on the floor, turn it over to the counting side, and count beans onto it.  We used cards 0 through 15.  After all the cards were out of the pillowcase, we counted the total number of beans for each person.  The winner was whoever had the most beans.

Getting a card (hey, it looks like he’s peeking!):
Counting out the beans:   

Science:

M found a pet this week.  A little pill bug pet.  I am not thrilled about this, but I’m trying to be reasonable. :)

We have learned a lot about Mr. Pill Bug.  His skeleton is on the outside of his body where we can actually see it, and it protects him.  He can curl up into a ball when he’s afraid, and then he is completely protected.  He likes damp areas.  He likes to climb on rough rocks and hide under them.  He does not like smooth surfaces, like the inside of a bug catcher or say, a glass jar that he can’t climb out of.  He loves to eat decaying leaves and wood and maybe even pieces of shredded carrot. 

Frankly, I’m pretty sure we are slowly killing Mr. Pill Bug because he really doesn’t seem to be eating even though I’ve researched as much about him as I can (er… want to).  I’d love to set him free (outside, mind you) but then M’s heart might break.  I’m thinking the jar may just tip over and he may escape one of these days.

Here he is out for a little daytime stroll (actually I dug around for him to see if he was still alive):

Part of me says “ew”.  And part of me says “poor Mr. pill bug” and part of me says “I’d really rather have a dog”.

We also did a fun science experiment with balloons, which I posted about earlier.

 

Outdoors:

We had some gorgeous weather recently.  I just love this picture of the big rake and the little rake leaning against our fence after two boys worked hard in the yard:

Isn’t that sweet?

And then a few days later we woke to see this out M’s window:I wonder if that pile of leaves is still out there, under all that snow.  You can imagine how thrilled M was to see this! :) 

Well, when we began this year, I had mapped out activities based on one or two “letters of the week”, with math activities coming from the Montessori bead bars and number boards lessons.  Other than this, I planned on focusing mainly on fine and gross motor skills, art, and a fun science experiment here and there.  Really it was the math lessons and alphabet activities that were propelling us through the weeks.  Now that M has officially rejected the Montessori math lessons, and isn’t into the letter crafts, or even our phonics boxes very much, I’m having a hard time feeling like our weeks have any focus to them.  I’ve been haphazardly gathering ideas from a variety of places, and trying to be creative with making up new activities that aren’t too time-consuming to create (all the time keeping up an internal dialogue about how this isn’t really as important as I’m making it – sigh).

It’s going okay, and I think for the time being it’s just fine.  But I like a little more order and a plan with clear goals (OCD much?).  I’m definitely learning to be more flexible, and it’s encouraging that in the past couple of weeks M has begun counting as high as 30 without missing a beat – a huge leap from where he was when I was trying to stick with the Montessori plan.  So, something must be going well!  Still, I’m considering doing some unit studies after the beginning of the year – they are so much fun… but they take so much work to plan!  Ah well, we’ll see…

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

Have a beautiful day! :)

Science Time – Balloon Inflating Experiments

M loves balloons, and he loves science experiments.  I’ve been meaning to do the first experiment below for some time now, and it finally happened this week.

The idea for the second experiment came from Fun with Mama.

  EXPERIMENT # 1:

M poured vinegar into a glass bud vase and we scooped some baking soda into our balloon.

I attached the balloon to the end of the vase and then M lifted it up so the baking soda would fall into the vinegar, to create carbon dioxide gas.

The vinegar and baking soda mixed together, began to fizz up and then the balloon started to expand at a very rapid rate.  At that point both M and I raced into the living room, as we are both deathly afraid of loud noises and were sure this thing was going to burst.  I had the sudden sickening realization that perhaps a glass vase was not the wisest choice for our experiment, since it would most likely be rocketed into a wall and smashed to bits.

Well, thankfully it didn’t break.  We eventually worked up enough courage to venture back into the kitchen and saw this:

  It worked!

 

EXPERIMENT # 2:

In this experiment we learned about molecules, tiny little invisible things that make up the air (and everything else, but we really didn’t go into that).  When they are warm they move around more and take up more space.  When they are cold they huddle closer together and take up less space.

M prepping the cold container:

I placed our balloon around the opening of a water bottle (plastic this time!).  I also filled up a second container with very hot water.

M placed the bottle in the hot water, and the balloon inflated!

He placed it in the cold container and the balloon deflated!

Mommy really knew what she was talking about with the whole crazy “invisible molecules” thing. ;)

For the record, M loved the second experiment and spent a good 20 minutes doing it over and over again.  First the cold, then the hot, then the cold, then the hot…

Head over to Science Sunday for more science activities!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Learning by Heart – Week 6

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

I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago, but computer problems delayed me a bit.  Just thought I should explain why there are Halloween pictures at the end. :)

M is 4 years old 

 

SHELF ACTIVITIES:

Well, the hit of the week was dropping colored water:This is how I had it set up for him (we were doing letter F things this week).  M loved this activity so much, it merited its own post, here.  If you’d like to keep your child busy for hours, go read it. ;)  Ok, I can’t promise that your child will be as into this as mine was, but I definitely say give it a try!

Mini peg board and marbles, for fine motor skills:The idea was to place pegs in the peg board, then use the tongs to place a marble on top of each peg; turns out it was too difficult to get the marbles on the pegs with the tongs, so M used his fingers.  The marbles are all a clear, light blue.  When they are placed on the colored pegs, look at what happens to them: They change colors!  And, you can’t see this in the photo, but there are tiny air bubbles in some of the marbles that make them *sparkle* on top of the pegs.  Very, very cool.  We were fascinated by this (I really didn’t know this would happen!).

Sand art pictures, which are always a hit, good for fine motor skill development, and so simple for me to prep:  The yellow pages have shapes on them that you can’t quite see in the photo.  Various sections peel off and reveal sticky cardboard, which the child then fills in with the colored sand.

Apple Basket Game, for counting and fine motor skills: To play this, we separated out the apples into two groups of ten.  We took turns rolling the die, then used the tongs to grab the apple stems and place that many apples back into the basket.  Whoever got all of their apples into the basket first won.  We played this once, then M was not interested in it again.  This basket and set of apples was given to me, and I’d sure like to come up with some interesting things to do with it.  Ideas??

Mr. Turkey Heads: These were used with cutouts of Mr. Potato Head parts (pic below, before they were cut out), and M loved making them! We did something similar with Mr. Pumpkin Heads for Halloween and M had been begging to do some more.

Fuse Beads, for fine motor skills, and fun ;)  :                       Another airplane, besides the 5 he’s already made.

M continues to love using his fuse beads to create things.  We are being overrun with plastic bead creations here.  And recently he discovered that they make small glow in the dark fuse beads (biggie beads are pictured above, small ones below).  That’s right – glow in the dark.  Can you even imagine how glorious a 4 year old boy thinks this is?  So, he’s been busy with these babies quite a bit:And yours truly has been kept busy ironing these little buggers.  I’m ready to put them away!

New F and G objects for our phonics box:

   football, fish, frog, flowers, flag, giraffe, guitar, girl, gorilla, elephant, and cake.  (Hee hee, I’m not sure how elephant and cake got in there!)

By the way, if you are interested in finding miniature objects a great place to look is at the decorative buttons at Michael’s.  I found some very cool things there!  (But, oh, how I wish a Hobby Lobby was nearby!)

Lowercase f letter craft, a frog on a log with his leg dangling down:

The letter crafts have officially lost M’s interest.  This was the only one of 4 that he did this week.  Ah well, we may pick them up again some time.  For now we’ll take a break, and focus on other ways to sharpen letter knowledge. 

As a little aside here, it is easy to get discouraged when he is not interested in something I planned; BUT I am trying, trying, trying to remember that there’s no need to learn it all now.  Simply exposing him several times to various skills is all he needs academically at this point (quite honestly, academics in general aren’t really necessary at this age.  This should all be just for fun!).  Even more importantly, he needs patience, love, and for me to listen to him with a mother’s heart.  If we accomplish nothing that I’ve planned, but we did snuggle and read books together, then we had a successful day!

Polishing Pennies with vinegar and salt (from The Wonder Years), a little science, a little practical life work:This was another big hit and he worked on these pennies for over an hour!  Some he let soak in the vinegar, some he cleaned with q-tips.  The white cloth is there for rubbing each penny dry after it’s been cleaned.  The copper in the pennies oxidizes because of the oxygen in the air, and makes them look dirty.  Vinegar is an acid that removes the oxidized copper and reveals the shiny, pretty copper underneath.  Does he understand all this?  I’m not sure, but he did have fun!

 

OTHER ACTIVITIES:

A fun counting activity with pennies (I’ll talk more about this in an upcoming post):

Our nature center class, where we got to touch a turtle and a snake, and take a hike to see some beautiful nature. :)

           The beavers have brought all this wood to the middle of their pond so they have food in winter without having to travel far from home.  You can see the very edge of the beaver lodge at the top of this photo.

It looks like the end of autumn is beginning in this picture, and now that we have several inches of snow, I’m pretty sure that’s true.

 

Mixing vinegar and baking soda, to kill many a dinosaur with red hot lava from a volcano: Actually they just said “ow” a lot because their feet were a little hot.  M is too gentle of a soul to really want them to die from his volcano. :)

To prove this point, here’s a couple of photos taken during M’s free play this week… Superman and The Thing (from the Fantastic Four, if you know your superheroes), who apparently got a little tired and needed to nap, and so used cotton balls for pillows.  :)  Seriously, is that not sweet?!  Superman was lucky enough to even get tucked in with his cape for a blanket. 

When this guy bangs into something he yells, “It’s clobberin’ time!”, but M insists he is saying “It’s cooperating time!”.  Hee hee. :)  

Here’s my little Superman on Halloween, all buff because he has a coat on underneath his costume:He was flying high, let me tell you, after all that candy!   

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

Have a beautiful day! :)