Learning by Heart – January

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

The sweet deer that visit us weekly at our nature center.
  We are getting to be good friends with these graceful and beautiful animals. :)

I’m not sure where the time has gone this month!  We haven’t done a ton of learning activities, but we are slowly getting back into the swing of things.  I’m re-thinking and re-planning some things as we go.  I’ll try to just hit the highlights of this month in this post (sorry if it gets too long!).

~M is 4 years old~

SHELF ACTIVITIES
(independent or semi-independent activities)

Mostly, I’ve been rotating toys on M’s shelves this month.  New toys from Christmas make this easy to do for a while.  I have plans to create a page where I can list all the activities I rotate on the shelves for M, because I think it’s fun to read that kind of thing, but also because I think it gets kind of tedious on these weekly posts to keep listing the same things time after time.  I will, however, make sure to mention any new items that I put out for him.

Folding:

M folds laundry like a pro (towels and washcloths mostly), but has been practicing his paper-folding skills since we got this great little book.  He loves this book, and I let him do as many pages as he wants.  He tends to get obsessed with something until he has mastered it; apparently this is just what makes him happy and how he learns best, so I don’t really follow the rule of stopping an activity while he’s still enjoying it.  Doing that frustrates him and makes him less likely to take it up again.  Here’s a little example of what this book is like:

See the little mouse?

Eek!  It’s really a giant elephant! ;)

It is so much fun – I’m not much of a fan of traditional workbooks, but the Kumon group of books is excellent.

 

Cutting and Pasting – I cut construction paper in several colors to size, hole-punched the edges, stuck it all in a 3-ring binder and gave it to M for his own photo album: He has his own digital camera (an old camera of ours that doesn’t have a memory card, but takes about 20 pictures at a time), so I’ve been printing out some of his photos for him.  He loves to cut them out and place them on the pages.  He actually uses double-stick tape most of the time for the “pasting” part of this.  I think it will be so much fun for him to look back through when he’s older.  It’s not the best quality, but it’s simple, inexpensive, fun, and a good way to sharpen those scissor skills. :)

As you can see, he’s fond of self-portraits, hee hee:

 

Mazes and dot-to-dots - I also made a little book of these for M.  The mazes were from another Kumon book, and the dot-to-dots were something I found on Amazon.  I cut off the binding and placed each page in a page protector, then all of it went into another 3-ring binder:

This has been a big hit with him.  There are, I think, roughly 80 mazes – great for reasoning skills and fine motor skills.  The dot-to-dots each go up to 100, which is a real challenge for him right now, and we normally do those together.  Since the pages are all in page protectors, he uses a dry-erase marker to do them, erases them with a piece of felt, and then does them over and over again.  I think this will be a great car-trip book!

Math: Not much has been done on this front, although M continues to enjoy counting anything and everything.  One day he decided he wanted to count to 100 and surprised himself by actually doing it. :)  He only needs a little help once in a while, and he does not recognize the written higher numbers, but wants to, so that’s what we’ll do next. 

Science: M loves doing this: 

Mixing colors of water in an ice cube tray.  He asked to do this, which he does from time to time.  It’s one of his favorite things.  He likes to watch the colors mix, use the pipette, etc.  Normally he then asks for these ice cubes when he’s taking a bath, and enjoys watching them melt and color the bath water.

We’ve been doing one mama-led science experiment per week, and I’ll post about these at Science Sunday on Ticia’s blog – stay tuned!

As you may know, M is obsessed with all things electric, especially light bulbs and batteries.  He has been itching to know how these things are made, and I found a couple of interesting you tube videos about just that – How Light Bulbs are Made, and How Batteries are Made.  He was fascinated by the machines that make these things and loved the videos, although I’m not sure how much he really understood (the voice over sounds like a computer voice and has what might be a British accent).  I was pretty fascinated too!

 

Literacy:  We’ve been reading, reading, and reading some more these past weeks.  We are content for now for that to be the main thing in this area.  Actually, more than content, we are loving it.  I feel like we’ve found so many great books lately, which I hope to post about soon.  I’ve decided to wait until this fall to start any book units with extension activities – that’s what we will do if M doesn’t go to a “real” preschool then.  We’ve been reading chapter books at lunch over several days, and picture books for about 1/2 hour each afternoon (snuggle time!).  M’s comprehension of the longer books continues to amaze me.  Sometimes he understands things I don’t even catch!  He’s developing a real love of books, which makes this mama very happy. :)

He is also a rhyming fiend.  Everything has to rhyme lately – oh goodness, you can imagine the nonsense going on here.  Things like, “Mommy, did you ever see a bug licking a fug?”  {Sigh}  or “Are you a dishwasher, made out of fishfasher?”  {Sigh again}

I found some great nursery rhyme sequencing cards here.  I made a little cardstock mat to place them on: 

I printed out several sets of sequencing cards, and by looking at the cards, M was usually able to tell which poem they were for.  Then we’d say it together and then he’d say it again, while setting the cards out, in order, on the appropriate square.  He really enjoyed this.  I’ll probably set this out on his shelf with more cards for him to do independently.

 

Karen at Prekinders has these fantastic rhyming mats and cards, which we also did.  M always enjoys doing these!

 

Art:  We’ve started going to a weekly music class – it’s very informal – lots of playing around with a great assortment and variety of instruments, some movement songs, and lots of rhythm activities.  We enjoy it a lot, but I’ve noticed it’s the same activities, in the same order each week.  Occasionally there’s a new song thrown into the mix, but there just isn’t enough variety to keep us interested in going each week.  There are only 6 more sessions, so I think we’ll try to make it to 2 or 3 more.  It could be such a wonderful program if a little more effort went into the planning.

As far as other art – this drawing cracks me up:

It’s just a regular drawing of him, but see the rectangle drawn around him?  And how his feet aren’t touching the bottom?  It’s M jumping!  Hee hee, I love it.

We’ve also been doing one planned art project per week.  Most recently, we colored on white construction paper with crayons, then rubbed over it with mineral oil.  This was an idea from one of Mary Ann Kohl’s books (can’t think of which one right now), and it was supposed to make the colors brighter.  It didn’t really seem to be working, so I showed M how to make a loopy design and then color in each open area, hoping that with more color all over the paper it would work better.

It worked okay, and actually the oil made the paper seem more like a thick vellum, which was pretty neat.  We hung the finished artwork in the window to be a suncatcher, but unfortunately we haven’t had much sun lately.

 

Miscellaneous:  Lately I wander around my house, seeing things like this:

M has definitely mastered his screwdriver skills, and I realized that I really don’t need to worry about providing many fine motor skill activities for him anymore. :)

 

This is a little old, but every year, once Christmas is finished, we set our tree outside and make treats for the animals:

We also read The After Christmas Tree, by Linda Wagner Tyler:   which talks about the tree’s “second season of giving”. 

 

Finally, I’m not sure what category this falls into, but it was fun!  I filled a bowl with water, added a bunch of small objects, and let it freeze outside overnight.  The next day M chiseled away at it to get all the little things out.  He really enjoyed this!

 

Hope your winter is full of coziness! 

 

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! :)

 

Crafty Science Experiment – Crystal Snowflakes

Winter has been around for a while, and M recently decided he needed something other than leaves hanging in front of his bedroom window (maybe I was in denial about the whole winter thing?).

I’ve seen this little project everywhere, so I’m sure it is new to no one except us.  I don’t know why we didn’t get around to doing it sooner.

It’s all about saturated solutions.  We used the following items:Borax, 5 pipecleaners, 2 dowels, food coloring, 5 glasses, measuring spoons, and a kettle for boiling the water.

First, boil some water.  We had a full kettle and used almost all of it to make 5 snowflakes.

While your water is boiling, form the pipecleaners into snowflakes.  We cut each snowflake into 3 sections, leaving one longer than the others (for hanging), and twisted them together in the middle, then pulled apart the six points of the snowflake.  Twist the long end around one of the dowels, then hang in a glass.  Make sure your snowflake is not touching the sides of the glass:
Next, I poured the boiling water into each glass, and M began measuring tablespoons of borax into them. (Note – borax can be harmful if swallowed, so make sure your child is able to do this without deciding to take a taste!).  He stirred until the borax dissolved, then added more until there was a bit that wouldn’t dissolve, making a saturated solution – yay! :)  I think it took about 3 tablespoons of borax for every cup or so of water.  We weren’t too exact, to be honest. ;)


We decided a little color would be nice, so M stirred in a bit of food coloring.  We added in a quick color-mixing review, and made one of them purple by using blue and red together.
Then we let all the little snowflakes hang out over night:
They stayed in their solution for about 18 hours total.  The following day, the glasses looked like this: Isn’t it beautiful?  I think it would be really neat to do this to a glass jar to make a pretty votive holder.  I hated washing all those pretty crystals off, but decided we do need drinking glasses after all.
The snowflakes turned out great!  Here are some of them:

We let them dry on a paper towel, then moved them all to a clean dowel rod and hung them in front of the window:

You can also do this with sugar or salt.  The main thing is making sure your water is saturated with whatever it is you are using.  If you use sugar, use a string instead of a pipe cleaner, and make rock candy!  (You could use a pipecleaner, but I’m thinking about the fuzz getting in my mouth – bleck!)

I’m linking this up to   Be sure to check it out!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Learning by Heart, Christmas Style (week 10)

 

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

Our very first ever gingerbread house; making it was a lot of fun
and very messy. :) 

{ M is 4 years old }

Again this week we are taking it easy peasy, focusing on simple fun while preparing our hearts and home for Christmas.  I’m combining activities from last week with what I’m setting out for this week.  Do not feel overwhelmed by the number of activities – they are not all from one week!  

I picked up a lot of easy, pre-packaged crafts from Target and Michael’s.  These are just for fun.  I haven’t done this before because I’m not a big fan of pre-packaged crafts; if I weren’t sure that M has a ton of opportunities to create open-ended art (and if you know us, you know he does!), I probably would’ve passed these up.  However, they have come in soooo handy when I need a little time to finish up my own projects.

        SHELF ACTIVITIES: 

Christmas sensory bin – this has pretend snow (Cluster Stuff fiber fill – you can find this at Walmart), mini ornaments, a cinnamon candle, tinsel, “ice” (red, green, and clear gems that look like ice to me), pretty ribbons, jingle bells, glittery snowflake ornaments, pine cones, tongs, and a glass dish, and a tiny nativity set (really mini ornaments): I think this will be the final sensory bin for this boy.  He is getting too old for this type of thing to hold his interest.  He enjoys looking at all the items, but then wants them to have more of a purpose.  This turned into a very messy art attempt with items scattered all over the place, resulting in this little bundle of ornaments strung onto a ribbon:

Christmas shapes and push pins – M places one of the little pictures on the corkboard, then outlines it with push pins (great fine motor work!):

Make-a-snowman – I found these great little face stickers at Michael’s and cut out some snowmen for M to make:

A couple of the finished ones – aren’t they funny?:

Christmas play dough and cookie cutters: M has picked this activity a few times this week.  I think he is really enjoying it.  He made holes in some with a straw, and we are going to let them dry.  I think I’ll put the dried ones out for him next week along with some glitter glue to decorate.  These may end up going to a couple of lucky grandmas. ;)

Christmas arrangement – M loves doing this kind of thing!  I set out a variety of Christmassy things for M to poke into a block of florist’s foam, and a little star-shaped silver box to hold it:
Making his arrangement (sorry for the dark photo; I’m still trying to figure out this new camera):

Finished:

Snowflake matching game – these snowflakes are very detailed and a lot look similar, so it’s a great visual discrimination activity:

Number matching – I printed this from Making Learning Fun, then wrote in numbers 1 –12 on both the numeral and the tree, and M matched the circles up with numbered stickers (he thought this was not “intewesting” at all; so much for that, I guess):   

Ornament name spelling – I made these last year and M strung them onto a piece of string, which we then hung on the wall; this year I stuck magnets onto the back of them and he’s been spelling his name as well as “Mommy” and “Daddy” (cheat sheets are right there on the fridge for help):

 These ornaments are a free printable, but they
are simple to make on your own too!

Gingerbread Letter Match – we used these to match up mommy and baby letters: 

Christmas rubbing plates – I had these from last year and M loves them so I brought them out again. I simply used templates to draw shapes onto cardboard, then traced them with hot glue to give them raised lines.  Place paper over the top and rub with a crayon to see the shape appear.

Christmas race game (I bought this last year, possibly from Target) – we roll the die and add numbers to get from the start to the finish line, then we subtract to get back to the start line:

Christmas patterning – these are also from last year.  I made my own, and then Kylie came out with some of her own and shared them with everyone.  You can find her lovely printable here.

Jingle bell wreath activity – I set out some pretty gold jingle bells and a red pipecleaner so M could make a little jingle bell wreath for his room (or wherever in the house it ends up as the case may be, and is):Isn’t it pretty set out in this glass dish?  It was very appealing and the first thing M went for that morning.

Finished jingle bell wreath:  It sounds so pretty too!

Ornaments to color and lace – These are the kind that have black fuzzy lines, which made it easy for M to color without going outside the lines:

Christmas window clings – I like to put these out on M’s shelves as just “something fun to do”; we change them with every season:

I set up an activity to make a Christmas countdown paper chain:This was actually done on Nov. 30th, I’m just a bit late with posting it. M cut all 24 strips of paper and we chained them together with Christmas stickers. The finished chain:

Another “fun&busy” foam magnet craft:

EXTRA ACTIVITIES:

“Ice skating” on wax paper – this is so much fun, sometimes the entire family does it, hee hee.  Try it out if you are looking for a high-energy activity on days too cold to go outside!

A first attempt at making paper snowflakes:

Art – I’m no longer posting about M’s weekly art box and his creations, but I think I’ll post my favorite artwork each week as part of our school posts.  This was my favorite from this week…It’s M on a pogo stick, and was drawn with glow in the dark paint. :)  Honestly, I think he wants a pogo stick for Christmas, but since the kid can already out-bounce Tigger, I’m pretty sure I’m not ready for him to have one!

Marshmallow building:

We used big and small marshmallows and toothpicks to create a few things.  This was supposed to be a science activity of sorts… how can we create a bridge that will stay up, or one that can bear weight, and that kind of thing.  It turned into more of an art project than anything. :)  I thought M would enjoy the engineering aspect of this, but perhaps we’ll have to try it again at a later date.  For now we are a bit sick of marshmallows (they are hard to resist, you know!).

 

There’s been a lot of sledding with Daddy:

And a lot of shoveling: This is M shoveling out our backyard so it will be easier for the squirrels to find acorns, ha!  He loves those squirrels, rabbits, and birdies. :)  He’s made several bird feeders with bagels and peanut butter and we have had a lot of fun watching the squirrels fight over them!  It reminds me of when I was a child and loved all the little animals so much. :)

I’ve been in high gear cleaning and organizing mode lately.  We’ve been going around the house, stripping it bare of anything unessential. :)  I get like this sometimes and can’t stop myself.  M has been a huge help with sorting things into small containers and baggies, and being my “take this somewhere” and “go find me this” guy. :)  So, a lot of life school has been going on, and I am grateful to have a helper. :)  It feels good to purge before the influx of stuff!

This is the last of school for the year.  I’m hoping to post some fun Christmas arts and crafts projects, but no more school posts until some time in January!

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! :)