Learning by Heart – Frogs

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

~M is 4.5 years old~ 

May 18th will be our final day of “school” here – I can’t believe it is just around the corner!  To be honest, we aren’t doing all that much right now.  The weather is unpredictable, and I’m trying to go with the flow… not planning too much and saving what is planned for rainy days.

We have had an unofficial frog theme going on for a while.  I’m not sure how it all started, but I think it was the song “Froggy Went A-Courtin’”, which I taught to M in early March for some reason.  (I have always loved that song!)  And then there were some Frog and Toad books by Arnold Lobel that M picked up at our library.  Have you read any of these with your child?  I’ve heard of them quite a bit, but have had trouble understanding the big deal about them.  Well.  Now I do.  They are hilarious, and obviously Mr. Lobel understands children.  M loves these books.

Then one of our nature center classes was all about frogs and toads and we learned so much!  It was perfect timing!  I wish I had brought my camera!  We learned that toads are bumpy and prefer to live on dry land, while frogs have smooth skin and prefer to live in ponds (mostly).  Both have a nasty-tasting liquid that comes from a bump behind their eyes (and sometimes other areas of their skin)  that keeps other animals from wanting to eat them.  Both come from eggs and are called tadpoles when they hatch.  You can also call them polliwogs. :)

And so a mini frog unit was begun.

M cut out pieces from this lifecycle wheel and put them together (with a little help) to make a frog lifecycle chart: He really enjoyed doing this on his own.

We did a quick activity to learn about webbed feet, and how they work.  No photos of this, but you can learn about it here.

M made a little Frog nomenclature book (and fell in love with the stapler in the process; pretty much every piece of paper in our home is currently stapled in some way).  I intended to make cards for him to match up, but realized that he would get more out of it by just making the whole thing himself.  I found the cards here, at Montessori Print Shop.  M colored the appropriate area on each card and labeled it, then we made it into a book.  This was a big hit – I guess I need to remember that now he is getting to the age where he will enjoy making his own materials instead of having them made for him!

M’s nomenclature book (I promised him I would show you the entire thing, so here you go!):Front cover

head, eyes

mouth, neck (or “heck” if you prefer, heehee)

body, arm
(Actually he was supposed to copy “trunk”, and “foreleg”, but chose what just made more sense to him. 
A writer’s prerogative, right?)

hindlegs, webbed feet (minus the “webbed”)

He has his father’s penmanship. ;) 

Just for Fun…

These were miscellaneous activities that were out on M’s shelves for him, and tied into the frog theme.

Color by Number – I found this coloring page in an online book I purchased quite a while back.  I printed it and then made a color key for M, curious to see how he would do with this kind of thing.  He really enjoyed it!

Pin Punching shapes – the large shapes used for these were also in an online book (Scholastic had a lot of their books on sale for $1.00 earlier this year – what a great deal!).  I printed these out on colored paper, then M used a large push pin to punch holes all the way around.  Once they were perforated, we punched the picture out.  He enjoyed this more than I imagined, and did all 5 of the pictures I had out for him.  This proves that he can focus on something that takes a lot of time when he wants to!

 

Mosaics – I found these great little mosaic pictures at Dollar Tree.  They have been a huge hit, and great fine motor skill work:

 

 

And, of course, we read lots and lots of books about frogs!

Frog and Toad Are Friends, by Arnold Lobel:

Frog and Toad Together, by Arnold Lobel:

The Frogs and Toads All Sang, by Arnold Lobel:

Frog and Toad All Year, by Arnold Lobel:

If You Hopped Like A Frog, by David Schwartz:

From Tadpole to Frog, by Wendy Pfeffer:

The Adventures of Grandfather Frog, by Thornton Burgess:

 

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

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Preschool Art (and sensory) Project – making Soap Clay

I have had this little project in mind for ages.  I first heard about it from MaryAnn Kohl (are you surprised, really?  You know we are her biggest fans).

We bought 2 bars of Ivory soap, and M used our cheese grater to shred the soap.  As much fun as playing and molding with the soap was, I think grating it up was M’s very favorite part.  He loves using a new tool!  Believe me, I would not let him do this at a much younger age, and I was right beside him the entire time, making sure those little knuckles didn’t get grated too.  I’m happy to say not a drop of blood was shed in this activity. :)  That’s always a good thing, don’t you think?

watching the soap flakes pile up in the middle of the grater

We ended up with about 2 cups of soap flakes.

M poured in a tiny bit of water at a time…

And stirred, until it began to form into a ball:

Then the fun of grabbing a glob of it in his hands and squishing it all up began:I had to get in on this action too!  The smell, the feel - it was a great sensory experience.   

We tried using a play dough mold to make some dinosaur-shaped soap, which would have been so cool!  Except there was no way to pop it out of the mold without completely destroying it.  Maybe if we had left it in to dry a bit, but neither of us had the patience for that.  This was a hard plastic mold.  I really think a silicone candy mold or even cookie cutters would have worked much better.

So, M ended up adding some food coloring (blue, because that’s all we had, ha ha), and rolled it into some bath crayons.  They really work well, and he could hardly wait to take his next bath. ;) 

We will definitely do this again.  It would be a fun project for Mother’s Day – maybe add some dried flowers or oatmeal?  And use a flower-shaped cookie cutter as a mold.  The food coloring from the tub crayons does not seem to leave any stains, so a bit of color in the soap is apparently ok, which opens up a lot of fun possibilities, doesn’t it? ;)

Definitely a successful sensory activity, and not a bad art project either!

Have a beautiful day! :)