More, Mom Has A Mom

Today in our Spanish and American Sign Language class we learned the sign more (a review for my boys) and signs for family members.  I read the book ¿Eres Mi Mama? in Spanish with the ASL at the same time, which I was quite proud of mastering :)  We love getting our little ones involved with hands on activities, and one of those activities is digital coloring on the SmartBoard.  Here we have Hopkins and his family being colored a nice green.

 While practicing "More" we played with some plastic balls and handed out more every time a child would ask for more.

We encouraged everyone in the class to bring photos of their families so we could play, "Point, Sign, and Say" with photos of family members that kids would recognize.

I had a super thrilling moment this evening after class when my youngest EMan was getting a diaper change.  He signed "thirsty" and then "milk".  It was the first time he has signed "thirsty".  He is 18 months, and has a spoken vocabulary (of understandable words) of about 6 words and a sign language vocabulary of almost two dozen words.  It is fantastic to be able to communicate so easily with him.  We have been doing this class since January, and it has made a world of difference.  Even the two big boys use signs and Spanish all of the time.  Awesome!

Bodies, Doctors, and Germs

This morning we learned about bodies, doctors, and germs.  I started the day by reading a great book called, "Germs Make Me Sick".  I read the book while the kids were coloring K the kangaroo since it's a longer book.  You might not be able to tell, but in the picture just below the kids are kicking their feet to fight germs, just like K the kangaroo kicks /k/ /k/ /k/.

 After finishing the story.  I prentended to sneeze into my hand (after secretly putting glitter in my hands) and then I touched and shook hands with everyone.  It was great to watch their faces as they discovered that they were being covered in fake germs!

 Of course, that prompts a "Washing Your Hands" lesson.  Where everyone scribs and sings the ABC's.  We sing the ABC song while washing our hands because soap needs about 20 seconds to reach its germ fighting time, and the ABC's take just about that long to sing.

 We learned our new K book today about Kim the Doctor (or doc).  I'm so impressed with the kids focus on the letters and sounding out the words.  We tap the letters to give us something physical to do while reading.  So when reading the word 'Kim' they touch their pointer finger and thumb to sound out the K, their middle finger and thumb for the I, and their ring finger and thumb for the M, and then blend them together to make the word.

 The biggest new vocabulary word from today was limp.

 Once we figured it out we had to practice limping around the room.

 We used paper plates to draw on some faces and glue on a tissue and a hand to remind us to alway use a tissue - no nose picking please :)

 Math today was superb!  We started focusing on classifying groups of objects according to attributes.  So first I dumped out the silverware tray.  What do they all have in common?  They are all used to eat.  Next I added a paintbrush and we talked about why it didn't "fit" with the others.

 We did the same activity with a doctor set and a tool set.

 Then I introduced the attribute blocks.  I challenged each of the kids to make their own tricky challenge for me to figure out which item doesn't belong.  This was harder with the blocks since they could be sorted by size, shape or color (they didn't discover thickness today).

 We continued our study on how music has a beat by tapping our rhythem sticks to the songs of the Amazing Action Alphabet.

Museum of Nature and Science - Expedition Health

This week our field trip was to the Museum of Nature and Science - Expedition Health.  Since on Wednesday we were going to learn about our bodies, keeping them healthy, and doctors this seemed like a great intro activity.  Each participant gets a plastic card that keeps track of all of your tests throughout the area and then gives you a print out at the end.  The boys got to type their names in and pick their "helper" from the cool touch screens.

 EMan loved the "under 5" section where he could play with this big pin board.  I don't know exactly what to call it, but it had foot long pins with red caps that you could push through to the other side and then back again.  It was a hit with all the boys come to think of it :)

 I love T's expression in this photo.  "Hey, I'm a scientist.  What are you gonna do?"

 In the science lab we took a sample of each of the boys cheek cells and looked at them on a microscope.  It was awesome!

Transportation

Boy, we were certainly moving and shaking when we learned about transportation and the letter R on Monday.
Throughout the whole day we used the "Transportation Pack" created by Jolanthe @ homeschoolcreations.com http://homeschoolcreations.com/transportationpreschoolpack.html I made some of the key pages into a folder of sorts for the kids with pockets on the insides of all the activities we were doing for the day.

  

 We did some pre-writing tracing, puzzles, shadow matching, and size sequencing.

 We also did some cutting and gluing to put cars and trucks in their right "lane" facing either left or right.

 And what would transportation be without doing a little tire painting?

 Our math skill that we've been working on has been classifying objects.  We've talked about heavy and light, but now it was time for some hands on experiments with the kitchen scale and blocks.  We certainly had a lot of fun!

 At one point we also had out a ruler balanced over a cylindrical block so we could test a few blocks and see which were heavy/light/equal in weight.  I guess I didn't get any pictures of that. :(

Continuing Dr. Seuss

Fortifying Friday was a continuation of the Dr. Seuss theme since it was in fact his birthday.  It gave us the opportunity to work on a few extra projects that we didn't get to on Wednesday.  We used our hot dots pens for "counting" and "first sound" cards.

 Then we read Bartholomew and the Oobleck.  I was impressed with their attention span since it is quite a long book.

 Next we had to make Oobleck.  It's a mixture of cornstarch and water.  I add a little green food coloring to the water before mixing it together to make a nice green goo.

 If you haven't played with it before you should try it.  It is a solid if you handle it quickly, yet a liquid if you handle it slowly.

 A fantastic element of Fridays: Green Smoothies.  EMan loves them and is always asking for more.

 C just didn't want to give up playing with the oobleck at snack time.

 We played, "Race to the Hat"

 and a matching letters game.

 EMan found a blanket and took a little break while we were playing :)

 We talked about how Dr. Seuss is an author and illustrator, a VERY LARGE idea for 3 and 4 year olds.  The next step was for them to be authors and illustrators themselves.  I love that C drew Humpty Dumpty and a Sun.  It was so cute!