Fumbling Through Homeschooling

Tree & Leaf Tot Trays

2016-04-26T23:02:00.000-04:00

Here are my preschooler’s tray activities from our tree unit. I didn’t get too many action pictures this time. We’ve been busy trying to finish up our homeschool year strong. But I think there are enough pictures to give you a good idea of what Jet’s been up to.

Stick Size Sorting

(Idea from here)

Another use for a pile of sticks! My 4 year old worked on some early math skills with this stick size sorting tray. I started him off with fewer sticks and added more later to increase the challenge.

Leaf Rubbing Tray

Jet made leaf rubbings as long as he had paper. Having a brother or myself hold the paper down, and using triangular crayons, made this tray easier for him. I did have him do it solo a few times, but he got a little frustrated when the leaf moved around and his rubbing wasn’t perfect. We’ve done this as a group before, so my preschooler had high expectations for himself.

Button Tree Fine-Motor Activity

(Idea inspired by this blog post)

For this tray I threaded 3 pipe cleaners through an overturned colander and twisted them to make a tree onto which my little guy threaded buttons. Our tree got a bit wobbly with the weight of the buttons, so if you try this I’d recommend using a few more pipe cleaners for a stronger “trunk.”

Leaf Shadow Match Puzzle

This puzzle is part of a collection of file folder games that I keep on hand. This one is from A Teaching Mommy.

Leaf Art Tray

This art tray was a spin-off of a book activity that I’ll post about soon. Jet was free to do whatever he wanted here and I just love the cute leaf creations he made.

Tree Sequencing Cut & Paste Activity

This was a throwback activity for me. I did this same activity with my oldest son more than 5 years ago! My current preschooler did just as well with this simple cut & paste activity which basically consists of cutting progressively smaller triangles and then gluing them down from largest to smallest to make a tree. You can see a better picture of how to draw the cutting lines (from only a single sheet of construction paper) here in my original post. Jet was using spring assisted scissors here.

Seed Sorting Tray

(Idea from here)

Jet practiced sorting and used his fine-motor skills to operate the tweezers in this seed sorting tray. We had acorns, pine tree seeds, apple seeds, and I put beans into the fourth compartment because I didn’t have any other tree seeds handy. Jet also helped me find all these seeds and put the tray together. It was a great opportunity for observation and discussing some of the things we'd learned in our reading.

Leaf Patterning Tray

For this tray I put down 3 strips of tape and made patterns with fabric leaves for my preschooler to finish. The tape allowed me to easily change the patterns from day to day. I used fabric leaves because I didn’t want to confuse my little guy, but real leaves would have been so fun here. Real leaves and a scavenger hunt for the next leaf in the pattern? There’s an activity for another day!

Falling Leaves File Folder Game

This next activity isn’t a tray activity, but an actual game. You can play with 1 or 2 players, but reading is required so younger children may need help. This game provides a silly way to practice gross-motor skills, coordination, and balance. You can download it free from Your Therapy Source.

Don’t forget to check out our other tree activities:

Number Tree - Theme Reveal

Poetry Memorization - Trees

The Giving Tree - Leaf Crowns

Tree of Benefits - Ongoing Project

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Preschool Corner

Tree of Benefits – Ongoing Project

2016-04-19T23:25:00.000-04:00

During our tree study we had this Tree of Benefits project ongoing on one wall. It not only gave my boys a chance to display their newfound knowledge, but also provided fine-motor skills practice for my preschooler and kindergartener and spelling practice for my 2nd grader. In case you haven’t noticed, I really love projects where everyone is involved and getting something out of it!

This project started off with the boys cutting small rectangles out of green paper and folding them in half.

Next the boys cut crescent shapes along the folded edges. (After a little instruction even my 3 year old was able to do this. He used spring-assisted scissors to make it a little easier.)

When unfolded you have a nice little leaf.

(We also took this opportunity to talk about symmetry and same & different with my younger boys.)

Each time the boys thought of a benefit provided by trees, we listed it on a separate leaf. Either my 2nd grader or I would write the benefit in pencil for my preschooler or kindergartner to trace in marker.

And up on the tree each leaf went.

(We happened to have an adhesive tree trunk on hand, but if your mother doesn’t send you these sorts of random things, you could easily cut one out of construction paper or a paper grocery bag. Love you, Nana!)

Here’s a close up of our tree near the end of our unit.

The finished product!

Want more? You can check out our other tree projects here:

Number Tree - Theme Reveal

Poetry Memorization - Trees

The Giving Tree - Leaf Crowns

And don't forget the books!

Here are my Top 3 Book Picks to go along with this project:

A Tree is Nice

by Janice May Udry

If you’re only going to get one tree book, this is my top pick. It’s a living book and a Caldecott winner, with beautiful illustrations, a sweet innocence to it, and plenty of information. I’m glad to own this one!

The Giving Tree

by Shel Silverstein

This is a great book, but it may not be right for every family. It tells the story of the relationship between a tree and a boy over the course of their lifetimes. The tree gives. The boy takes. There’s a great opportunity here for discussion, and plenty of room to insert your own appreciation for the gifts that trees give to all of us.

A Tree is a Plant

by Clyde Robert Bulla

This book is part of the Let’s Read and Find Out Science Series. These are simple and well-done non-fiction books for kids. They don’t skimp on information, but it’s presented in a very easy to read manner. We own several other books from this series and I’m always quick to grab them at the library when they relate to what we’re studying.

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Preschool Corner

The Giving Tree- Leaf Crowns

2016-04-15T10:11:00.001-04:00

I can hardly resist a good book! And it’s even better when it elicits some good discussion! The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein fulfills both of those needs. It’s a sad, yet sweet, book about the relationship between a tree and a boy over the course of their lifetimes. There’s an unexpected depth to this book, so you might want to preread it, especially if you’re unfamiliar with Shel Silverstein.

In his youth, the main character of our book uses leaves from the giving tree to make play crowns. That was the idea we ran with for this project! The materials we used were cheap and easy to find: paper grocery bag, tape, glue, scissors, and of course leaves. (I was easily able to make 4 crowns from one paper bag.)

The instructions are equally simple:

Cut strips from the grocery bag long enough to fit around your head(s).

Glue the tape onto the grocery bag strips sticky-side out. Leave a border of grocery bag on either side of the tape. This will help prevent hair from getting stuck in the tape.

(Double-sided tape probably would have been ideal here, but I didn’t have any so I just used masking tape. I used my fingernail to lightly press the tape into the glue and it was actually really easy. No tapey-gluey mess! No trip to the store needed!)

Leaf hunt time!

The tape worked double duty in allowing me to easily secure the crowns to the boys' heads. We decided to do this as a collaborative project, so all of the boys hunted leaves and put them onto each other's crowns. There was quite a bit of discussion necessary to get each crown made to the wearer's satisfaction. I do so love giving these brothers the opportunity to work together :)

Because this was a group project my youngest was also able to be involved, when we could catch him….

Insert play (& cuteness) here!

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Poetry Memorization–Trees

2016-04-13T19:07:00.000-04:00

As a homeschooler who’s inspired by the classical methods, and especially The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer, I like to frequently incorporate poetry memorization into our homeschool routine. Memorization seems to come so easily for children and I can really appreciate the multitude of skills that are sharpened through this simple practice. We all know that language skills are acquired through reading, but poetry memorization takes these benefits even further. Not only are my boys exposed to beautiful examples of rhythm & verse, sophisticated vocabulary (in context), and the power of words in creating imagery, but they’re committing all of these fantastic examples to memory. They’ll carry this beautiful language with them forever!

My oldest son used the first two levels of First Language Lessons in previous years, which included poetry memorization, but for this year I’ve had to pull together our poetry memory work myself. That was a little daunting at first as I'm not a fan of a lot of children's poetry that you find on the internet, but now that I've found some good poetry resources in the form of physical books, it usually comes together pretty easily. For our tree unit I thumbed through A Child’s Book of Poems & Julie Andrews’ Collection of Poems, Songs, & Lullabies and chose Trees by Henry Behn for my second grader and Who Has Seen the Wind? by Christina Rosetti for my younger boys to memorize.

After selecting our poems I created a printable version and cut my second-graders sheet as shown above. This gives him something easier to manipulate and allows him to focus on particular lines as well as quiz himself as he goes. (You can download the printables we used here.)

After successfully memorizing his poem, Dude accepted the challenge of reciting it in front of our homeschool co-op group. As you can probably tell from his posture in the picture above, he was incredibly nervous. He did great though! And I was a very proud mama seeing him face those fears and succeed :)

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Number Tree - Theme Reveal

2016-03-14T10:52:00.002-04:00

To reveal our next theme to the boys, I put together this tray activity one night after they had gone to bed. I hadn’t told them to expect it, but instead just left it for them to find.

Jet noticed it early the next morning….too early the next morning. Once Spudder was awake I let them get to work on it together. I explained to them that each cup contained a group of legos with numbers on them. It would be the boys job to put the numbers in each cup in order. The catch was that only one cup started at 1. For the other cups the boys would have to pick out the lowest number and then count on from there. This is a skill that’ll not only help the boys get more familiar with numbers, but will be especially beneficial when they’re perfecting their addition & subtraction skills.

Next they sequenced the rows from largest to smallest. Now they could see where this was headed!

The boys with their completed number tree

More TREE fun to come!

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Bee-Themed Tot Trays

2016-03-08T06:17:00.001-05:00

It’s been quite a while since I’ve set up Tot Trays at our house, but last week as I was planning out a bee unit study and thinking of activities for my Preschool and Kindergarten guys, trays seemed like the perfect set-up. And I have to say after having these out for a week, I’m remembering all the reasons I like them: fine-motor skills practice, open-ended exploration, creativity, logic, & a defined work-space. What’s not to love! (You can see more about Tot Trays over at 1+1+1=1.)

Here are the Bee-Themed trays that we had out this week:

Make a Beehive

I saw this clever idea for making a beehive out of toilet paper rolls over at Deceptively Educational. We followed her instructions for the most part, only instead of gluing it together we used this as a fine-motor paper-clipping activity. To better accomodate the paper clips, I did cut my hexagonal cells to be a little wider. I found 1 inch to be just right. All the boys really loved this activity and I ended up cutting up more cells for them.

Bee Fraction Puzzles

I made this hexagonal puzzle page to expose my boys to the idea of fractions. I don’t expect full comprehension at this age, just EXPOSURE. While they worked the puzzles we talked and I used keywords like “whole,” “part,” “half,’' “fraction,” etc. There’s a template on the second page of the download that I used to cut the puzzle pieces out of craft foam. You can download your own copy HERE.

Pollen Punch

For this tray I borrowed the flower from our Bee & Pollination Craft-tivity and paired it with a simple hole-punch and some yellow construction paper. The boys punched & punched & punched out “pollen” exercising those little hand muscles along the way.

Bee Life Cycle 3-Part Cards

These Bee Life Cycle 3-Part Cards from Trillium Montessori were a huge hit with Jet. He laid out the full cards and matched up the picture and word cards while we discussed the life cycle of the bee. Another day he put them in a circle to better illustrate the continuing cycle and matched the cards up again. You do have to take the extra step of subscribing to the Trillium Montessori blog to get the link and password for their free downloads page, but (check out those smiles) it was definitely worth it for me!

Nectar Transfer

The boys used a dropper “proboscis” to transfer colored water “nectar” to ice cube tray “cells.” All 3 of my older boys got in on playing with this tray together. This was especially nice because I could hear Dude appropriately using (and inadvertently exposing his brothers to) some newly acquired bee vocabulary as they played. Brother teaching brother! I first saw this idea on the For the Children Blog where they used a turkey baster. My boys would love that, but we didn’t have one so I went with the droppers instead.

Bee Playdough Mat

All of my boys like playdough, so I knew this creative tray would be a hit. It was used multiple times throughout the week. The printable is from This Reading Mama. I just gave them some art supplies that were close at hand and let their imaginations take over. Next time I think I’ll give them scissors too.

If you're looking for more Bee-themed fun check out our
Bee & Pollination Craft-tivity

In addition to the above activities the boys also got to drink juice through their proboscises (straws) and taste test some local wildflower and clover honeys.

Book Recommendations:

As usual books provided the real meat of our unit study.

Here were our favorites.

Literature

The Bee Tree
by Patricia Polacco
The Bee Tree tells the lively story of a little girl and her grandfather who go on a hunt for a Bee Tree. Friends join the pair as they scramble to follow bees back to their hive. There’s not much information on bees in this book, but it’s a lovely & fun story that really encourages literacy in its final pages. I think anyone who loves reading will really appreciate this book.

Bee & Me
by Elle McGuinness
This quick read combines factual information about bees with the sweet story of a bee who gets lost and finds himself stuck inside of a little boy’s room. The book encourages kids not to be afraid of bees, but to appreciate them for their contributions. It’s perfect for even the youngest readers.

Non-Fiction

Honey in a Hive (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2)
by Anne Rockwell
Honey in a Hive is a great non-fiction bee book for 3-8 year olds. It's 40 pages pack a good bit of knowledge into short descriptions and informative illustrations.

The Honey Makers
by Gail Gibbons
I love, love, love The Honey Makers by Gail Gibbons. There's a wealth of information in this picture book covering everything from bee anatomy, the bee life cycle, a detailed description of the various duties of worker bees, and of course how honey is made. This book is pretty detailed and can be a bit wordy, so I'd recommend it for the 5+ age group. Even I leaned some things from it!

The Magic School Bus Inside a Beehive

by Joanna Cole
Who can resist Ms. Frizzle? I know my boys can't! This book follows the adventures of an elementary school class and their ecentric teacher as their bus is magically transformed into a beehive (and the children into bees). Each page is practically overflowing with information as you can see labeled diagrams and notes the children take in their notebooks, as well as speech bubbles that often provide humor and give you insight into each characters personality. There's a lot here for everyone and I'd recommend this book for ages 4+. And if your voice is getting tired by this point there's also the The Magic School Bus TV Series. The Inside a Beehive episode is on disc 4, episode 6. It's very similar content to the book. (I opted to read the other books this week and let the boys watch this one on DVD.)

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Grammar Games, Part 1: Verb & Direct Object Simon Says

2016-03-02T13:41:00.003-05:00

As my second grader and I were reading through his grammar book recently, I got the impression that some of the concepts were still somewhat abstract for him. Now you’re probably thinking, “Well it is GRAMMAR, and he is in 2nd grade....” But I’m a proponent of early grammar education, if it can be taught in an enjoyable manner. With both of those goals in mind, I decided to put a spin on a classic game and introduced my boys to Verb & Direct Object Simon Says.

Acting as Simon, I gave the boys commands such as: “Simon says: Wave your hands” & “Simon says: Lift your legs.” Be careful not to do it if Simon didn’t say! After each command (and while they were still performing the action) I would ask one boy to identify either the verb or the direct object of the sentence. Or sometimes I would mix it up and give them the verb or direct object and ask them what part of the sentence it was. What makes this activity so perfect for Simon Says is the leading questions I could ask if they had any trouble. For a verb we would first repeat the definition of a verb, then I could ask, “What’s the action you’re performing?” If they were having trouble identifying the direct object I could ask, “What’s the OBJECT onto which you’re DIRECTING that action?” The boys could literally look around and see their grammar!

In addition to the more classic commands, I added in some that I knew my crew would particularly enjoy: “Wiggle your tongue, Hug a tree, Jiggle your knees, Shake your hips” and my personal favorite, “Compliment your brother.” My boys had so.much.fun with this game! They also each took a turn playing Simon and I literally ended up with a pile of laughing boys on the ground when they realized that they could use “me” as the direct object and Jet commanded, “Simon says: Squeeze me!”

I created this little cheat sheet for myself, to help me in coming up with a nice variety of sentences. There are verbs in one column & examples of direct objects in the other. You can read it straight down or mix and match from the two columns to make commands. The cheat sheet leaves out articles and adjectives, so you'll need to add those if you choose to use it. When you’re ready to make this game more difficult throw in some adverbs and prepositional phrases too! If you’d like a free copy of my cheat sheet, you can click on the picture above to download it. If you'd like to share this prinatable, please link back to this blog post and not my actual document. Thank you!

Have Fun!

and Happy National Grammar Day on March 4th!

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Bee & Pollination Craft-tivity

2016-02-28T23:57:00.001-05:00

Jet & I made these cute bee & flower crafts yesterday and did a follow-up fine motor activity to illustrate pollination. The original idea was mine, but Jet also gave input and I just love the way it all came together!

To get started with this project you’ll need to print out a realistic picture of a bee. I chose the image above from this website. Print it on cardstock & cut out the body, cutting off the legs, wings, & antennae. You’ll be replacing them with something more useful.

This step is optional, but Jet was begging to do it, so I let him color the bee with markers. I try not to let “pretty” be my goal with crafts, but this did make for a nicer finished product.

Next we moved on to decorating our bee. Jet tore up small pieces of yellow tissue paper, which I had intended to have him glue onto the bee, but once again the kid had a better idea than his mom and suggested that we crumple the paper into small balls before we glued them down. This took a little longer, but I love the way it gave the bee texture! (and the extra fine-motor work)

Jet used a q-tip to apply the glue for the crumbled paper balls.

This next step probably would have been better done before the decorating, but……I didn’t. Whenever you do it, you’ll want to hole-punch six holes (3 on each side) of the bee’s thorax. This is where the legs will be attached. (Looking for more info on bee anatomy? There’s a great free worksheet set available here.)

I wasn’t able to get many pictures of this next step, but hopefully I can explain it well enough. You’ll want to bend a pipe cleaner into the shape shown, put a line of glue (I used hot glue) on the top of the bee between each pair of leg holes & thread the two ends of the pipe cleaner into the holes, landing in the glue. I also bent a small piece of pipe cleaner (I used 1/4) and glued it onto the head for antennae.

Now on to the wings! Bees actually have two sets of wings, the fore wings and hind wings, which connect together with a row of hooks. For our model bee I used 3/4 of a pipe cleaner for each of the fore wings and 1/2 of a pipe cleaner for each of the hind wings.

For the flower portion of our project we also started with a printed pattern. I chose to keep it simple and went with the picture shown above which you can find here. I printed it on cardstock & cut it out for Jet. He tore up small pieces of pink tissue paper and glued them on, overlapping them as he went to cover up all the white of the paper. After Jet was finished decorating the flower, I hot glued a bottle cap that I had rescued from the recycling into the center.

Here are Jet’s finished crafts ready for our fine motor activity. As you can see I filled the center of the flower with yellow & orange pony-bead “pollen”.

Before starting our fine motor activity, Jet & I read Bee & Me and talked a little about the importance of bees and their role in pollination. This book has good information & a cute story that encourages us not to be scared of bees but to appreciate them for their contributions. We also own Honey in a Hive (from the Let's Read & Find Out Science series) & The Magic School Bus Inside a Beehive. I hope to get to both of those later, but Bee & Me by Elle McGuinness is my top choice for a gentle introduction to bees.

After brushing up on his bee knowledge, Jet got busy letting his bee visit the flower and pick up some "pollen". He exercised those fine motor skills by threading the pollen onto the bee’s legs.

I didn’t get a picture of it, but I also hot-glued a wooden clothespin to the underside of our bee. It gave Jet something more substantial to hold onto and allowed for some extra fun!

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Penguin Day Races & Obstacle Course

2016-02-21T15:38:00.000-05:00

Welcome!, Welcome!, Welcome!,

to the first ever FumblingThrough Penguin Day(s) celebration!

To review & finish up our penguin studies, we treated ourselves to some outdoor fun, penguin-style!

Here’s our lineup of events:

We started off our races with the “Emperor Penguin Waddle”. The boys raced a short course while carrying “eggs” between their knees. If they dropped the “egg” they had to take 2 steps backwards before they could continue.

I also gave them the task of transferring a number of “eggs” from one basket to another by working as a team and using only their tummies. They enjoyed this a bit less than the other games, but I liked it plenty for them. So many joys, frustrations, and lessons to be learned by having to work together with a younger sibling ;)

Next up we had the “Rockhopper Hop”. I gave each boy 2 kitchen towel “rocks” and challenged them to cross the yard without touching the ground. They hopped from “rock” to “rock” after moving the previous “rock” from behind them to in front of them. Mama also participated in this race a few times and I can attest to the fact that it’s more exhausting than you’d think!

This next race was one that the boys made up themselves. We named it the “Ice Sheet Shuffle”. The boys pretended that their towels were ice blocks that they were trying to stay on top of as they crossed the water. They had tons of fun with it!

Due to rain we had to postpone our grand finale obstacle course until another day, hence the clothing changes. I had also intended to put up some white, black, and orange streamers to make it more festive, so just pretend you see those in the photos below ;) I do have 4 kids to educate and care for and, honestly, cuteness often gets pushed down the list of priorities. Smiles, on the other hand, are always a priority!

A few photos from our “Penguin Dash” Obstacle Course:

…and I set up a math table with our “Feed the Penguin” boxes.

As you can see, we used things we had around the house to make our obstacle course. So simple, so fun, and a great way to burn off excess energy! The colorful “bumps” are these from Amazon and the cones are just your standard orange cones, faded from lots of good use, but still going strong. We use both of these items for all sorts of games.

While I’m at it, I also wanted to give a grateful shout-out to Busch Gardens: Seaworld! We were able to visit one of their parks during this study and let the boys get up close and personal with some real live penguins. We took advantage of a Busch Gardens program called Waves of Honor, through which military families can get up to 4 free tickets to one of their parks each year. Together time can be scarce for military families and this particular family was very thankful to have been able to share this fun day together!

Check out some of our other polar activities here:

Snowflakes, Art Prints & The Artist Katsushika Hokusai

Crayon Resist Penguin Science +1 More

Polar Sensory Bin

Free Printable Math Activity: Feed the Penguin Boxes

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Free Printable Math Activity: Feed the Penguin Boxes

2016-01-31T20:26:00.000-05:00

I made these cute little Feed the Penguin boxes to use in math & counting games with my boys, and thought I’d share with you, my wonderful readers.

I was a bit indecisive so there’s both a free-standing option as well as a flatter variety that’s sized just right to fit over these Dixie 10oz Paper Bowls. You only need one sheet of paper (or cardstock), a few cuts, a little folding, and a bit of tape to make each box. My 3 year-old used his for counting, My 5 year-old addition, and my 7 year-old multiplication. We fed our penguins goldfish, of course!

I also laminated our flatter box so that I could use a dry erase marker to write on the penguin’s chest. Here my 3yo, Jet, is getting an early lesson on addition. I had him feed the penguin the two numbers from some simple addition problems, then raise the box to count (& eat!) the total. This boys LOVES his snacks, so this was a perfect activity for him.

Want to make your own Feed the Penguin Boxes?

Click on the links below to download your free printables:

Feed the Penguin “Bowl-Topper” Box Printable

Feed the Penguin "Free-Standing" Box Printable

Each file contains the instructions and printables necessary to make the boxes in either color or black & white. And because Valentine’s day is approaching, I also added a heart to the penguin’s chest, so you can choose to print with or without that.

Enjoy!

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Polar Sensory Bin

2016-01-25T05:00:00.000-05:00

Ooooooh YES, it’s messy!

(but so much fun, Mom!)

We couldn’t possibly do a polar unit study without a polar sensory bin, could we?

Above is a picture of the one I put together for my crew. I used Insta-Snow as the base material, and added metal and plastic spoons, colored flat marbles, a couple of animals from our Ocean TOOB , the globe from the top of the Toob packaging, some test tubes & mini petri dishes that we'd used before, and some small winter themed tubs.

So that was toobs, tubes, & tubs. Got it? ;)

The Insta-Snow is a bit messy, but with that comes some unique possibilities.
These southern boys got to make snowballs!

And scoop, and pour

And mold, and dig, & bury their fingers

and generally make….

~~a mess~~ themselves smile!
Which makes this mama smile.

(The Insta-Snow actually does vacuum up really easily.)

Do you enjoy sensory bins in your home?
If so, what have been some of your favorites?

Planning on sharing this post at one or more of the following places:

Tot School @ 1+1+1=1, Tree Valley Academy

Hearts for Home Blog Hop, Learn & Play LinkUp, Littles Learning LinkUp
& Everything Early Childhood

Crayon Resist Penguin Science + 1 More

2016-01-17T19:17:00.000-05:00

We may not be knee deep in snow right now, but we are knee deep in a p-p-polar unit study over here in the FTP household. As part of that we’ve spent some time studying penguins. Here are a couple of hands-on science activities that we’ve done to illustrate some of the concepts we’ve learned about penguin behavior and anatomy.

1. Crayon Resist Penguin Science

To do this activitty we used:

white paper

crayons in white & orange

water color paints in dark colors

The first step in this project is to draw a penguin outline on your white paper. For the most dramatic results, Dude did this with mostly white crayon, but you could use another light color like yellow or orange, if the white is too hard to see. Dude used the directions in our Follow the Directions & Draw It All by Yourself book as a reference for his drawing.

Next paint over the entire page with dark colored water color paints. As you do the crayon wax from your drawing will repel the water in the paint and protect the paper underneath from being colored, revealing your penguin drawing as you go.

The result is a neat combination of artistic technique and science. The crayon wax coats the paper and protects it from the moisture of the paint the same way the penguin uses a special oil it produces to coat it’s feathers and protect itself from frigid waters.

The second activity we did is an oldie, but a goodie!

2. Blubber Science

I’ve seen this project done a lot of different ways, but here’s what we used:

1 or 2 quart sized zip-lock bags

1 sandwich sized zip-lock bag

shortening (or lard)

a container of ice water

tape (optional)

We ended up not using it.

The first thing you want to do is put your “blubber” (the shortening or lard) into the quart size zip-lock bag. I used about 2 1/2 cups, but could have gotten away with less. Next, put your hand into the sandwich sized bag and push it into the middle of the “blubber” making sure to leave a thick layer on all sides.

It should look something like this.

I had originally planned on taping the tops of the two bags together at this point, but decided to skip it. (and would again if we repeated this project)

Now you’re ready to get experimenting! We decided to get out a second zip-lock bag to use as a control and the boys took turns wearing an empty bag on one hand and the “blubber mitten” on the other and dipping both hands into the container of ice water. The advantages of a layer of blubber weren’t hard to feel!

Looking for more information & activities about penguins?

We also used & would recommend the follow resources:

Easy Make & Learn Projects: Penguins

We used this book to make penguin masks, models, & maps showing where various types of penguins live and how they behave.

Penguins (Smithsonian) by Seymour Simon

Fabulous pictures & a great general reference book about penguins

March of the Penguins DVD
Chronicles the harrowing journey that the emperor penguins make at the South Pole

I'll be sharing this post over at:

Tot School @ 1+1+1=1, Tree Valley Academy, Learn & Play Linkup
Natural Beach Living, Hip Homeschool Hop, Littles Learning Link Up
So Much at Home, Hearts for Home Blog Hop
& Everything Early Childhood

Word(less) Wednesday- May No Good Box Be Spared!

2016-01-13T05:00:00.000-05:00

Jet spotted this almost empty box and just couldn't let it go in the recycling.

He'd spotted an opportunity!

And the beginnings of a rocketship.

(Captain Jet & his co-pilot)
I just love watching these two play together.

Hope you have a great Wednesday!

How to take the “Roll” out of Rolled Paper

2016-01-10T05:00:00.000-05:00

Reader Question: How do you get the paper you cut off of a roll to lay flat without taping it?

I received this question from a reader and thought I’d answer it here on the blog in case others were wondering the same thing.

It’s actually easy once you know this little trick:

After you cut the paper off the roll, rub it several times (rolled edges out/up) along the edge of a table or counter while applying gentle pressure. If you need it flatter still rotate the paper 90-degrees (rolled edges still up) and repeat.

I can never quite get the corners totally flat, but this little process helps tremendously and will definitely allow you to ditch the tape.

(You can use this for posters that have been rolled up as well.)

Hope this is helpful!

If you have any other questions feel free to comment below or email me, and I’ll do my best to help you out!

Don't forget to follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, or by email for more tips, crafts, & activity ideas.

Craft paper by the roll:

Snowflakes, Art Prints & The Artist Katsushika Hokusai

2016-01-07T10:24:00.000-05:00

Jet is 44 months, Dude is 7 years old, & Spudder is 5 years old

We did some art experimenting today that evolved into 3 different art projects for my 3 different students. I was trying to find a way to have them all involved and the pictures above show my proud fellas with the resulting projects.

We started off with a little bit of reading in our Polar Lands book and decided to make snowflakes as described in the book. I knew we'd need a little bit heavier than normal paper for the extension projects I wanted to do, so we went with fingerpaint paper, but later switched to cardstock for Spudder's project. You’ll see why later.

One thing we learned from the book was that all snowflakes are actually 6 sided. This was news to me, and necessitated a different method of paper folding than I was familiar with. Instead of folding a square into 1/8ths, I traced a dinner plate to get a large circle, cut these out for everyone and folded them into 1/6ths. I found the easiest way to do the folding to be to fold the circle in half, bend (but don’t fold) it in half again and just put the smallest crimp in the top edge (so the center point is marked) and then fold the 1/2 into 1/3s. Despite my wordy description, it was actually really easy.

Each of the boys cut triangles or other shapes into the edges of their snowflakes, being careful not to cut all the way across. Jet was a little unsure of himself at first, but after showing him how easy it was to cut two intersecting lines, he took off cutting triangles.

After the snowflake unfolding excitement, Jet continued with his part of the project by turning his snowflake into a stencil for some blue paint. A paint roller or sponge pouncer probably would have been ideal for this project, but we didn’t have either, so I just reminded him to dab with his paintbrush instead of smearing. I also didn’t bother to tape the snowflake down. I just held it and got my hands messy. The M&D paint we used washes up pretty well.

Tada!

For Spudder’s snowflake we did something a little different. I wanted to let him use his snowflake to make prints. We tried using the snowflake he’d cut out of fingerpaint paper first, but it was just too big and delicate after multiple attempts, so he went back and cut a smaller snowflake out of cardstock, and that worked better.

After spreading a thick layer of paint on his snowflake while it was laying on a scratch piece of paper, he turned it over, positioned it on his project page, covered it with a paper towel, and applied a little pressure.

Then carefully peeled the snowflake back to reveal his print. I tried to encourage him to overlap his prints, but he wouldn’t have any of that.
(This could also be a fun start to a winter scene project.)

Dude did go ahead and make the snowflakes with his brothers, but I really had a different project intended for him. His project was from the book, The Usborne Art Treasury, a wonderful book that combines artist studies with simple art projects. This particular project was inspired by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai.

We didn't do the project quite like the book said, but we were close. To make his print Dude used a pencil to etch a Hokusai inspired drawing into a piece of Styrofoam that I cut from a disposable food tray. He then used blue paint to make several prints from his etching. Dude enjoyed this immensely and immediately suggested we make 30 prints! We settled on 6 instead.

His favorite!

You can find biographical info on Hokusai, a nice size picture of one of his most famous prints, the full details of this project as well as many more in The Usborne Art Treasury. Dude used it as well as the Children's Book of Art to put together a short presentation on Katsushika Hokusai for his homeschool co-op class.

Here's a link to an animated documentary about Hokusai on YouTube that you might also find helpful:

https://youtu.be/cebBWjgGAAQ

More book suggestions for an artist study:

More book suggestions on snowflakes:

Sharing this post at:

Tree Valley Academy & Tot School @ 1+1+1=1

Letter W (Water) Unit Recap – FINALLY!!!

2012-09-10T22:51:00.000-04:00

Although our Letter W / Water unit was a bit random and broken up, there’s no denying Dude enjoyed it & learned a ton!

Here are all (or at least most) of the activities he did:

We started out the unit with an evaporation science experiment. For this one we poured some water into a jar, placed it in the windowsill, marked the water level every of couple of days, & discussed what was happening.

He made this cute little “Where’s Turkey?” book as we reviewed positional words. This is from this book that I picked up during the Scholastic dollar days sale that I posted about on Facebook.
(I don’t see it available through Scholastic anymore.)

Folding Washcloths

We played quite a few games of Guess Who? This is a new to us game and is recommended for 6+, but after a little bit of instruction Dude picked it up quickly. His mama also enjoyed it much more than most of our preschool games ;)

Dude made some Wax drip art, which you can read more about here.

Lots, & lots or Watercolor painting. This has been one of his favorite art activities for awhile.

Letter W printing practice using his Dry Erase Activity Center

Letter W hunt from Confessions of a Homeschooler

He made a cloud with glue and cotton balls

Then we used it as a raindrop counting mat. I put a number in the top corner and he counted out that many raindrops (flat glass stones) underneath his cloud.

We later pulled out this same page for some extra fine motor skills practice. Dude cut and glued on grass,

Traced flower stems,

And used stickers to add flowers and the sun.

We really got a lot of mileage out of that one sheet of blue construction paper!

We also set up a toy Wash on the back porch. Both big boys got in on this!

Dude did a Letter W playdoh mat from Homeschool Creations

We did another evaporation science experiment, this time testing to see how direct sunlight affected the rate of evaporation.

We read the book It Looked Like Spilt Milk and did an art project related to it. You can read all the details and see more pictures HERE.

And we did yet another evaporation experiment.

You can read about all of them HERE.

We talked about condensation & precipitation.

Dude observed condensation on a cold mirror and the outside of a cup.

We talked about the “sticky” characteristic of water and Dude observed it for himself by moving water around with a q-tip on wax paper.

My little student painted, colored, cut, & glued to make this tissue box water cycle. He was quite proud of it! (The printable we used is from this book , another Scholastic dollar days score that I don’t see available over there anymore.)

Some random water play with a set of measuring cups.

Another game we played a lot during this unit was Dr. Seuss What's in the Cat's Hat? Game This is a silly guessing game that’s a lot of fun.

Moving on to the precipitation portion of the water cycle, Dude made it rain by squeezing water out of a sponge.

As our grand finale science experiment we made it rain in a jar. This was pretty neat to watch and demonstrated all parts of the water cycle. It also gave us a chance to discuss the 3 states of matter: liquid, solid, & gas.

Another aspect we added into Dude’s “school” during this unit was this Systematic Sight Word Instruction for Reading Success: A 35-Week Program . The program includes flashcards (which we’ll be using), reproducible worksheets (some of which we’ll be using) and more ideas. I’ll probably share a little bit of what we do each week from this program, but not everything.

Dude’s first set of sight words were: I, a, run, play, can, & we

In addition to the parts of the program that we used, Dude also traced the sight words that I’d written in highlighter and sprayed his sight words off the fence with Water as I called them out.

Whew! I think that’s it!

I’m going to list our book choices for our Letter W / Water unit in the widget below. Good books really are an integral part of our “schooling” and are read multiple times during our units.

Thanks for following along!

I'll be sharing this post over at:

Tot School, Preschool Corner, The Sunday Showcase, Show and Share Saturday, and at the Enchanted Thursdays Blog Hop

Sticker Slap! – Counting Game

2012-09-08T17:54:00.000-04:00

Dude and I have been playing this fun little game for the past couple of days. I’m not sure he’s realized it yet, but he’s also practicing his math skills!

All you need to play is two (or more) sets of cards with increasing numbers of stickers on them. I made mine with two different colors of cardstock so they’d be easier to sort for the next game. And if your child is anything like mine there WILL be a next game!I only did the numbers 1-10 for now but you could easily go higher.

For the game each player takes one color of card and places them face down (in random order) in a pile in front of them. On the count of three, each player turns over a card, puts it in the middle of the table and then tries to be the first to slap the card with the most stickers. If you’re first you take both cards and put them in your discard pile. The person with the biggest discard pile at the end of the game WINS! Super simple, but being able to both race and slap has made this a big hit with Dude. It’s great counting and greater than/less than comparison as well.

This was one of the bonus ideas in our Shoe Box Learning Centers: Counting book.

Water Week Science – Condensation & Precipitation

2012-09-02T23:29:00.000-04:00

Here are the science experiments we did to help my son understand the processes of condensation and precipitation. These are some pretty difficult concepts for a 4 year old to grasp so I tried to model as many things for him as I could.

We started off by simply observing condensation form on a cup filled with ice water. We talked about the cup being cold and cooling the air around it. We also talked about there being water vapor in the air all around us and how it condenses and turns back into liquid water when it gets cold enough.

Dude also observed the condensation that formed when he breathed on a cold mirror.

Next we talked a little bit about water being “sticky.” I didn’t worry about any technical terms, but I did put a small amount of water on a piece of wax paper and let Dude move it around with a q-tip to observe these forces and how the water naturally wanted to “stick” together.

We first demonstrated precipitation with a simple sponge. After getting it wet Dude squeezed it (to connect all the tiny water droplets into bigger droplets) and “made it rain” into a pan.

Our final science experiment for this unit was to make it rain….inside a jar! This was not only really neat to watch, but also a great way to model every aspect of the water cycle, making the the perfect finale for our week. You can see all the details for this project HERE.

You can also see our evaporation experiments HERE.

I'm sharing this post over at:

Tot School, Preschool Corner, The Sunday Showcase, Noted: Show & Tell Blog Hop, Show and Share Saturday, and at the Enchanted Thursdays Blog Hop

Making It Rain! (In A Jar)

2012-09-02T17:28:00.001-04:00

I found a description of this experiment here and couldn’t resist trying it as part of our water cycle studies.

Here are the materials you’ll need for this project:

A Jar
(We used a giant pickle jar, but I think a smaller jar would have worked better)

A Hammer

A Nail
(I used a screwdriver tip because because I couldn’t find a nail at the time.)

A Towel

Ice

Salt

and Water just shy of boiling (not pictured)

First you’ll want to place your jar lid on the towel and use the hammer and nail to make several dimples on the inside of the lid.

Be careful not to actually puncture the lid. You only want to make indentions not actual holes.

Now for the fun part: You’ll need to warm enough water to fill your jar about 1/3 full, until it’s almost boiling. Dump this water into the jar and immediately put the jar lid on upside down (rim up). Fill the jar lid with ice and sprinkle some salt on top.

And watch it rain!

Ours actually took a few minutes to get going. I think because we used too big of a jar. But it was pretty neat to watch!

And if you're looking for a good book to go along with this experiment, we're big fans of all of the Magic School Bus books. The Magic School Bus At The Waterworks follows along well with this experiment and further explains how water gets to our houses.

You can see the rest of our water cycle experiments here & here.

And a recap of all of our letter W activities COMING SOON.

Water Week Science – Evaporation

2012-08-27T22:46:00.001-04:00

As you can probably guess, we did a BUNCH of science experiments during our unit on water.

Here are the first few that demonstrate evaporation:

For our first experiment we filled a jar with water and put it in the windowsill. We marked the water level with a marker the first day and Dude made a prediction about what would happen to the water level over time. Every couple of days after that, we’d observe the new lower water level, mark it with a new line, and talk about evaporation. At first I explained the process to him, but he was soon explaining it to me!

For our next experiment we put a small amount of water onto each of two plates. We then put one in the direct sun and provided some shade for the other plate. After a couple of hours Dude observed what had happened to the water on each plate and we discussed why.

Our last evaporation experiment was the most visual and definitely Dude’s favorite. He started out by wetting his chalkboard with a rag.

Next he fired up the hair dryer, pointed it at the chalkboard, and watched as the water evaporated right before his eyes.

Like I said he LOVED this one!

Next up I’ll be posting our condensation and precipitation experiments, so keep an eye out for those!

Wax Drip Art – Letter W Week (Catch Up Post)

2012-08-25T21:30:00.000-04:00

I never did get all of our Letter W week activities posted so I’m going to try to catch up on those before moving on to this years activities.

Here’s another art project I found lurking on my camera:

For this project you’ll need:

Some sort of thick paper (construction paper, watercolor paper, cardstock, or similar)

Pillar candles (We used some leftover Christmas candles.)

A lighter or matches

Tape (optional)

& a mature child
(NOT optional! This project involves fire and could be very dangerous! I did it with my oldest son with water nearby, and while his younger brothers were sleeping. Please use your own good judgment and take appropriate precautions before deciding to do this project with your child.)

First you’ll want to tape your paper down. This step is really optional, but for safety’s sake I’d recommend it.

Next light one of your candles, hand it to your child carefully, and have them angle the candle down so that the wax drips on the paper. Dude needed to be reminded a few times to point the candle down.

Now just get creative with it!
As Dude worked on his art, he made observations about how the wax melted and spattered as it hit his paper, & how it sometimes puddled when the drops were close together. We also used this as an opportunity to talk about the solid wax melting and turning into a liquid, then cooling back into a solid.

So proud of the finished product!

Another Safety Note: You’ll notice from the pictures that I started my son off standing in a chair. I did this so it’d be more natural for him to hold the candle higher away from the flammable paper. He did sit down later, but I do think it helped him initially. I didn’t want any burning paper experiments here just yet!

Our New Morning Board

2012-08-23T17:39:00.000-04:00

New Year = New Plan

I’m excited to be adding a new element to our home preschool this year, a morning board! Now that the older boys are 4 and 2.5 I’m doing more and more things with the 2 of them together and I wanted some way to start our school time off in an organized and hopefully *fingers crossed* calm manner. I think our morning board will be just the thing to accomplish that.

Here’s the layout I came up with:

I attached everything using double sided tape to a foam board I bought at Walmart.

Most of the printables are things I found online for free. Starting at the top left, I printed & laminated the calendar songs from the 1+1+1=1 website. I attached them to the board using 1" Binder Rings to make a sort of flip book. I went with the larger version for now because we’re not familiar with them, but there are also smaller versions available here.

Under that is our Make the Date box with velcro strips underneath to make the date using real coins. For now Dude will be doing this using only dimes and pennies. I just typed mine up but there are different version available to print here & here.

And below that are boxes for Spudder to velcro on a Color of the Day, Animal of the Day, Shape of the Day, & Letter of the Day. We’ll review these daily of course, but my plan is to use this section as inspiration for activities to keep Spudder occupied while I’m working with Dude. For example I might pull out playdough in the color of the day, or a letter of the week type activity for the appropriate letter, or have him make the shape with popsicle sticks, those sorts of things. This printable is also from 1+1+1=1.

Across the top of the board I have a section for making the date.

In the middle of the board (where you see the apple page) is actually where I attached a sheet protector. I plan to rotate out what’s in this space to keep it interesting. At the moment we have a logic problem from this book. I actually bought the digital copy during the Scholastic dollar days sale I posted about on facebook, but it doesn’t seem to be available from that website any longer.

Next we have this Days in School section where we’ll count up the days in school and do some place value review.

Botton center we have our What’s the Weather Like Today block.

And in the very right corner I attached a plastic pocket for slipping in these Godly Character Trait cards. I printed mine 4 to a page.

We’ve only been using our board for 2 days now. But so far we’re really liking it!

I'm sharing this post over at:

Tot School, Preschool Corner, The Sunday Showcase, Noted: Show & Tell Blog Hop, Show and Share Saturday, and at the Enchanted Thursdays Blog Hop

It Looked Like Spilt Milk (Story + Art)

2012-06-12T21:09:00.000-04:00

As part of our water unit study I decided to do a little art project inspired by the book, It Looked Like Spilt Milk by Charles G. Shaw. This is a cute book, in which each page shows a white image on a blue background that looks like one thing….but isn’t. I really liked the way this book got Dude thinking!

This project was super simple yet lots of fun! Basically Dude squirted some white paint on blue paper…

Folded it in half…

Opened it up….

And we tried to imagine what the picture might be!

He actually made some pretty neat pictures! We decided these were: rabbits talking, a butterfly, and a plane flying through the clouds. Can you see them?

I found the idea for this fun little art project over at A Mommy's Adventure. She’s got lots more story related art ideas on her blog as well. It’s definitely worth checking out!

Football Sensory / Imagination Bin

2012-06-07T18:05:00.000-04:00

HI ALL!

It’s been far too long since I’ve had the time or energy to post to this blog, but I’m excited to say that I’m finally ready to get back with it! I’ve got lots of fun things planned to keep these little ones busy over the summer and we’ll also be continuing with our preschool & tot school at home. The posts will probably be short and sweet from here on out, but I hope you enjoy seeing what we’re up to!

First up I’d like to tell you about the sensory bin we have out right now.
It’s all about FOOTBALL!

The contents include:

Green rice (I colored mine by mixing the rice with rubbing alcohol & green food coloring in a ziploc bag.)
Straws cut to 3 different lengths (hash lines)
Little connecting figures in 2 colors to represent the 2 teams. (These were a Target $1 section purchase awhile back, but you could also use colored clothespins.)
10, 20, 30, 40, 50 number cards
Green pipe cleaners with 10 white beads on each (field lines)
A coffee scoop
& a toy flag we had from a play golf set

As always I put the bin in the middle of a blanket along with some random containers and let the boys have at it.

They spent quite a while stacking, scooping, pouring, sorting, ordering, and observing the sound of the rice on the various containers.

I also used this as an opportunity to discuss some math concepts with Dude. We talked about the total football field length and the yard lines & hash lines. (I didn’t even know they were called hash lines until I was making this bin!) We also used the number cards and 10 bead bars to practice counting to 50 by 1s, by 10s, and just talking about the ones and tens place values. Dude is not quite 4 and can count, but still has a way to go in actually understanding the relationship between numbers. I think this was some good hands on practice though!

This coming week I’ll be sharing our letter W and water unit study activities, but until then you can check out our previous sensory bins, letter of the week activities, tot tray ideas, and boredom busters by using the tabs at the top of the Fumbling Through Parenthood homepage.

Outer Space / Letter S Unit

2011-09-05T18:17:00.001-04:00

Let me start off by apologizing for the lack of posts recently. We’ve just had so much going on behind the scenes lately that I’ve been feeling pretty overwhelmed by life. For privacy reasons, and because I prefer to focus on the positives, I doubt I’ll be sharing much of that here, but hopefully things will be back to normal soon. And there may even be some good news coming out of all this chaos!

But without further ado, here are the activities we did in our Outer Space / Letter Ss unit:

We made sponge comets and had fun with some space-themed water play.

Dude used our mini foam letter tiles to spell out some words that start with S.

We made a Sun in a bottle and talked about the composition of our closest star.

Dude used his finger to erase S’s I drew on a white board.

Then moved on to drawing his own S’s in our salt box.

We used a flashlight to discuss perspective and the sizes & distances to the Sun and other stars.

We made Sun Prints and talked about the importance of protecting our skin from the Sun.

We used the planet cutouts and planets mini-book from our Space Lapbook, along with some space flashcards from the Target dollar spot to put the planets in order, discuss ordinal number words (first, second, etc.) and learn a little about each planet.

Dude used clothespins for some fine motor work while doing the beginning sounds cards, also from the Space Lapbook.

We played several games of space dominoes while using some space vocabulary words. These are also in the Space Lapbook.

I’m so NOT a glitter fan, but I’ve also accepted that it’s an essential part of preschool, so I let Dude go crazy making his own night sky using glitter and glue. Yep, he loved it!

I introduced Dude to the hundreds chart. I had outlined the numbers 1-10 in green and gave him corresponding Duplo legos with masking tape numbers on them to count and connect. I can’t remember where I printed the hundred chart, but if you google it I’m sure you can find more than a couple.

He did his Letter Hunt worksheet in his new Dry Erase Activity Center . We're really liking this tool.

We had some star shaped pony beads, so I set up this patterning & lacing activity for Dude. He was very proud of his completed necklace.

Dude did some sound sorting with the cards from here & here. We used a pocket chart just to mix things up a little.

Dude colored this phonics coloring page, and glued on pictures of things that start with letter S. (Both of these printables are from Homeschool Creations. I printed the images at 50% of normal size.) We also looked through a grocery ad to spot some more S words to add. He found soup, soap, & strawberries.

Random stickering with stars & smiles

Doing his Letter Builders

Dude matched up the Space Vocab cards from his Space Lapbook. I also pulled out the flashcards from our target $1 deck that matched so he could see some real pictures as we discussed the terms. I had intended for us to later play memory with these cards, but we never got around to it.

We attempted this neat Moon craft. Ours didn’t quite turn out, but you can learn from my mistakes by reading my Moon Craft Flop post.

I disassembled the Countdown Book from our Space Lapbook and Dude counted out star stickers for each number page.

We made spaghetti for dinner one night, so I let Dude make S’s (and other letters) with some extra noodles. My son can be quite particular about the textures he’s willing to touch, so I like to include sensory activities like this whenever possible.

We tried this Constellation Copying Worksheet, but Dude wasn’t really into it. I think it would have gone over better if he was a more confident writer. My son tends to be a perfectionist when it comes to putting pen/pencil to paper, so writing can be very frustrating for him. His Dry Erase Activity Center seems to be helping since it’s so easy to erase, but this is one area where I’ve stepped way back and am just letting him figure it out in his own time. The last thing I want to do is frustrate him.

We made our own DIY Moon Sand and did a crater making experiment in our kitchen. Dude loved this!

We added some Space Accessories to our DIY Moon and I set up a space themed sensory & pretend play area for Dude. You can read more about that HERE.

Another day I gave Dude all the pages of the Countdown Book from his Space Lapbook and a loose leaf ring clip and let him order the pages and assemble the book himself.

The removable rocket on the last page was a big hit!

I found these star shaped ice cube trays at the thrift store and set up this fine motor & reasoning activity for Dude. I put pom-poms into one tray and then gave him coordinating pom-poms and children’s chopstick to use for recreating my arrangement in the other tray.

We used the Moon Phase Chart & cards from our Space Lapbook to put the moon phases in order and talk about how the appearance of the Moon varies.

Dude led his astronaut to the Moon. Nothing too fancy here, just a little practice with alphabetical order and letter recognition. This was the back page of the Space Lapbook.

We tried using a hammer and nail to punch holes in a tin can and make our own constellations. This was harder than I expected and I actually had to make starter holes for Dude. He still loved it though. We took it into a closet and put a flashlight underneath, so we could see our shining stars and newly named constellation. (BTW, I just have a standard hand crank can opener, but by using it to go around the can a couple more times after the end was already off, I was able to get a dull, safe edge.)

I tried to teach Dude how to do a somersault. You know, tuck your chin, arch your back and roll. Well, let’s just say we’ve still got some work to do on mastering this skill. There was more flopping than rolling :)

And of course as usual there was lots of reading going on. Here are my outer space book recommendations:

Notes: -We used the Earth & Space Usbourne book for reference. It's an older title and includes info on much more than just space.
-I'd recommend the Magic School Bus book for slightly older kids (elementary age) but Dude (3yrs)just loves them.

I also let Dude watch the Magic School Bus: Space Adventures DVD.
This is the DVD we own, but you can also purchase the entire Magic School Bus: The Complete Series set for a pretty good price, which includes episodes on the solar system (#1), space rocks (#24), and stars (#46).

Oh, and if you own this Solar System Floor Puzzle and you're doing a unit on space, it'd be a good opportunity to pull it out.

(Note to self: We own this!)

I hate it when I do that.

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