By the Pond for Preschoolers - Part 3

Concluding our Pond Unit was bittersweet. I think Adrian and I both really liked the topic and could easily have gone on...but just like a fun game, it's probably best to leave things be when they are still at peak! :) The theme can always be further explored next year after all.

Math - Lily pad addition

I really need to start pinning. For the past few weeks, I have seen lily pad math everywhere. Of course when came the time to look them up, I had the hardest time remembering who had created them and where to find them! Ugh. I usually write it all down (yes...I'm a bit old-fashioned...) but I guess I thought I'd find at least one! Thankfully, 123 Homeschool 4 Me had a very nice free printable all ready for Adrian. Adding is still something we are working on so we still use objects to make it tangible as you can see. Here, we used glass gems (Tedi, our bargain store had an entire jar for 1 euro!). The frog had a 4 + 4 addition so Adrian put 4 pebbles on one side and 4 on the other side. He added them all and picked lily pad number 8 for his frog to reside on (good job!). Then, everything was "swept" aside for another addition.

Math - Counting River Rocks - Explaining Odd and Even Numbers

Adrian has been counting for years now but I never really took the time to explain the difference between and odd and even numbers (how "odd" is that?). I guess that escaped me. Last week, I took the time to add these words to his growing vocabulary by taking the time to show him the alignment of his river rocks. He liked it so much he actually made me "create" bigger numbers so I could "quiz" him whether that number was odd or even... :)

Language & Science: Water and Land Forms

The pond is a water form but there are so many out there. What a nice way to introduce other water forms I thought! Thanks to Tiffany (she donated her cards to Montessori Materials), I printed my own brown and blue nomenclature cards and we began learning all about these land and water forms. Later that week, I got a copy of these same forms but this time, I got a copy of what they might look like in real life (visit The Helpful Garden for these). Adrian now had to match "bay" with "bay" and "cape" with "cape. Not an easy task for all the cards I'm afraid but it was a good start...

Felt Fishing Game

This was really more of a just for fun game. It does take some coordination to catch the fish but still, Adrian is quite good at it now. We've used these before. I made them myself and you can read all about them in my previous post about Pets.

Artist of the Month: Claude Monet

Every month, I try to remember to introduce a new artist. For April, I chose to go with Monet who, like us this week, was a big fan of the pond apparently! :) We talked about the artist himself, mostly thanks to Making Art Fun. At such a young age, basic information is really all Adrian will absorb and even then. He yawned and fidgeted throughout "the lecture". We quickly moved on to the art part where we looked at the work of Monet, paying attention to the colors used and the subject of the art. As much as possible, I try to have Adrian come up with the observations (such as: Monet love to paint landscapes it seems!) but sometimes, I almost have to give him choices of answers. :) After looking at several art pieces, we got to work choosing to "reproduce" a pond filled with water lilies. See the results below! :)

Water Lilies by Mommy

Adrian's Rendition of the Monet Masterpiece!
It was Adrian's first time using oil pastels and he liked it very much.
He pressed as hard as if they were crayons so the colors are not as muted.

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If saying good bye to the pond unit is bittersweet for you to, I invite you to make some flower pot and dragonfly cupcakes like we did! :) I actually volunteered to bake these for the bake sale at my son's German school. The Germans having no cupcakes (unless you visit "american bakeries in huge metropolis I've been told), they were a very big hit! :)

Flower Pot Cupcakes 

Devil's Food Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting, Chocolate Sprinkles, Sugar Leaves and Lollipops!

Original idea seen on Once Upon a Cookie.

Dragonfly Cupcakes

Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, Licorice Antennae, Pretzel Wings and Smarties Head (skittles/M&M would work too! I just love Smarties!)

Original idea seen on The Daily Cupcake.

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Your comments make my day ! 

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Today, I'm happily linking up to

Montessori Monday, The Kids Co-Op, Show-and-Share Saturday, TGIF, Share it Saturday, Mom's Library, The Sunday Showcase, Sun Scholars's For the Kids Friday, Stress-Free Sunday, Thursday Toddler & Preschool, Tuesday Tots, Artsy Play Wednesday, Serenity Saturday, Virtual Montessori Sharing Fair, Discover and Explore, and We Made That.

If you would like me to link up with you, please don't hesitate to ask, it might take me a week or two, but I generally do!

By the Pond for Preschoolers - Part 2

Do you spend time by the pond? I feel like "by the pond" is such a classic theme. Something I find in a lot of curriculum books and would find in lots of schools if I went on a tour. Of course, if there are no ponds around your area, this thematic is highly adaptable to a river as well. So go ahead and check out what we did last week with our pond mini-unit/river! :)

Art & Fine Motor : The Play Dough Pond

At first sight, this mere pond looks like a simple play dough activity but there is a lot more to it than meets the eye. Of course, the pond itself was rather easy for Adrian to make as he simply had to "smash" blue play dough on the table, somewhat shape it like a circle and all but then, he had to get to work on the lilypads which were a bit more difficult to shape as they were to be smaller. To give them their distinctive shape, Adrian used our playdough scissors. On top of the lilypad, he made water lillies for which he rolled small pink play dough balls. That was difficult for him. The cattails were something he quite enjoyed making though. We used toothpicks and I showed him how to make the first one and then he was off to do the rest, simply rolling brown play dough on the tip of the toothpicks (at first, he had simply stuck them in the pond so I had him think of how to make them fluffier on the ends). Adrian also added some river rocks and pond animals from our Safari Pets Toob to decorate the pond he created and finally, he "chopped" some "wood logs" using brown play dough and play dough scissors. He loved that part. Overall, making this pond was one of his favorite activities this week. I think it's partly because Adrian loves play dough but usually doesn't quite know what to do with the dough. When given a project and ideas, then, he's off to work on it and is so proud of the results.

Fine Motor/Practical Life: Fish carrying Fish Eggs

Another nice fine motor activity we enjoyed this week was this bath suction pad and marble "kit". Adrian simply had to balance a marble on top of each suction cup using his fingers and that was it. It was extremely easy for him so next time I pull one of these mats out, we'll be using tongs with the marbles or something otherwise, this suction mat activity will have to be only for fun. Not one bit challenging.

Art: Turtle Craft - made with an egg carton

As a pre-planned craft this week, we enjoyed this egg carton turtle. I pre-cut an egg carton piece for Adrian and I and we painted the "shell" one day and let it dry overnight. We also glued the eyes with washable glue that day on the pompom. The next day, we finished our turtles. I poked holes in the egg cartons and we inserted green pipe cleaners from side to side. We then folded them onto themselves. Finally, the head was glued on. Adrian liked making this turtle. He didn't really like getting his fingers green with paint and had a bit of trouble inserting the fuzzy sticks into the small holes but loved the finished turtle. He was very proud of his work. This delightful little reptile was first "made" by Allison's children at Train up a Child, who did theirs with a brown shell. Loved it in brown but we had no brown paint so I figured we'd try making an all green turtle instead of mixing colors again.

Language - Frog booklet and Frog 3-part cards

We hadn't studied the frog that much yet. The life cycle yes, but not the parts of the frog so this was our occasion. I printed a booklet and 3-part cards and we proceeded. I got all this material for free from Montessori Print Shop (told you I was addicted lately!). They also have a free frog matching game if you are interested! :)

Math - Pond Pattern Blocks

Following last week's huge success with the foam patterning blocks, I went ahead and presented Adrian with "pond themed" patterns this week. He was super excited and couldn't wait to try them out. Just like last week, he picked a sheet on which a pattern was printed (got mine for free from Prekinders) and he would then pick the foam blocks (I pre-cut those from foam sheets) needed and built the pattern by looking at the sheet; not on the sheet. I am showcasing three pictures but he also did a fish and insisted on getting last week's patterns out as well... :)

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Your comments make my day ! 

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Today, I'm happily linking up to

Montessori Monday, The Kids Co-Op, Show-and-Share Saturday, Link & Learn, TGIF, Share it Saturday, Mom's Library, The Sunday Showcase, Sun Scholars's For the Kids Friday, Stress-Free Sunday, Thursday Toddler & Preschool, Tuesday Tots, Artsy Play Wednesday, Serenity Saturday, Virtual Montessori Sharing Fair, and We Made That.

If you would like me to link up with you, please don't hesitate to ask, it might take me a week or two, but I generally do!

By the Pond for Preschoolers - Part 1

"By the Pond" is a wonderful theme to explore. Have you held a week on the topic yet? If not, I truly hope this will inspire you to do so; especially if you live...by a pond! :)

Math & Outdoor Play : Polka Dot Mushroom Hunting

Well the polka dot mushrooms are out again. When I take time to make something like this, I make sure to use it over and over again as you can see! :) These polka dot mushrooms were originally purchased on Etsy.com from a seller who sold them as natural unpainted drawer pull knobs. They were already sanded and ready for painting so I simply painted them red with white polka dots. I numbered them 0-10 because back when I first made them, Adrian was only 3 years old but they are still fun to have around. Every time he sees them, it's the first thing he goes for. I usually hide them in the yard for him to find with a basket. Gives us a reason to get outdoors and do math at the same time. Sometimes I let him find them in whichever order, sometimes I "spy" a certain number, other times, he must find them in order from 0 to 10. When Adrian is ready, I'll set them out to practice oral addition and subtraction. He could then find the mushroom corresponding to the sum of 2 + 2 and so forth.

One of our snails in the front yard; we have at least a dozen roaming about in the morning

The afternoon snails: made with play dough! :)

Adrian loves watching the snails in the grass in the morning. He knows they'll be gone by the time he is back from German school. He's picked some up before too but has since been told he probably shouldn't as snails prefer to go their own way...As such, I thought we'd make some play dough snails. There are plenty of snails by our local pond so it fitted our theme perfectly. We used colorful play dough, goggly eyes and small nails for antennae. Since the weather was nice, we made them outside and sat them in the grass for a quick picture when we were done. Adrian loved the activity so much that he asked for many colors of dough. I kind of wish he would have rolled his dough as well as he usually does instead of running to get more colors but the excitement got to him I guess! :)

Sink or Float: Pond Edition

Having gathered some natural objects we once again did a "sink or float?" activity. This time, prior to having the items put into the water, I asked Adrian to separated them into two groups: the ones he thought would float and the ones he thought would sink. He actually thought pretty much everything would sink so it was fun to see his reaction when they were put in the water bowl. Later, Adrian went around the yard and tried to found more objects to try out. He tried very hard to find other items that would sink since we had only one (the river rock).

Life Cycle of a Frog

I actually wanted to use one of those little kits they sell to illustrate the life cycle of the frog but it would not have been here on time so I settled with the cards. I got mine for free at The Helpful Garden. If you haven't visited that blog yet, it's a great resource with lots of free materials for Montessori educators. You'll also find the 3-part cards of the life cycle there.

Frog Spawn (goggly eyes) Stuck in a bed of Mud (Theraputty)

After having studied the frog's life cycle, Adrian remarked that the spawn looked like eyes. I had to agree, especially knowing I had prepared a little bowl filled with goggly eyes and Theraputty to represent frog spawn stuck in the mud! The idea was the strengthen Adrian's fine motor with the theraputty whilst linking it in with our pond theme. Besides, Adrian had been asking for weeks whether we'd be using the Theraputty in school again soon. He just loves working with it. Theraputty is a bit like Silly Putty but it comes in different strengths and is used by occupational therapists to strengthened fingers and hands. For this activity, I hid the goggly eyes in the putty and Adrian simply had to pull them out which seems very easy but isn't since the putty sticks to the eyes and surrounds them. Adrian loved the activity. We also did the variants below.

Another version of the spawn in the mud

This time, I spread the theraputty on the table and hid the goggly eyes in it, pushing in and almost completely covering half of them in the theraputty. It was a lot more challenging to get them out this time but Adrian still managed to pull them out and loved the extra challenge. His fine motors most definitely got a work out on that one.

Adrian hiding and finding the frog spawn in the mud by himself

Eventually, I let Adrian hide the goggly eyes himself and pull them out himself as well. This activity was thus a progressive one that completely involved him.

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Your comments make my day ! 

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Today, I'm happily linking up to

Montessori Monday, The Kids Co-Op, Show-and-Share Saturday, Link & Learn, TGIF, Share it Saturday, Mom's Library, The Sunday Showcase, Sun Scholars's For the Kids Friday, Stress-Free Sunday, Thursday Toddler & Preschool, Tuesday Tots, Preschool Corner &5K, Hammock Tracks' Look What We Did, Life's Little Adventures, Artsy Play Wednesday, Serenity Saturday, Virtual Montessori Sharing Fair, and We Made That.

If you would like me to link up with you, please don't hesitate to ask, it might take me a week or two, but I generally do!