Angry Birds for Preschoolers - Part 3

Noooo! Not already the last post on the Angry Birds! This week was so much fun. Oh well, there's always the game, right? :)

Balancing marbles on golf tees

The Angry Birds are so very proud of their eggs and like to display them on pedestals! As such Adrian's job was to hammer in the pedestals and to then add the eggs on top. He simply loved it.

Angry Birds and their babies

Let's help the baby Angry Birds find their mommy and then, let's count how many babies each mommy has. Who has the most babies? Who has the least? How many babies are there total?

Angry bird eggs

Using homemade pompom Angry Birds and black beans, we pretended the beans were the eggs of the black birds. I added numbers in front of each bowl to indicate how many eggs each bird had in their nest.  Manipulating the beans was a bit of a fine motor activity I must say as they are so tiny to count.

Make your own Angry Bird

It was fun to make play doh birds. I let A choose his own feathers, goggly eyes and we used the "worms" from before to make feet. Making balls with play doh is still difficult for Adrian so I had to help but it was still enjoyable and creative.

Adrian made wings for his Angry Bird so it could fly

Cutting and classifying

I printed this activity from 1+1+1=1's Pack. I thought Adrian could first cut the 4 sheets to separate birds from piggies and then "read" where the pigs went and where the birds would go. It went very well and it was fairly easy for him to classify of  course.

Color by Word

From the same pack as mentioned above came a color by word activity. I had A "read" the color to see where to put what. He phonetically read the first letter and then chose the appropriate color.

Bird Matching Game / Memory Game

A favorite activity here. This one wasn't so easy. All birds and some were quite similar so A had to take his time. We printed these from Montessori Print Shop in their free download section. (Their cards are always nice and not expensive compared to the time it takes to make your own though)

Reproducing the app

Of course, Angry Birds week would not have been complete without a "real" game. In this picture, we see the Angry Birds with tin cans but we also used our wood blocks to build structures. Needless to say, it was noisy and exhilarating for Adrian. Building with blocks in a great activity for kids and A doesn't do it much...or didn't... ")

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Today, I'm happily linking up to:

Share it Saturday, Mom's Library, The Sunday Showcase, and Sun Scholars's For the Kids Friday.

Angry Birds for Preschoolers - Part 2

Can't get enough of our Angry Birds activities? Check these out! They were all a hit.

Matching Angry Birds and Feathers

After a rough attack onto the Bad Piggies, the Angry Birds lost quite a few feathers. Match the feathers with the bird who lost them and count them when you are done. Adrian quickly executed the task thinking it was a good scenario and we then looked at which bird had lost the most and least feathers in the battle.

 

Labeling the Angry Birds

Adrian can't read but labeling makes him feel like he can and it makes him so proud. As such, I used the Angry Birds pictures (1 bird per color) and printed color labels as well. Adrian then had to match the birds with their right color label. At first, he was overwhelmed. I had to show him how to read the words but hiding all the letters except the first one and to then make the letter sound. It then came naturally to him that  the sound "o" came from "orange" and he quickly put the label with the orange bird. 

Pigs and wood sticks

In the latest Angry Birds attack, the pigs lost their houses and would now like to re-build with timber. A number was put down with each pig and a stack of "popsicle" sticks too. Adrian then distributed the timber to each pig. There was just enough sticks for each pig. Numbers ranged from 0 to 20.

Feeding the Angry Birds

I purchased some bird seed and set some down in a bowl with a small measuring spoon. I also put down some homemade Angry Bird pompoms and a number for each of them. The number indicated how many scoops of seed each bird desired. I then asked Adrian who was the most and least hungry.

The Angry Birds pooped!

Well this certainly made Adrian excited. With the Angry Birds pictures printed from Wikia Angry Birds and some Mini Smarties (I guess M&M would work too. I just prefer Smarties), we had the perfect bird poop activity. I put all the mini smarties in a bowl and let Adrian sort by color. He then counted how many poops each bird had made and put the right number above...

Giving water to the Angry Birds

Yep...if the birds are hungry...they're also thirsty. Birds don't drink a lot and sometimes must be fed with a dropper so we used an old medicine dropper, a glass with water and 3 empty applesauce containers as water bowls. The number indicated how many squirts of water each bird needed. Not only is this a math activity but it's also a fine motor one. Squeezing that small dropper to get water in and out is not as easy as it seems for a child. 

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Today, I'm happily linking up to

Living Montessori Now, B-Inspired Mama, I can Teach my Child, No Time for Flashcards, and 123 Homeschool 4 Me.

Angry Birds Week for Preschoolers

Surprise! Yes, I know...This week was supposed to be about the Wild West. All apologies to the ones who have been waiting for posts on the subject. I unfortunately was not very inspired by the subject and couldn't come up with enough activities for a week. As such, I've decided to postpone that thematic until more ideas come my way or until we have a short week of school...:) 

So what did we do this week? We talked about birds. More specifically...Angry Birds. I seriously don't like the idea that Adrian's discovered this game but he loves it and so we allow him a few minutes here and there as a treat. To his delight though, we spent the entire week speaking of the "Bad Piggies" and "Angry Birds".

Counting with the "Bad Piggies"

The Minion Pigs are re-building their houses with rocks after the Birds attacked. Each pig needs a certain amount of rocks for this. Can you help the pigs? And then each pig (made these with pompoms, felt, hot glue and goggly eyes) was set on the table with a number ranging from 0-20. A little bowl filled with river rocks (exact amount of rocks needed) was also sat down on the table. Adrian, 4 years old, had no trouble whatsoever in distributing the building materials. All the piggies got the exact amount they requested.

Matching Angry Birds with their Real Bird Counterparts

While investigating the possibility of an Angry Birds week, I saw Counting Coconuts had similar work. I thought it was a great idea and went ahead and printed a picture of each Angry Bird (forgot the Blue Bird...) and found out what species of bird they each were all inspired by. I then printed a picture of those real birds and set it out. It really is just color matching but you can dig deeper. You can look for differences too. For example, do the real birds really have eyebrows? Are their bellies really a different color? It can turn into a fantasy versus reality discussion easily. You child may even enjoy drawing his own Angry Bird based on a real bird seen in your backyard. For a copy of my matching birds, e-mail me. Otherwise, the clipart was found on Wikia and the real birds were separately looked up for pictures. Their species are listed on Wikia as well if you take the time to click on each colored bird.

Parts of a Bird

Obviously, this is not an Angry Bird but it's a bird and I thought we could welcome all birds to our Angry Birds study. Adrian knew almost all the parts these cards presented. I printed these free cards thanks to Montessori Materials (under Bird Picture Labels). 

Bird Paper plate Craft

This was quite something to do for Adrian. He had to color the dinner paper plate, punch holes (with help) for the legs and insert them in, cut the plate and glue it. It took a while and for a while, he couldn't tell it would ever look like a bird. The cutting part was rough too. Paper plates are more resilient to our Melissa & Doug plastic scissors I'd say! :) Anyhow, I found this craft on My Montessori Journey. Prior to coloring, I drew a black line in the middle of the plate, and then on one of those halves, I drew two more lines. They were guidance for Adrian as to where to cut.  I also pre-colored the beak and cut the pie cleaner in half.

Wrapping him insects

A lot of birds eat insects and that is how I introduced their presence in our Angry Birds week. I found these glittery bugs are our dollar store last year I believe. I also provided pieces of yarn (only had blue in hand...). The activity was to cocoon each bug into the yarn by wrapping them up. It's totally a fine motor activity and it was not easy. See Adrian's work below. It's loose and tangled. We'll have to wrap more! :)

Adrian's Work

Feedings "worms" to the Angry Birds

Cut one pipe cleaner into small pieces and twist them and bend them so they look like little worms. Put them into a tiny bowl, provide a clothespin and voila! I used a regular size clothespin for this. It's more difficult but the smaller clothespins are no challenge to Adrian anymore. Adrian used the clothespin to pick up worms from the bowl and feed them to the birds. As you can see, they were all fed. :) I made these Angry Birds myself using big pompoms, felt, hot glue and goggly eyes. My son LOVED them and the idea that he was taking care of the birds.