Earth Day for Preschoolers - Part 1

Earth Day will be celebrated worldwide on April 22 this year again. You may wonder what a preschooler can do to celebrate the planet or even how much can be understood about this big celebration. I am presenting here, in three parts, what we did last week, in honor of Mother Earth. 

Coffee Filter Planet Earth - Art, Ecology and Fine Motor

This was by far the easiest/fastest craft of the week and I'm still amazed at the result. I mean, doesn't this just look like Earth in space? Of course, Adrian is just short of obsessed with the planets so the mention of an "Earth" craft just won him over before we even started. You'll need a coffee filter, a blue and green marker, a spray water filled with water and a black construction sheet of paper. To help Adrian in his proportions of blue versus green, I showed him a picture of Earth in Space. He quickly saw he'd need only a tiny amount of green and proceeded to color with the green marker first and filled in the rest with blue. When all the white was covered, a fine mist of water was sprayed by Adrian over the coffee filter and we then let it dry. When it was completely dried, we glued it on the sheet of paper. The idea was "given" to me by The Techy Teacher.

A little talk about Recycling, Reusing, Reducing and the other "Rs"

It certainly feels like we did a lot of talking and crafting during Earth Day week. The sheet your see above contained the main points I wanted to mention to Adrian about the "Rs". It used to be the 3 "Rs" when I was growing up but it looks like they've come up with a lot more lately. I tried to explain and give examples of those "Rs" to Adrian. We went over "reducing", "reusing", "recycling", "rethinking", and "renewing". We covered that the first day so that he would understand how the rest of the activities would tie in later.

Sorting Recyclables

Sorting recyclables is a BIG part of our daily life now that we live in Germany. (We did recycle when we lived in NY but not nearly as much as we do here.) The big box pictured above was filled with different things that are recyclable here and I simply put them in the box for Adrian to sort into "paper", "plastic", "metal", or "glass" recyclable groups. The task was actually much harder than I thought it would be. He was very excited to see the box and the content but deciding what went were was tougher. In his head, it was all "trash" because it was empty. I guess he never really paid attention to how I sort the "trash". :) In the end, we explored the materials more and it became more sensorial and he started understanding the task better. Glass was easiest of course. When all the groups were sorted, Adrian helped me put all the paper in the blue bin, all the plastic in a "Gelbe Sack" (yellow bag provided for all plastic, styrofoam, tetra pack, etc), all the glass and metal in plastic bags ready to be carried to the deposit bins at our street corner. (Adrian loves hearing the glass break when we insert the bottles in the big deposit bins!) :)

Sorted Recyclables : Paper, Plastic, Metal, Glass

Deforestation-Inspired Craft using Recyclables and Nature

I really wanted to talk about deforestation to Adrian but it seemed like a heavy topic for a preschooler. I figured if we did it while we crafted, it might be go down easier. I matched the talk to this "forest" craft made with a broken up "branch" and recyclables (toilet paper roll, green construction paper and Styrofoam board taken from a package we had just gotten). I has seen this project made on a canvas with fall colors and it was just beautiful. Now here, I simplified it since a preschooler is doing it for Earth Day (really wanted to use recyclables and really had to skip a glue gun in favor of masking tape!) and it's Spring (just green please!) but still, the result it beautiful. For a step-by-step,visit Revolutionaries. It's actually easy but will require overnight drying.

Craft in Progress

The beauty of Earth Nomenclature

Adrian loves Earth. He already does his part in helping Earth but I really wanted him to see how beautiful the world is to make him want to do his part even more when it comes to recycling and such. One night, I sat down and prepared these cards showing the beauty of Earth. I based my selection mostly on the Natural Wonders of World. The cards pictured above are only a few of the ones I made by the way. Hey, this is also a great cultural tool! :)

Prins Christian Sund, Greenland ; one of the most beautiful places I had the chance to visit

Adrian did get to experience one of the most beautiful places on Earth when he was a mere 15 months old; the ice polar caps and glaciers of Greenland. I can honestly say it was the most peaceful place I had ever been. The quietest and the darkest at night too. The air was also of the purest. If you haven't been, this should definitely be on your bucket list! ;)

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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, 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!

Weather Week for Preschoolers - Part 2

Although Weather Week did not work out exactly as wished in certain ways (would you believe the weather did not cooperate?), it certainly was a fun-filled week. I hope the following activities will inspire you to have your own weather-themed day/week as well. If the weather allows in your area, build a sundial, a rain gauge and an anemometer. We certainly planned on it but from Monday to Friday, we were under a thick blanket of clouds...with no wind of course! :)

Umbrellas & Raindrops are for Spelling

Out of construction paper, I cut four colorful umbrellas and three blue raindrops for each. I mindfully chose four weather-related words (hot, sun, wet, and fog). I purposely mixed up the letters prior to putting them in little piles on the tray. I knew Adrian would know some of the words but wasn't sure he'd know them all. My plan was not for them to read them so much as to "write them". I planned on telling him the word so he'd spell it with the letters. Alas, he knew all the words and spelled the words all by himself. And the student beat the master! :) 

Spelling with Raindrops - Weather Words

The Water Cycle

I know this seems advanced for preschool but I thought this particular graphic was simple and really...I was only going to introduce the water cycle to Adrian. I don't expect him to retain everything I present. At this age, rousing his curiosity is more my goal when I explore this kind of thing. Amazingly, the water cycle really interested him...after I explained it to him by using my washer & dryer duo. See below if this piques your curiosity too!

Condensation/Evaporation

This little cup was rinsed by Adrian under water and then set to dry on our windowsill. Within an hour Adrian came back to check on it and... all the water had evaporated. There goes the water cycle! 

Explaining the Water with a Washer & Dryer

Explaining the water cycle to preschooler is not exactly the easiest thing. Well, it is but for them to really grasp the concept, it's a bit difficult since it is not exactly hands on. To give a better example of the water cycle to Adrian,  I used my washer and dryer. Now, European dryers are "different" than North American ones. Not sure how they are on other continents as I've never discussed laundry with my friends in Asia and Australia and other places but in Europe, dryers do not vent their water into the outside world. That's right. There is no hole in my wall connecting my dryer to the outside. Instead, the water goes into a condensation drawer which I empty after each load just like a lint trap. (You can see the drawer on top of the dryer door. (top left)) Now, you see, this washer-dryer duo is perfect for explaining the water cycle. I took Adrian downstairs, showed him the load of laundry in the "ocean". We felt how wet it was.  Took a load out of the dryer, felt how dry it was. Had the water evaporated? It had! Where had it gone? It had condensed into the "cloud"! We checked the "cloud" (condensation drawer) and sure enough when we pulled out the drawer, it was full so we emptied it into the sink and there was our "rain" going back into the ground thanks to pipes...I even explained to Adrian that if I didn't empty the "cloud" myself, that it would make it rain by itself but that it wouldn't be good for the dryer! (it leaks droplets).

Tornado Map & Math

Tornadoes seemed to fascinate Adrian after he saw the picture in the nomenclature cards. Even more after he saw the video. As such, I prepared a map of the United States showing the frequency of tornadoes from 2000-2010 per state. I then asked him to count the number of red states, orange, yellow and finally green. We discussed the significance of that (lots of tornadoes, not a lot, probably none, etc.). I also showed him where NY was since he lived there for a little while. He was glad to see it was a "green" state. I then showed him where his daddy and I lived for a couple of years and to his surprise it was orange! I did not tell him but while we lived there, it felt like I spent quite a while hiding in the walk-in closet, waiting for the sirens to stop blowing. Thankfully, the only tornado I ever saw there did not touch down and the only one that did, did so shortly after we moved away.

The only "tornado" I ever saw while living in Alabama. 
Took the time to photograph it before I went to hide! ;)

Tornado in a Jar

We happen to live in a "boring" place where tornado and hurricanes, typhoons and tsunamis are practically non-existant (Germany does get tornadoes, even EF3s but SO rarely). Lucky, you might say. Well, I still wanted to "spice things up" during weather week, so I thought we'd try to make a tornado happen. I remembered the experiment using two soda bottles but since no one drinks soda in this house, I thought it'd be silly to buy two-2Liters just for that. Luckily, EllieMoon had featured a tornado in a jar! It looked so neat and easy that I had to try it. The children love olives so in no time, I had the perfect jar for the experiment! :) Unfortunately, with my very weak wrist, my tornado was also very weak but my husband got it going to a nice speed (see picture above!). To add further interest, Adrian tore some tiny bits of foil that the tornado sucked up! Ooo. Now that's what we're talking about!

Weather Graph for the Week

I'll be honest, filling in a weather graph had never been so boring...Although I did ask Adrian to fill in a rectangle everyday and to look well outside and into several windows, the colored box was always the same..."Cloudy". We happen to live under a constant stretch of clouds. We actually see them so often that when I presented the cloud nomenclature cards to Adrian, he had no hesitation whatsoever as to which ones were covering "his sky". :) Weather graph was obtained thru k8alexander on Glogster.

Cloud Nomenclature Cards

Once again, the perfectionist and budget conscious mama in me, made me hunt down pictures and prepare these nomenclature cards myself. We went through all the heights of the clouds, the names, what usually accompanies them and described them a bit. We of course identify what kind of clouds we had outside and Adrian pinned down the "status" successfully. Please note that not all my cards are shown in the picture, only a few are, but we did cover them all. To help me prepare my cards, I used WeatherWizKids quite a bit. The language was easy so it helped me simplify the scientific language to a preschooler's level.

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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, 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!

Weather Week for Preschoolers - Part 1

With Easter over, St. Patrick's Day gone and Valentine's Day way behind us, it is now time to get back to our "regular", more classic, themes at Sorting Sprinkles. I thought we'd get a fresh start with a mini-unit on the weather since April is usually a month where Germany gets an interesting mix of everything (rain, snow, sun, clouds, you name it). Unfortunately, I did not pick the right week for a mix but that is ok...There's always next year! ;)

 

Weather Play Dough - Art & Literacy

During times of sickness, I tend to put our play dough away (eek...germs!). As such, we haven't modeled much lately except with the little bit we had left from the homemade batch my friend had made and given us. Now that everyone is healthy again (yay!), the "Doh" is out again! Here, our weather play dough. I made some "weather cards" in three colors and brought out a basket filled alphabet molds (from a "play doh kit") and three cans of play dough (I'm sure you can guess in which colors :) ). Adrian then picked a card, looked at the color and from that had to pick the right color of dough, flatten it and "print" the same letters in it according to what the card said. He knew some of he words like "fog" and "sun" but the longer ones were harder. He took educated guesses sometimes. The task wasn't to read anyway, it was simply to reproduce the words. He loved the activity and did it several times, eventually shaping the dough to represent the weather words. Cute, eh? By the way, this idea was not mine but Mari-Ann's, at Counting Coconuts.

 

Weather Nomenclature Cards - Literacy & Science

After browsing different sets of nomenclature cards, I finally decided to make my own. I can never seem to find "the perfect one"(not that mine is but at least, it was free! :) ). I decided to include the "basic" weather with sun, cloud, rain and such but also extended my set to include two phenomenons that happen when the weather does not cooperate (drought and flooding). My set totaled 15 cards and had labels as well. Adrian had no problem identifying the "easy" ones but of course, severe weather was a bit tougher. He's always lived in calm areas so hurricanes, tornadoes, sandstorms and the like are not easy to identify. To make some of these easier to understand, my friend YouTube joined us. We then witness a tornado, a hurricane and a sandstorm...because hopefully, we'll never have to in any other way. :)

Later that week, the cards were brought out again for a "classification" activity. For each card, we discussed whether the weather was calm or stormy, clear or cloudy, hot or cold, wet or dry. Of course, in some cases, it was a bit of both; I was just trying to get Adrian's brains working. Besides, he LOVES cards!

 

Thermometer Cards & Clothespins - Math & Fine Motor

Aren't these just the cutest cards? I saw these on Living Montessori Now. They were featured there from Leptir's blog. Couldn't resist getting a set for myself as I had nothing else with thermometers during weather week. I printed mine extra small from Making Learning Fun just so I could have Adrian use our tiniest clothespins. Yikes. Too small. It was SO challenging. Adrian was able to do about 3 cards before telling me it was too difficult. Getting these extra small clothespins to open is very hard but I wanted him to try and I'm proud he did. He read the thermometer gradings perfect too.

 

A cloud in a Glass - Science

Making a cloud in a jar or glass is nothing new - apparently. I had never done it before or heard of it before but the week leading to our Weather Week, I saw so many people posting pictures of their own clouds! It suddenly was everywhere. I personally saw it first (and liked the step-by-step instructions) on Teach Preschool. My goal was simply to show Adrian how the cloud (shaving cream pumped on a bed of water) would at first hold the food coloring drops (water droplets "evaporated from the land) and then release these droplets like a cloud would once too saturated. Needless to say, this experiment was a winner. Adrian loved being able to do the activity by himself, liked the beauty of it all...and the smells! :)

 

A heavy downpour! :)

After having asked for a bit more shaving cream, we had one big cumulonimbus. As such, we had torrential rain coming down...in different colors too! :)

Sorting Hail by Size - Math

Hmm. A bit bummed by this actually. I had planned on using these beads as raindrops with my umbrella toothpicks but you know what? The umbrella toothpicks were nowhere to be found. For those who've been following along now, I'm sure it comes as no surprise and you're probably laughing, knowing very well they'll turn up next week. Anyhow, I finally decided to have Adrian sort "hail" instead of count raindrops...umpf *sigh*

3D Weather Collage - Art

Including art is something I feel is necessary. "A" is just starting to like it more and now looks forward to our crafty projects so I try to "bring it". :) This week, I couldn't come up with anything super special or representative of weather in general so I thought we'd do a 3D collage. A piece of white construction paper was used for the background, a strip of blue was "torn" for the sky and one was cut for the grass (yay! scissors!). Adrian then made a yellow sun by tearing a piece of scrap construction paper, glued it and finally moved on to the stretching of cotton balls for some clouds. After these were glued, the pipe cleaners were aligned to make a rainbow. Which color comes first? He got them pretty much all right. Once they were in place, one thing was missing. "A rainbow and a sun, I said?" What else is present when we have these two in the sky? Sure enough, drops of blue glitter glue were dotted on the paper for the rain.

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Today, I'm happily linking up to

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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!

"Preschool" Themes 2012-2013 - Revised

When I first sat down last summer to plan Adrian's mini-units, I knew I'd have to be flexible with my thematics. Sure my themes were based mostly on Adrian's interests (plus a few thematics I felt he should explore to "enlarge his horizons") but I knew I'd have no control over sickness (gulp!), a lack of ideas on my part for a unit (double gulp!) or relatives dropping by for a little while. Overall, I'm proud to announce we stuck to our "curriculum" for the most part. See below what we've gone through so far (plus a clickable link to the first post published on the theme) and what we are planning on covering for the remainder of the school year.

2012-2013 Mini-Unit Thematics

(with link to 1st part of the post published on the theme)

September
All About Me
On the Farm
Fall
Apple

October
Pets
Trains
Halloween

November
Angry Birds
In the Woods
Thanksgiving

December
Robots
Christmas
(No posts published - 2 weeks)

January
Outer Space
Winter
Transportation
In the Kitchen

February
Mardi Gras
Valentine's Day
Knights, Castles, and Dragons

March
Zoo
St. Patrick's Day
Candy
Easter (two weeks)

April
Weather
Earth Day
Spring
By the Pond

May

Dinosaurs
Community Helpers: Dentists
Bugs
Pirates

June
Summer
By the Seashore

Now, I've been debating for a while whether I should hold or not a "summer enrichment" program. I know what you're thinking, "please, do, we'll miss you!" LOL Just kidding. The thing is, in the past, I have used my summers to plan for the school year ahead. I have also used them to recuperate some energy. It might not look like much but putting together one unit per week is very time consuming. Don't get my wrong, I absolutely love putting together all these units. Brainstorming and researching are some of my favorite things but it leaves very little time for other aspects of life when it's due by a certain date and it can get a tad bit stressful at times. I also have to consider that Zahavah did not have much "planned" school at all this year. We played and improvised learning activities as she is only two but comes fall, she will be ready to enter proper Montessori activities too and will be looking forward to "school with mama" as well. I cannot let her down and will most definitely need some time to plan for her work as well (I cannot possibly re-use some of Adrian's as sadly, I started with "A" when he was a 3.5, not 2.5). 

On the other hand, I remember how bored Adrian was last summer. Despite my suggestions, nothing seemed to completely engage him. I knew he missed "school with mama" as he calls it and I, just like him, couldn't wait for it to start, especially for his sake. The little guy can barely make it through a week-end without "school with mama" (yes, I do get requests for school lessons on Saturdays and Sundays!!!) so two months was a LONG time for him (and for me to hear about it...) At this point, I am thinking we'll give it a try at my own rhythm over the summer, with no pressure. I anticipate we'll span a theme over two weeks or so and cancel school completely when friends or family are in town. The units will possibly be "lighter" in content and focus more on "kindergarten" preparedness and outdoorsy activities. I haven't mapped out all our thematic units yet and we'll probably have a week or two on full break but so far, I'm thinking of something along the following lines:

Potential Summer Enrichment Themes 2013

At the fair or  Circus

Space Camp (because Adrian would love another "Outer Space" Week)

Sports

"Legos"

Multicultural World

The 7 Continents

Luau?

There you have it. A summary of our 2012-2013 themes for my 4 year old.
Enjoy!

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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, 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!

Easter for Preschoolers - Part 3

Well I hope everyone who celebrates Easter had a delightful one! We certainly did! The children enjoyed their first Easter egg hunt outside under the marveling eyes of our neighbors (maybe the Germans don't have a egg hunt?) and are now enjoying their chocolate eggs a little bit at a time. And, better late than ever, my last post on Easter activities, enjoyed by my preschooler...

Dyeing Easter Eggs & Trying New Techniques

Believe it or not, this was Adrian's first time of dyeing eggs...and mine too possibly? I remember decorating mine (always blown out, never hard boiled) with markers and stickers and stencils. Well this year, I hard boiled a few eggs for Adrian and the next day, Adrian helped me dye them. He chose the colors and helped all along. He was very excited. He also assisted with the other half of the eggs which were blown out (my traditional way). We decided to try a new technique for the "empty" eggs by "marbleizing" them to look like robin eggs. Adrian loved to help with that part but hated the oil on his fingers! :) Liking the look? Visit Martha Stewart for some information. She'll guide you through the easy process and will show you other techniques we may try next year! ;)

Homemade Basket -Weaving & Stapling

I used to try and made my own Easter baskets as a kid and loved it. I guess I thought I'd pass on that "gene". I figured it would be a nice way to incorporate weaving and an initiation to stapling at the same time. I guess I forgot how difficult it was to actually do. I ended up doing most of the work since the construction paper was "too flimsy". Adrian could not even get the stapler to staple completely without help. I'll have to look into a smaller one or maybe one that just "folds". Those might be easier to handle...

Supplies for the Basket : pre-cut construction paper and stapler

In the making of a big Easter Egg with Wet Chalk

Easter Egg Tape Resist with Wet Chalk

Adrian loves chalk but the cold weather has prevented us from using our jumbo sidewalk chalk for a very long time now. After seeing a post on Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas, I was completely sold on the idea of using it inside to make an Easter Egg Wet Chalk Tape Resist. Adrian was too as soon as he saw the big egg and chalk. Masking Tape? Even better! Unfortunately, the tape made him so happy he pressed real hard with the first few strips and it made it quite difficult to remove after the chalk dried ()van you tell which ones?) and so strips of cardboard came off with the tape. Next time, I'll be trying painter's tape to see if it makes a difference and will remind him to press ever so gently before we start...

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This week, 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,  Tuesday Tots, Preschool Corner &5K, We Made That.

Easter for Preschoolers - Part 2

Yep...Definitely NOT meant to be homeschooling lately. As soon as Adrian finished his anti-viral medication, little Zahavah caught a bug of her own! NO!!! So please bear with me. Posting will be slow and sparse this week and next week as I nurse everyone back to health (and pray no one passes it around) but also because well, no one was feeling up to doing much school-wise. 

 

Cups & Counters - Easter chocolate eggs & Easter "baskets

Using 36 "Dove Dark Chocolate Easter Eggs", Adrian had to distribute the right amount of eggs in the right "basket" (Williams-Sonoma ceramic bunny dish filled with Easter grass). The number cards were made by Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations. Jolanthe makes some of the prettiest printables out there and I often find myself using her number cards! :)

 

Practical life - Pestle & Mortar Eggshell

We honestly haven't used the pestle and mortar in school since Adrian was a tot but knowing I was planning on using broken eggshell for a craft later, I thought I'd let Adrian smash some eggshell with the pestle just for fun. And how fun it was for him. He loved hearing the crushing sound it made and went at it very slowly per my instructions since we wanted the pieces to stay relatively big for the craft. Prior to the pestling, you'll need washed and then dried eggshells. Don't forget to remove the lining attached to the shell while washing.

 

Art & Dexterity : Easter chick

Here's the craft using the eggshells but also corn. I'm kind of liking the 3D art right now if you can't tell! :) For the template, I went with one made by Make and Takes. It's a beautiful, simple, yet realistic chick illustration. I told Adrian we'd fill the eggshell with eggshell and the chick with corn using liquid glue. We used brown eggshells so we would see more contrast on our paper but also because it's pretty much all there is to eat around here when you want fresh farm eggs. Looking back on it, I wish we would have done this chick in stretched cotton balls like the one we did earlier because I thought it looked so beautiful but I really wanted to work with small beans or something similar this week to get some small motor exercises in. 

 

Sensorial: Easter Sound Cylinders

Last time I did sound cylinders with Adrian, he was only 3 and we used glass baby food jars I had painted black. I recall him loving the activity and doing it three times in a row for an entire week. For Easter, I thought I'd present a "special edition" of the Montessori sound cylinders after seeing similar ones on Living Montessori Now. I wish my eggs would have been a bit more color coordinated  (2 colors only) but that'll have to wait until next year I guess. :) For now, Adrian loved shaking the eggs and matching them by sound. I opened the back row to show you what I put inside. Next time, I'll try to put in Easter-themed objects too! ;)

 

Language: Matching Picture and Word of Broken Easter Eggs

Adrian is trying to read so I like encouraging it by doing literacy activities. We're kind of stuck at this time. He can sound the letters very well and has been able to do so for a year and a half now but for some reason, he does not want to "link" them up. We've been working on sounding letters one after the other slowly and then faster and faster so he would hear a word out of it but it doesn't seem to work. Instead, it seems to me as if he were memorizing words...lots of words. I'll be doing research on this soon. Anyhow, I prepared construction paper eggs for this activity (pastel colors for Easter), glued Easter-themed pictures on the bottom half and wrote the three letter words on the top. I then cut the eggs in half and presented the activity the next day (how last minute are we, huh?). Adrian knew some of the words so he matched those right away. His method was very disorganized.  He didn't try to read the words completely...a "p" immediately meant a "pen" to him and not a "paw" as it should have and so on so I had to intervene and slow him down and remind him how to proceed.

Easter Egg Pictures

Words / Pictures used for our Literacy activity were as follow:

Hat

Paw

Pin

Cat

Hen

Mug

Pig

Pen

Rat

Hay

Mat

Prior to starting the matching of the broken eggs, I made sure Adrian knew what the pictures represented so he wouldn't be frustrated. After all, this was an "Easter edition"; the rat did have bunny ears and could have caused confusion! :)

Enjoy and Happy Easter to those of you you celebrate it!

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This week, 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,  Tuesday Tots, Preschool Corner &5K, We Made That.

Easter for Preschoolers - Part 1

Ha! Funny how things work sometimes. I usually plan only one week per theme, even for special holidays and occasions such as Easter and Halloween, but this time, I thought I'd plan two since Easter is so special. Well, I guess Someone is trying to tell me I should have stuck to the plan! :) Adrian was sick for quite a few days last week and as such, missed quite a bit of school time. As such, I won't have as much to post this week sadly. On the other hand, the virus is now gone and my "baby boy" is now fully recovered. :)

Language - Easter Egg Phonograms

Word building. Adrian has been wanting to build words for a while now and thanks to a LeapFrog Fridge toy we own, he does get to build some but cannot think of all the possibilities and sometimes asks me for some new words he could build. I figured I'd introduce the moveable alphabet but it still hasn't arrived (our KidAdvance package has gotten lost apparently and a new one has been sent). As such, I thought I'd present this Easter basket filled with eggs presenting a dozen phonograms. I made these based on Jan Brett's beautiful Phonograms posters after seeing similar eggs presented on Kids Matter 1 who had linked up their posted to Living Montessori Now. Adrian was so delighted to to see the eggs. He quickly set to read all the word possibilities and then set to try them in the LeapFrog reader. The excitement in his eyes was worth the work on these little eggs. If he really cherishes them, I'll make them more permanent by writing the combinations with a permanent marker and thus remove the tape. 

Art & Fine Motor: Easter Chick with Pulled Cotton Balls

This craft was one of Adrian's favorite in a while. He is not really artsy at the moment but he really loved doing this craft which I first saw on a blog hosted by the Conseil d'education Montessori. I first printed the chick template, cut it and glued it on yellow construction paper, colored the beak, legs and eye. Then, I told Adrian he'd have to cover the chick in feathers everywhere, except where there was color. He found liquid glue with a cotton ball in a bowl and another bowl filled with cotton balls. I showed him how to stretch the cotton balls to make them look feathery and then he was off to do the stretching and gluing himself. Once that was finished, I brought some corn which he glued for the chick "to eat" and finally, using white washable tempera paint and his index, he made dots all over the paper illustrating snow. Hey, it is still snowing over here...What can I say?

Practical Life : Flipping Easter Eggs

Made out of felt, these pastel-colored eggs made their appearance this week, along with a kid-size spatula (made by Kidkraft, borrowed from Zahavah's kitchen) for a flipping activity. Unfortunately, Adrian did not flip for the activity. He flipped the eggs quickly but well and went on to the next tray...

Fine Motor - Pulling Carrots out of the Garden

Knowing your own finger strength is important. As such, I prepared here, a garden (egg carton) with twelve carrots (orange pipe cleaner pieces folded in half with a green pipe cleaner piece twisted around its top) to pull with fingers only. I guess they could be pulled by tweezers too but I was wanting Adrian to use his thumb and index today and feel how stronger or lightly he had to pull to get the carrots out. (Some holes had been poked bigger than others in the the egg carton). This activity was the biggest sensation this week. It was done, and red-done, and re-done. I mean, I thought it was cool too but I didn't think he'd like it THAT much! :)

Language: Pre-Writing Skills: Copying Lines and Shapes

I've been trying to evaluate Adrian's writing readiness lately. We've been working at strengthening his hands and thought I'd sneak in a fun way to see if he was making any progress. I don't want to rush him into writing letters as it would be counter-productive but I also know he should be able to draw some more shapes at his age. Here, I pre-cut some pastel-colored eggs, provided a pencil (equipped with a Grotto Grip for the first time) and showed him a progression of 10 eggs to copy. I asked him to look at what I had drawn on my eggs (one at a time) and to draw the same thing on his egg to decorate it. The first four were deemed acceptable and after that, it went nowhere. Technically, at his age, he should have been able to "write" pretty all of the eggs I presented him but his fine motor skills have always been rather below the norm. Back to our fine motor exercises and hand strengthening we go! If you wish to know the progression of our eggs to copy, here it is:

1. Horizontal lines

2. Vertical lines

3. Circles

4. Crosses

5. Right-to-left diagonal lines

6. Squares

7. Left-to-right diagonal lines

8. Letter "X"

9. Triangles

10. Diamonds

Decorating Bushes with Easter Eggs

Shortly after we arrived in Germany last year (yes, we have now been living here for just over a year), we noticed people decorated their bushes for Easter! We loved the idea and this year, Adrian and Zahavah came with me to purchase two dozens of plastic egg ornaments at our "euro shop". The very same afternoon, we decorated our bushes. I must admit some of our neighbors' bushes look much better because they have so many more eggs and they have perfectly round trees but I really wanted the kids to participate. Anyhow, isn't the grass always greener on the other side of the fence?

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This week, 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,  Tuesday Tots, Preschool Corner &5K, We Made That.