Mardi Gras for Preschoolers

I sadly have a tendency to make my posts about what we did LAST week which means this week, I'll be posting about our Mardi Gras activities and Valentine's Day activities...It probably won't be very useful to you this year but you'll know where to look next year AND there's always some trays that can be adapted for other occasions of course (a change of colors might just do it for example!)

Now, back to our Fleur de Lys...Being that I am from Quebec and a full-on French-blooded creature, Mardi Gras is something I grew up with but not in the terms of Bourbon street. Mardi Gras is more of a "Carnaval" for us and unless you go to Quebec City, you might not really remember it is Mardi Gras, nor see the floats. You might get a King Cake, complete with a bean inside though but that would be mostly thanks to your good mom (hi, mom!), not your local baker.

Mardi Gras Float, Mobile, Alabama, 2005. Lots of fun for all ages!

When I finally moved to the U.S., I finally got to enjoy the "original" Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama. What an experience that was. Completely different from a snowy, freezing Quebec Carnaval. :) Probably quite different from a New Orleans Mardi Gras too. Mobile was quite family friendly. Fast-forward to a few years later and we experienced a Fastelavn in Denmark, a Fasching in Germany and who knows? Maybe a Venetian Carnival if we ever get the guts to go with the kids. For now, I bought a mask and called it  a day. But enough of my rambling, let's get to the point...The Mardi Gras trays...

Lace your own Mardi Gras Bead Necklace

If you own Melissa & Doug's Primary Lacing Beads, this activity will be very easy to prepare. I used the "gold, green and purple" Mardi Gras colored beads and the green shoelace provided. Voila! 

Sorting Mardi Gras Bead Necklaces by Color

Another very easy activity to prepare is one adored by my kids aged 4.5 and 2; playing with bead necklaces. I provided all my gold, purple and green bead necklaces and asked Adrian the sort them. It looks easy but as they get tangled, it is not as easy as it looks. Once sorted, the extensions are endless. I list below, a few ideas. I personally never purchased any bead necklaces and have many more colors. If you live close to New Orleans or Mobile, you'll know where and when to get "free beads" too. I got all of mine by attending the Mardi Gras float parades of Mobile, Alabama in 2005 and a few by going to a Halloween event in New Orleans back in 2004. Do not believe everything you hear: attending these events if enough to get "beads". Enough said. If you are too far, Oriental Trading Company does sell necklace beads as well.

"Beads" Now Sorted: let the counting, sizing and measuring begin!

Once the necklaces are sorted, the "real" fun can begin. We counted how many green, gold and purple necklaces we had by putting them around Adrian's neck, discussed the size of the beads, the shape (some were dice beads, some disco balls, some were eggs, etc), the length of the necklace (one purple necklace almost touched the floor when he put it on!), the overall weight of all these necklaces around his neck and so on.

Make a Mardi Gras Mask

After I brought out my old Mardi Gras masks, Adrian had to try them on. So I let him and pointed out some of their features. I also showed him other masks including our Venetian mask (it's hung on a wall). Finally, we created our own masks. Nothing fancy. Our art supplies are getting depleted and Adrian is not too artsy but usually bases his designs on mine so I made a mask too. My templates were ready and the crayons were out along with feathers and a drinking straw and tape. See the results above! :)

Mardi Gras Necklace Shapes

Using Mardi Gras necklaces, make various shapes. I started with the circle and moved on with the oval, rectangle, square and triangle. We eventually played around and tried making some letters. It was difficult (boring?) for Adrian. He made a pretty good oval but couldn't quite do (had no interest?) any other shape.  I originally saw this idea on E is for Explore.

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Happy Mardi Gras!

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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, Preschool Corner &5K, We Made That. 

In the Kitchen for Preschoolers - Part 3

Our "kitchen" theme is now coming to its end. What a broad topic this was! We never even got to talk about nutrition! Fear not...school year is not over and I shall be back! LOL

Tasting Bottles

Raise your hand if you remember doing some tasting bottles at some point in your life! How did you like it? Well, Adrian loves seeing these little bottles. He loves science and associates these droppers and small bottles with experiments. Of course, after tasting the first bottle, he wasn't so sure he liked the bottles anymore but he stuck with the activity. I was almost surprised but very proud. 

Here's what each bottle contained:

2 x sugar water (sweet)

2 x salt water (salty)

2 x lemon juice (sour)

2 x almond extract (bitter)

Matching the bottles wasn't fun for him since he had to taste everything "over again" but he still pushed through it. He really liked the sweet and really disliked the bitter. If you do not have almond extract, unsweetened cocoa or coffee can be used in place of almond extract.

Lacing Pasta / Making a Pasta Necklace

Although you could dye your pasta for this, I chose to go with natural pasta (penne) for this activity. I put a dozen one along with a pipe cleaner. Adrian then laced them all. It's one of the only time he lets pasta get this close to his mouth! haha 

Measuring/Pouring Wet Ingredients / Preparing a Snack

Adrian's regular cup. A measuring cup. About a cup of orange juice in an orange juice container. Adrian's mission: Measure half a cup from the container in the measuring cup, then pour it in the snack cup. Enjoy! :)

Straw blowing Art

Straws belong in the kitchen so I thought it'd be a good time to bring out thinned out paint and straws for a "blow out"! I did that as a kid in Kindergarten with ink and I still remember it. I had absolutely loved it. Adrian didn't quite care for it. In fact, he doesn't quite care for the arts period. Well, not true. I take that back. He does enjoy looking at it; not making it. Anyhow, I thinned out the paint the consistency of fat-free milk,  put a drop on the paper, he'd put his straw in the puddle and blow. He didn't quite find it exciting...*sigh* :)

Matching front and back of boxes

This is a bit elementary. Adrian had no trouble whatsoever matching the front to the back of the boxes I had cut up. I believe there was a dozen on the tray. Of course, he knew most of them (yes...he is the one eating the "FiberOne" cereal, "Wheaties" and "Kashi 7Grain" crackers) so that may be why it was easy peasy. It was still fun though and different. Novel is always pleasant.

This concludes our "In the Kitchen" Unit. I feel like lots of possible activities were left out but isn't that always the case? For example, I had planned on doing smelling bottles but had to back out at the last minute for a lack of matching bottles to present the activity. That being said, I am now collecting spice bottles (did I really throw them all away when we moved last year?) and planning on introducing the smelling jars at a later time...:)

In the Kitchen for Preschoolers - Part 2

Having a kitchen themed week usually involves a lot of culinary arts (aka cooking) but I tried to respect our usual array of activities too (fine motor, literacy, math, science, etc). I am presenting below some of those instead of the recipes we worked on during the week. After all, I'm sure you've got plenty of your own. ;)

Thirsty Celery - Thirsty body - All about Capillaries

A very basic "kitchen" themed science experiment involving a celery branch, water and food coloring. We observed our freshly cut celery branch over one week. Adrian loved that even the leaves turned blue, not just the capillaries! :) Prior to inserting the celery in water, I had shown the capillaries to Adrian and told him the celery would drink water through them just like his body needs water and has a similar way to transport it through his body. The point was proven at the end of the week when the capillaries were blue and the water level had significantly lowered. He was impressed and drinks plenty of water! :)

Salad Spinner Art

I hesitated before bringing out this activity. I may not use it a lot but I actually like my salad spinner and thought it might never look the same after making some art. But then again, since I use washable paints and never had trouble removing leftovers, I decided to give it a shot. I let Adrian choose the paint colors (he chose them all of course!) and we squirted a bit of them all in the middle one at a time and he simply pushed down the spinning button. He had to push it down quickly to make it spin and get the paint flying (maybe I should have thinned the paint a bit?...Something to keep in mind...for next time! :))

Sugar Tray Writing

Adrian loves practicing writing letters next to me in a tray. Being under the theme "kitchen", I made of tray of sugar this week. It's only the third time we practice tracing in such a material but Adrian is already quite good. I may just try to have him trace on paper soon...

Tweezing Corn

We are tweezing itsy bitsy things now in our household. Look at the size of this corn! And it's a tad bit slippery too. I put a dozen only in the bowl thinking it may pose a challenge to Adrian but it did not. I think he just found it a bit boring if anything. I'll need to make things more interesting for the tweezing trays now I guess.

Mystery Bag of Fruits & Discussion

Now this is not JUST your average mystery bag. Yes I had Adrian pick a fruit without looking and describe it and try to guess what it was prior to getting it out of the bag but we also had a chat after we were done. By the way, Adrian knows all these fruits and was informed that only fruits were in the bag before we started the exercise. 

Our bag contained:

-a mango

-an apple

-a banana

-a kiwi

-a clementine

-a grape

-a blueberry

Once all the food was out of the bag, we talked about the size (which is the biggest, smallest fruit), the surface (the clementine was bumpy, the grape was smooth, the kiwi was fuzzy, etc), the stone fruits versus seed fruits, we smelled each one and checked to see which could roll well on the table and which couldn't and tried to explain why, etc. 

In the Kitchen for Preschoolers - Part 1

Ever since they were little, both my kids were, like most kids, very attracted to the kitchen. They stacked bowls, nested measuring spoons, banged on pots and pans and whisked air. This week, I thought I'd bring Adrian back into this world for an entire unit on foods and culinary items. The topic was broad, so broad it could easily have been broken up into several mini-units but hey...we had plenty to talk about to say the least! ;)

Density of Liquids with Kitchen Items

Who likes science experiments? Adrian sure does. This one involved a funnel, a whisk, food coloring, measuring cups, various liquids and lots of muscle strength. It was perfect for our "in the kitchen" theme but it would be perfect for a "rainbow" theme too! Anyone needing St.Patrick's Day science experiments? ;) 

To make this beautiful yellow, green, blue, purple, yellow, orange and red glass, you will need:

yellow dish soap

blue food coloring

water

canola oil

red food coloring

rubbing alcohol

The step-by-step "recipe" for this amazing density of liquid experiment can be found at birdandlittlebird. This is where I originally saw the idea and simply had Adrian follow their directions to make our glass above.  At 4.5 years old, whisking, pouring down a funnel, measuring and such is easy enough. The hardest part was trying to pour slowly down the funnel so as to not disturb the layers. The layers moved a bit as he poured but they stabilized later as the picture above shows! :)

Sandpaper Letters & Beginning Letters of Food items

A basket of foods and sandpaper letters...Now being that it was later during the week, I didn't have food to cover all the letters but you could easily cover them all. Date, eggplant, orange, strawberry, etc. Even play food could be used in lieu of the real thing. I just preferred Adrian feeling the real produce.

Printmaking with celery

So far this year, we've made prints with various stamps but also with apples during "Apple Week". It's always been a hit. This week, I brought out a celery foot after seeing a similar picture to the one above on Punchestown Montessori's Facebook page. This beautiful rose was just something too good to pass, especially with Valentine's Day approaching! :) Being that it was done with a celery, I felt I could fit this art in our "kitchen" theme. Now, our rose prints would have looked better if my husband wouldn't have broken off a "petal" prior to our stamping but oh well... ;)

Adrian's printmaking results - I would totally wear that if it were a pair of white jeggings!

Matching Sounds with Water Glasses

This idea came about after I realized I would never, ever, buy the matching bells for Adrian or Zahavah because they are just so costly for the amount of work we'd do with them. I started thinking I needed to replace this work with something else to get Adrian to handle sound discrimination and immediately thought of musical glasses. Our theme being "in the kitchen" this week, it was just perfect timing. This first time around, I put out only 3 glasses (with their twin) filled with very different amount of water in. I made sure they each made a distinct sound by using the wood pencil. The tray was then covered up and prior to presentation, I explained to Adrian that he would be blindfolded and told him how we would proceed with the pencil tap and the matching. He did great and matched all glasses correctly. He felt so proud when I removed the blindfold seeing all glasses matched perfectly.

Counting Chocolate Chips

Don't these look yummy? I made these out of beige and dark brown felt last year. When I finished them, my son actually thought they were real cookies (how sweet is that?). This year is the first year I actually put them out as a school material though. Adrian had to count the chocolate chips (from no chip to 10 chips) and put them all in a row. Towards the end, it gets difficult as the chips are close together but he managed just fine. I saw this very tasty idea on Counting Coconuts's blog. Although Marianne does not blog anyone, it is still worth a visit; she has/had the greatest ideas and inspired/inspires my units greatly.

Baby Chef Adrian back in 2008 -  Enjoying a Kitchen Themed Day was "slightly" different than today



Today, I'm linking up to:

and No Time for Flashcards

The Reward Store for Preschoolers

When I learned I was pregnant back in 2007, I couldn't help but imagine a tiny bundle sucking his thumb. How cute would THAT be? To my great delight, that's exactly what I saw on a sonogram a few months later. Flash forward 3 months later and Adrian had arrived, thumb and all. Of course, like all babies, he didn't find his thumb for a while but when he did, he made sure he would never lose it again by holding on to it tight; so tight in fact that until I broke out the reward store, he was still happily using it.

Adrian and his beloved thumb back in 2008

Now I knew Adrian "should have" given up thumb sucking a "long" time ago but he's my baby and I always figured he'd stop when he'd be ready. He'd always self-regulated everything. Sure I'd suggested the beginning of potty training, the beginning of solid foods and the beginning of school but I also suggested the end of thumb sucking and it hadn't taken like other milestones had. We had chatted about his teeth being disturbed by the practice for example and him being a big boy and not needing his thumb anymore but nothing made him budge. He simply enjoyed his thumb he told me and above all, it was a 4.5 year old habit. With his 5th birthday coming up and the beginning of public Kindergarten, I figured I had better break off the habit before other children broke his spirit about it.

Enters the Reward Store:

The Reward Store

Each item has a price ranging from 5 to 20 at the moment. 

I have included only things I know are of his current interest.

I intend to add more things to keep the bin interesting. Outer space items anyone?

I also am thinking of having "sales" when Adrian gets close to having 5 pompoms to see if he'll save and try to buy something more expensive (lessons in economics, why not?).

For each day spent without thumb sucking, Adrian earns 1 pompom. He can then exchange the pompoms for the items in the bin when he has enough. So far, he has earned his pompom everyday and has already claimed a lollipop worth 5 pompoms.

The pompom jar

I made sure the pompom jar was clear so he count see how many pompoms it contained. I also display the reward store bin in plain view to encourage him to earn his "prizes". 

When the "thumb sucking" will be considered "eradicated", the reward store will probably remain open to encourage other behaviors or possibly to introduce chores to Adrian's "lifestyle" since he is getting older and could very well start helping around with little tasks. At that point, pompoms may be traded in for real money. 

Here is what's in the bin at the moment:

Close-Up of our Reward Store Bin

-A hardcover book ("No, David" by David Shannon) for 15 pompoms

-A Thomas & Friends Magazine (the newest issue) for 15 pompoms

-A new piece of track for  his take along Thomas & Friends set for 20 pompoms

-A lollipop for 5 pompoms
-A pack of  "Cars" stickers for 5 pompoms

-A small bag of gummy bears for 5 pompoms
-a never seen movie ("Kung Fu Panda") for 10 pompoms (bought the movie used for $3...)
-New take along engines from Thomas & Friends ("Bill & Ben") for 20 pompoms

-Several coupons (extra bedtime story for 5 pompoms, ice cream cone for 10 pompoms, 15 minutes of iPod time for 10 pompoms, choice of dinner on a Friday night for 10 pompoms, board game time with both mom and dad for 10 pompoms)

Homemade coupons close-up

I know reward bins always cause quite a debate. Results can be achieved without them and they can create "monsters" working only in the hopes of obtaining something or not doing anything unless something is promised to them but in the case of thumb sucking, I evaluated the situation and figured I had nothing to lose. I am encouraging a behavior I want to see and couldn't seem to see any other way. The system is working and everyone is happy about the result and process. Enough said! :) 

Transportation for Preschoolers - Part 2

Transportation Week sure went by fast. If you do decide to opt for one yourself, do take the time to include a chat on road safety. Although I didn't take any pictures of that part, I did revise the rules of street crossing with Adrian and the importance of wearing a seat belt / sitting in a car seat in the car. And now, for the "fun part"...

Parking Lot Game

After seeing this activity on My Montessori Journey, I just had to "bring it home" in my own way. As such, I prepared my "parking lot" with a black construction paper sheet and looked at the transportation related items I had and chose a few with different beginning letters. Here's what I came up with:

"Airplane"

"Car"

"Train"

"Wheel"

"Boat"

"Screw"

"Helicopter"

I placed all the items in a basket for Adrian to sort appropriately in the right parking space according to their first letter sound. He had no trouble whatsover and loved the idea.

Tire Roll & Measuring in Car Unit

Tire rolling? Why not! For gross motor, tire tossing into a bin is great. For fine motor, tire rolling is! It takes quite a bit of dexterity to manipulate a car wheel into rolling.  For this activity, I asked Adrian to roll the car wheel from a marked spot on the floor (masking tape works great). Once it stopped rolling or fell to its side, he had to line up "matchbox/hot wheels" cars from the starting line to the stopped tire and count how many cars were lined up. The number was then recorded on a chalkboard. We did this 10 times to his great delight. I'm not sure which part he liked best actually; he seemed as excited by the rolling as he was by the lining up of the cars. When the 10 times were up, we looked at the chalkboard and discussed a bit about the furthest his wheel went (11 cars' length), the closest it stayed (1 car's length) and so on.

Car Tire Tracks Art

Here's a nice art activity we did on Adrian's birthday that was well liked. In fact, it was so liked I thought we'd repeat it this week. I purposely chose three cars with different types of tires and chose  colors displayed on signals. Adrian rolled the cars in the paint and made tracks. As usual, we used washable tempera paint.

Sink or Float?

Water activities are always a big hit in our home. I haven't brought out a "Sink or float" tub in a while and I thought that with the transportation theme, it would kind of fit nicely, especially if I took the time to select objects that would stay within the thematic. This activity kept Adrian's interest for a long time, even after he classified which floated and which sank. Part of it was due to me asking him if he could try to sink the boat for example. I also asked him if if could make the rubber wheel float and so on.

Close Up of the Sink or Float? Objects

Here is what we used for our Sink or Float? Transportation activity:

A plastic bath toy boat
A wooden train
A crepe airplane
A metal screw with washers, nut, wing
A rubber wheel
A plastic and metal "matchbox" car



Train Ticket Hole Punching

Sadly, this was a bit of a toughie. I thought it might be and was hesitant to put it out but Adrian saw me punching holes and seemed so interested that I thought we'd give it a try. Although it did make an indent he he tried to punch holes, it didn't punch through to his disappointment. If you would like to give this activity a try, I printed these train tickets by visiting The Spaghetti Westerner.

Going Down the Ramp - Velocity Experiment

I've been wanting to do this activity for a while and originally had planned on doing it during our Train/Thomas&Friends week. Unfortunately, I could not find a plank of wood suitable for a makeshift ramp and as such had to let go of the idea. While re-organized the storage room last week-end, I saw this unused bathroom vanity shelf and just knew what to do with it! :) It's not as long as I would have liked but it worked just fine. I elevated it with a Fisher-Price mountain so it'd have a nice angle and provided a "matchbox car". Also provided was a basket of different "fabrics" to test out our car and ramp. How fast and how far does the car go on the wood? How far and fast does it go when bubble wrap covers the ramp? Why is that? What happens if we switch to sandpaper? Well, you get the idea. Adrian sure did and LOVED it. He repeated the activity over and over again.  

Stuck in Tape

The tape material was the one we finished with as help was needed to roll it up and put it on the plank.  Needless to say, Adrian thought it was hilarious when the car got stuck!

Basket of Materials to Cover up the Ramp

The basket includes:

-Bubble Wrap
-Sandpaper
-Silk nightgown
-Fluffy cotton Towel
-Masking Tape

All materials were wide and long enough to cover our ramp (aka small bathroom vanity shelf).

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I'm linking up to Montessori Monday today...

as well as Living Life Intentionally

and, Discover and Explore and No Time for Flashcards!

Transportation Week for Preschoolers - Part 1

Transportation Week. Having already spent an entire week on Trains/Thomas & Friends back in 2012, I decided not to include the engines in this unit except for one activity I'll be presenting later this week. I kind of expected this unit to be more substantial but in the end, I could not come up with any more original ideas (what is wrong with me?) which worked out just fine since we had a short week anyway! :)

Maps + Left and Right

Ouch...Well that did not go too well. I was looking for a way to introduce maps into this transportation unit and figured introducing "left" and "right" would be great too. Turns out that even though those two concepts are great to present to preschoolers, introducing them at the same time is awfully confusing to them. The abstract of being the bus driver turning and such was a bit much for a 4.5 years old so it turned out to be more frustrating for Adrian than educative. That's ok. It made ME learn that my "maps" will have to be simpler and brought on on their own! :)

Airplane controller game

In this air controller game, each airplane is ready to land but to know which airplane gets to land first, the die will have to be rolled. The number rolled corresponds to the airplane that gets to land first, second and third, and so on (each airplane sports a number on its body). I thought it would be great to practice ordinal numbers.

Boomerang Airplane Origami

I actually did not mean to make it a boomerang airplane but to Adrian's delight, after I tested my plane, it came right back to me! :) I guess I lost my touch in basic origami airplane design, huh? Anyhow, prior to us making the planes, I had one set out and two sheets ready to fold. Adrian simply had to follow my folds by looking at where I was folding...which wasn't so simple in the end. It required some help but he was happy with the result. I still think it's too early to do anymore origami. It's not very rewarding for him when I help I think so from now on, I'll lay off the paper folding for a few months and get back to it later.

 
Land, Air, or Water?

This activity could have been done with actual cars, trains, airplanes and such but the variety of vehicles we have here is limited. I must also confess that Adrian loves DK's My First Touch and Feel Picture Cards. We have all 4 sets and so I thought I'd bring out "Things that Go" to do the "Land, Air, or Water" game. He loved it and did extremely well.

Transportation Puzzle

Yet another Melissa & Doug floor puzzle. Although we do not own them all, we certainly might at one point! :) This was the first M&D floor puzzle I bought. At that point, Adrian had never done any "jigsaw" puzzle; only peg puzzles so I wanted something small and this was great. Highly recommended. It fitted in our theme this week so I brought it out to his great delight.

Funneling radiator cooling

For this funneling activity, I purposely chose a cup in which the funnel would touch the bottom and one in which it wouldn't. The trick is that when it doesn't touch the bottom, the "cooling" goes down so much faster and empties itself completely whereas in the other cup, it drains much slower and a residual remains in the funnel. This made it particularly interesting to Adrian who repeated the pouring many, many times at different speeds, from one cup to the other and vice versa.

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If the season allows where you live, here is one activity that my son loved relating to cars which I couldn't bring out again due to weather conditions in our area: the spray body painting of a car as seen below:

I prepared this special activity for Adrian's 4th birthday (under the theme Cars). He loved it and although it was messy it was well worth it. Simply draw a giant version of a car, prepare some water-thinned washable tempera paint and put it in a spray bottle. Tape the drawing to a wall that can be hosed down and let the fun begin!