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.

St. Patrick's Day for Preschoolers - Part 3

In preparation for my St. Patrick's Day activities, I tried to stick with the symbols associated with the Celebration as well as with what Ireland was "known" for. Now I've never been to Ireland despite my really wanting to do so, so please don't take offense if I still associate the country with the potatoes and cabbage. :) In return, I promise not to take offense if you think of my home country, Canada, as a place filled with igloos, "American Indians" living in tepees, and Royal Mountain Police patrolling the streets of Montreal on their horses...

Cups & Counters - Pots of Gold and Gold Coins

Math trays are always very popular here. This one flew off the shelves as soon as it hit them. A treasure chest filled with coins? Black cups and rainbow cards featuring numbers? Adrian just loved the sight; particularly the shiny coins. He quickly set to work. It was quite easy; put in the black cup (chocolate fondue bowl set) the amount of coins (from Hobby Lobby) listed on the rainbow cards (made by Carolyn Wilhelm from the Wise Owl Factory and available through Pre-K and Sharing). Now later that week, I changed the cards so they would feature higher numbers and present a further challenge. If you do want these, they are available through Pre-K and Sharing as well. It just so happens Ms. Wilhelm e-mailed me to let me know she had made them with numbers 11-20 after she saw my interest in having them in such a range. Yay! That  totally made my day! By the way, I first saw a presentation of these cards and coins on Living Montessori Now, reminding me I should not forget to include pots of gold in my activities!

Math Grading - Light to Dark Green Water Cups

Known as the Emerald Isle, Ireland is often associated with the color green. As such, I prepared here a math grading exercise consisting of five little water cups filled with water and green food coloring. Adrian then had to sequence the cups properly from lightest green to darkest green. At first, it was easy but the two darkest ones were harder. Adrian had to pull up the paper behind the cups to see the difference in color and look towards the window to confirm his decision. 

Art - Potato Stamping in the the Shape of a Shamrock

The Irish Potato Famine is not something I really discussed with Adrian. He is a bit young to understand all the causes behind this tragedy but I wanted to involve a potato in this week's activity, as a way to remember what happened in Ireland in the 1800s. The printmaking pictured above is the result of a small round fingerling potato dipped in green washable tempera paint and pressed against the paper in a way to make it look like a shamrock. Dipping the side of the potato and dragging it on the paper will make the finishing touches to your shamrocks.

Fine  Motor - Trimming Leprechaun Beard for the Parade

Who needs a trim before the St. Patty's Day Parade? The Leprechauns of course! Using a Leprechaun clipart (source was a newspaper but works only under image search?), I  glued a piece of orange construction paper in different length to each Leprechaun and made little cuts all along. Adrian's job was to trim all the beard so the Leprechauns would look "presentable" and all even prior to the Sunday parade. Basically, all the hair had to be even with the white paper. The idea here is simply to make using scissors fun. Adrian is finally getting the hang of the scissors so I'm trying to keep him interested in using them by presenting fun activities. Cutting just to cut, I figured, will get boring...

Cabbage Experiment: Alkali or Acidic?

Would it be completely cliché if I included cabbage in my St.Patrick's Day activities? Because I did. I figured it'd be a good time to sneak in a little bit of cabbage science involving acidic versus alkali! As such, I bought half a red cabbage, cut up some chunks, soaked the cabbage for a while, pour the water into different cups. I then gathered different liquids we had in the kitchen, got some spoons out and invited Adrian in. The cups were all aligned and one was pushed aside as our control cup. Nothing would ever be poured into that one. 

Adrian was then asked to pour different liquids into different cups to see if there was a change of color. We discussed prior to the pouring that the water turning pink would indicate the liquid being poured was an acidic one and that the water turning blue would mean it would be an alkali. I also told him some would be more vibrant than others and that some might not change the color at all as they might be neutral liquids. Needless to say, seeing how his favorite liquids changed the color of the cabbage water was quite fun. We tried orange juice, milk, ketchup, tabasco, lemon juice, and toothpaste (we rinsed glasses in between since we still had some cabbage water left). For more information on this experiment, visit Fun Kids Live.

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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.

St. Patrick's Day for Preschoolers - Part 2

Is St. Patrick's Day celebrated in your area? Growing up in Quebec, I remember hearing about it a tad bit but not much. Maybe if I had gone to the big city I would have seen something but overall, until I moved to the United States, St. Patrick's Day never seemed observed very much. Needless to say, it went by completely unnoticed in Germany as well...except for my Irish dinner of course! :)

Shamrock Grading - Math

If you can't tell already, I love felt and creating educational materials with it. For St. Patrick's Day, I prepared this very simple math activity consisting of five shamrocks. All five were in a different shade of green and all five were cut in a different size. The activity here was a grading one. Adrian could grade by shade of green (lightest to darkest) but also by size (smallest to biggest). Finally, we graded by size AND shade simultaneously starting by the biggest which was also the darkest. Adrian loved that combination the best. Original idea : Stay At Home Educator. Templates: Rubber Stamping.

Buttoning / Unbuttoning a Leprechaun Vest
Practical Life

Well, technically, it is my husband's vest but for the week, it was called a Leprechaun's vest! :) Adrian's fine motor skills could use some help in the buttoning / unbuttoning department and since learning to button and unbutton on one's self can be challenging, I presented it here on a bigger piece of clothing, hung on the back of a chair. The vest was ideal as it had a buckle to tighten it up on the back. It still gave Adrian a bit of trouble but with a bit of practice and time, he'll get the hang of it. His hands just need some more strengthening. 

Shamrock with Lentils - Art & Fine Motor

Fine Motor skills! I just have a hard time not including activities involving these on a daily basis. During St. Patrick's Day Week, I printed a beautiful yet simple shamrock template, put a glue bottle out and a plate filled with lentils. The task was simple yet tedious: cover all the black lines with glue and lentils. How beautiful is that? And I bet it didn't take as long as you think either! :)

The Harp & Claude Debussy - Music

The harp and Ireland? Yes. Debussy and Ireland? Wait...What? I know it sounds strange but there is a relation I promise. The fact of the matter is, I wanted to include the harp this week. What better week anyway, right? We talked about the harp itself, how the harpist plays it, what it is made of, how big it really is and we watched a video of someone playing the harp (You Tube is wonderful!). We also played a little game of "Harp?" or "No harp"? with musical sound bytes involving harps, pianos, violins, etc. 

Now Debussy entered the picture with the harp because in many people's head, he really is the one who made the harp famous by writing pieces including such beautiful movements for the harp. As such, I thought I'd include our first composer study. We talked about Debussy himself, listened to his famous "Danse sacree et profane" written in part for the harp. I found a very nice video of two young harpists on YouTube playing this piece (A. Andruschenko & A. Sadikova) and we listened to it while we created our lentil shamrock. Debussy is very soothing. When the piece was over, I put on other famous compositions by Debussy as we wrapped up our day. I am hoping to include a new composer every month and hopefully link him/her in with our unit as I did  here.

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Indoor Rainbow

Well that one worked...a bit. Our mirror was so tiny that we ended up with a tiny rainbow Adrian could barely make out. As such, no picture! :) If you do happen to have a bigger mirror, make it shine! Escapade Direct has instructions.

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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.

St. Patrick's Day for Preschoolers - Part 1

St. Patrick's Day activities! A tad bit late yes but it's nothing you didn't expect, right? :) All week I'll be posting about what we did last week to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Now, I do not have any Irish background whatsoever but my dear husband does on his father's side so it made our week all the more significant.  To you all dear readers, but particularly to you in Ireland, a Happy belated St. Patrick's Day.

"Froot Loops" Rainbow & Marshmallows

I know this craft is nothing new. I wouldn't even know who to credit for the idea since I saw it on so many blogs. I must credit We Made That for the template though! I know they used cotton balls for their clouds but I thought marshmallows were going to be just as cute since we were using food already for our rainbow. Now, this is not just a craft! After the rainbow was completed, I did ask Adrian about his use of "Froot Loops". For example, I asked him which color he used the most, the least and why he thought that was. We also counted the cereal, discussed the colors used, etc. A craft doesn't have to be just that. Other facets of learning can very well be involved.

Kid O Green Wooden Puzzle - Narrowest to widest & darkest to lightest

We've had this Kid O puzzle for a few years now and although it is quite basic for Adrian, I still brought it out. Needless to say, it took mere seconds for him to complete it. 

Tweezing green pompoms into green ice "cube" container

Found this ice tray at a local bargain store while we still lived in the United States. First time we use it. I thought it'd be great to bring it out for St.Patrick's Day Week being that it's green! It also happens to be the perfect size for the small pompoms. Add to it Learning Resources' tweezers and you're all set to tweeze pompoms into the tray.

Ireland Lapbook

I've never put together a lapbook. I'm not much of a Lapbook person or worksheet person. Don't get me wrong; I'm a huge nerd and I personally loved them as a child (still so!) but they're a lot of work to put together and they're not that much fun for younger children much of the time. Adrian would much rather handle objects than a piece of paper. Anyhow, being that we were talking about St.Patrick's Day, I gave him bits of information about it through the week but only orally. Towards the end of the week, I finally decided to present an itsy bitsy Lapbook containing 3 sheets: a map of Ireland, a map of Europe showing where Ireland is in position to Germany (where we currently live) and a blank flag of Ireland ready for coloring (with labels at the bottom). We went through it all rather quickly because the interest was not really there. Maps can be printed by visiting DLTK's Coloring and the flag at HomeschoolShare.

Is is Oobleck, is is gak, is it goop? Liquid or solid?

Well although no one seems to agree on the name of this substance...everyone seems to agree on how fun it is! I initially had thought of making green slime for St. Patrick's Day but Borax being difficult to get here made me go with something more natural: Goop! I colored my water with a few drops of green food coloring prior to mixing it in the cornstarch so it would be a nice green in honor of the Patron Saint. If you need instructions on how to make goop, it's pretty simple, I personally just asked Adrian to pour 1 cup of cornstarch into the bowl followed by half a cup of green colored water. I then mixed it with a spoon. It takes a few minutes to mix well so be patient before adding more water. You really won't need more. As for the fun part, Adrian wasn't so sure about plunging his hands into the bowl so I let him stir with the spoon for a bit. Then I demonstrated. I slowly inserted my finger into the goop and then quickly. He thought it was fascinating how goop could be both a liquid and a solid. We let it run through our fingers and then quickly grabbed some and tried to make a ball with it. We also poured from one bowl to another. Hard to do. Almost solid going from one to another yet very liquid looking at the bottom of both! Fascinating!

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St. Patrick's Day - Celebrated on March 17 for over 1,000 years already!

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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.

Candy Week for Preschoolers - Part 2

Candy Week! Should I have included all sweets?  I thought it'd be fine if I just stuck to pure candy since the concept is  so large. I wish we would have had time to do more but I do prefer doing things well and enjoying them over rushing things and doing more. This week would have been perfect for tasting bottles again for example and pretending that they are candy extract. It would have been a perfect time for smelling bottles too for the same reasons but we all know I still haven't accumulated enough spice bottles yet! :) So here is what we did instead...

Playdough Candy - Art & Fine Motor

Don't these look yummy? I personally made these for the picture but Adrian made the ones pictured below. The reason why is simple: I'm currently trying to strengthen his hands () so every so often we'll be, working with Theraputty instead of play dough. Theraputty is pretty much Silly Putty...with a very important twist...it comes in different strengths. I got him a jar of medium firmness for now and wow, towards the end of the 9th candy, it was getting a bit difficult. The stretching of the putty, the "cutting" the shaping, and finally the "candy" wrapping and twisting of the wax paper? Quite the workout. But you know what? He loves working with Theraputty so you'll be seeing more of this stuff.

Theraputty Candy - add an extra challenge!

Gummy Bear Patterning - Math

Using Haribo's Tropical Gummy Bear variety, I started a pattern on a plate which Adrian then had to pursue. I always encourage him to say it out loud: "red bear, yellow bear, red bear, yellow bear,..." as a way to make it rhythmic. That rhythm always helps him find out what comes next.

Write your name in chocolate chips - Literacy & Fine Motor

I bet your name has never sounded so yummy! :) I personally wrote Adrian's name on cards and then let him organize the cards in order to form his name (he can spell it). The last task was for him to place chocolate chips on top of his name. He had to place them the way he would write the letters of course. 

Lollipop Color Tablets - Sensorial & Math

Ah the Montessori color tablets. *sigh* I've been longing to buy them but never could justify spending that kind of money for something used "so little". Then I thought of making them with the paint samples from a hardware store but could never bring myself to "stealing" the samples knowing very well I wasn't going to buy these paint colors. In the end, Adrian is 4.5 years old, he knows his colors pretty well so I never really bothered any more than that until two weeks ago when an idea germinated in my head: lollipop color tablets! Candy week was coming! Lollipops come in many colors and I had this big stack of felt in 40 colors! I quickly set to work and came up with my own set of color tablets. Now of course, the "real" color tablets are serious business with three different sets and a proper way to be handled. Mine are more on the fun side and well, I presented all 40 colors to Adrian since he's older but when I present these to Zahavah, I'll probably present set "1" first (blue, yellow, red only) and then move on to set 2 and finally set 3.  Adrian did pretty good matching the lollies adjusting his mistakes as he went. I then asked him to group them the lollies into color families and to finally organize them within their families from darkest to lightest. 

Smarties Graphing - How many Smarties in One Tub?

Unless you live in the U.S., finding a tub (or box for my Canadian friends) of Smarties should not be too hard. This made this exercise quite easy to put together. I printed the graph here on Life on Canterbury Lane and then, using the entire tub of Smarties, Adrian put one of each color at the bottom and then sorted the rest. He finally counted them all (just because he likes to count everything) and tasted one of each (just because he could). I guess this could be done with M&Ms or Skittles. Any colorful candy would work in fact. I simply used Smarties because we do have these on hand every so often. I quite fancy them...even if they are not as colorful as they were in my youth! :)

M & M Dissolving Race - Cold VS. Hot

Will an M&M dissolve faster in cold or hot water? Have your child guess and then find out but having  him or her drop a candy in a cold tub and a hot tub. Adrian thought it was a pretty exciting race. (He also really liked how the M&M  dropped on the side of the bowl made an entire circle by the time it had completely lost its red coat.) After seeing how the candy produced such beautiful colored water, we decided to make paint out of it  by dropping more red M&Ms and then making other "paint" colors. See my previous post on Candy Week for the beautiful results. Original idea: Mamas Like Me.

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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

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!

Candy Week for Preschoolers - Part 1

Candy Week? What was I thinking? Oh wait! I remember! Candy is something so easy to find here in Germany and thus, I have access to so many more manipulatives for my trays! Or do I? I think I might have overlooked one great detail this week: we don't eat much candy at all in this household. As such: what manipulatives was I thinking about? Sure candy is available at the store but what a shame to buy pounds of candy to play with and not eat later! In the end, my idea wasn't so bright after all but the week sure was fun and Adrian loved candy week because let's face it: what's sweeter than tasting a new kind of candy every school day?

Counting gum balls

Would obviously have been much cooler done with real gum balls. I later found some in our local grocery store but then again, I'd have to chew them all later, right? (Gum in my book is not safe for the under 6) Also, I would have had to somehow raise the edge of my "machine" so as to not have the balls roll around. For this exercise, I was practicing counting and oral memory. I would call a number in between 0 and 30 and Adrian then had to count the right amount of pompoms and  fill the gum ball machine. I'd repeat the number only once. The graphic (which can be printed in a HUGE size according to the author) was a freebie found on Plum Adorable. Like her, I used pompoms but we didn't glue ours! :)

Lacing - Making a "Life Savers" Bracelet

Lacing a great activity many preschools practice. This one is  nice variation with a pipe cleaners...and Life Savers. I did take the candy out of the wrappers for Adrian by the way.

"Life Savers" Bracelet Modeled by Adrian

Marshmallow Magic - Turning a Mini Marshmallow into a Regular Marshmallow

So I was all out of the regular sized of marshmallows! How sad is that? I asked Adrian if he thought we could turn the mini marshmallows into bigger ones? With a puzzled but most certain look, he blurted out a "no". Needless to say, it was the answer I was looking for. Exploratorium (and many other resources as well I'm sure) will guide you through a very neat experiment quadrupling the size of marshmallows! Being that it was candy week, I just had to pull this one. Adrian could not believe his eyes. The mini marshmallows were turning into "jumbo" ones right in front of him. Not only that, but poking the freshly microwaved white "things" and then waiting a minute to poke them again made a huge difference in their textures. Hey, Easter is coming..you guys can also try it with Peeps! ;)

Pretend Play? Candy Store involving scooping, tweezing, weighing and more

Adrian is very well grounded in reality. He has never liked dressing up and actually has a hard time making up stories. Pretend play is just not his thing. When I prepared this activity, I was very well aware that this would look like pretend play to him so I had to make a conscious effort of having specific tasks! :) As such, Adrian had a "shopping list" on which he found a list of 4 candy listed. Next to each of them was written a number and that number corresponded to the amount of grams needed for each type of candy. Adrian then had to use the utensil found in the candy dish to fill a candy bag and weigh that bag on the scale until he had the right amount of candy noted on the shopping list. I did have to prompt him for the first bag as to how to get a bigger number of grams on the scale and then how to reduce it after he had put too many M&M. After that, it was all pure fun to him to see the numbers go and down.

Shopping List

M&M...50g

Smarties...38g

Gummies...10g

Life Savers...60g 

Candyland Board Game

Now you may think that playing a board game such as Candyland is not exactly the best way to teach anything but board games are actually pretty good at teaching a child to take turns, especially when they have no siblings and/or are being homeschooled. They can also teach a child to be a good sport and well, a game such as Candyland will teach a younger child quite a bit about colors and about counting from 1-6. When Adrian was "little" and I "taught" him Pre-Pre-K, we played a different board game every week to get his social skills developed. Candyland was his favorite. Now we didn't get to play this week but it would have fitted right in.

Painting with M & Ms

Didn't do much art this week. I don't think Adrian noticed. Not his cup of tea. :) He did enjoy the above paint though! Mind you: Not this actual painting, but the paint! :) We made it with M&Ms after completing a "science" activity I'll be blogging about tomorrow...So stay tuned so learn all about how this paint came to be...

Today, I'm happily linking up to:

Living Life Intentionally, Sugar Aunts, Teach Beside Me, Golden Grasses,  True Aim Education, Hey Mommy Chocolate Milk, Chicken Babies, Life with Moore Babies, Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas, Here Comes the Girls, Inspiration Laboratories, The Iowa Farmer's Wife, and Train Up a Child.   

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!

Zoo Week for Preschoolers - Part 3

Well it is not in my habits to post on a Saturday as I usually use this time to work on curriculum development but I really wanted to get this last Zoo Part out before next week...So here it is!

Zoo Animal Cracker Patterns

Who doesn't like animal crackers? I don't tend to keep them around the house that much but I bought a bag for this week to the delight of my kids (We used Leibniz's zoo crackers). I quickly explained that before eating them, Adrian would need them for school. :) Needless to say, this activity HAD to be done on Monday. :) Using animal zoo animal crackers, I started a pattern and asked Adrian "What comes next?"  A fun and yummy activity.

Making a  Zoo Cage thru - Fine Motor Skills

Well this one can be both an art piece and a fine motor activity I guess. I really wanted to focus on the fine motor aspect of the activity so I personally prepared the "scene" for the zebra. I printed, cut and glued the zebra, cut and glued the green construction paper mountain behind it and made the indents on the cardboard (a cereal box). "All" Adrian had to do was to insert the flax yarn into each indent (not easy at all to him since it was as tight as floss and teeth) and wrap around the box with the yarn before inserting into the next indent. It took a while but it turned out to be a beautiful cage. I guess looking back I could have spaced the indents more...a lot more  Also, the indents could be done by a child if you draw them on the box prior to the cuts being made so they can align well. I know "A" still has trouble with scissor work so I decided to do the indents myself. Idea and zebra: DLTK Kids.

How Many Spots on this Giraffe?

Eights giraffes, eight markers colors and a different amount of spots of each of these mammals.  Adrian's work? To count the spot on each of these giraffe and then tally that number on the main sheet with number cards. This idea came from Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten. There were so many more good ideas for a zoo unit there. Wish my kid could attend sometimes! :) Anyhow, I made my own giraffe cards and sheets by using Corvus Tristis's pattern. You can always e-mail me to get the tallying sheet if you wish.

Zoo Animal Cards and Beginning Sounds

As mentioned in a prior post on our Zoo Unit, I made these beautiful zoo cards myself by using pictures provided by National Geographic. For this activity, I set them out with a tray of LeapFrog magnetic letters. Adrian then had to match pictures with beginning letters. Easy peasy literacy to him. We've progressed to the moveable alphabet but we're still waiting on it. KidAdvance seems to have lost our package... :(

Zoo Schedule of Events and Their Daily Times

Adrian has been telling time for a while now. I never really had to "teach" him. He kind of just absorbed it here and there by asking questions. Certain times are important to him and that's how he learned. He would stare at our clock and tell me the time. He especially loves the "o'clock". Now, digital time is easy to him so I grabbed an old fashioned clock to show him how the arms and hands work and all. He got it pretty quickly. The activity was to look at the zoo schedule I prepared and to indicate the time written on the schedule on that Roman clock. 

Close-Up of my Zoo Schedule 

Zoo schedules are so cool nowadays. When I was little, going to the zoo was it. There was very little else to do but to see the animals and believe me, that was plenty. Now, there are chats, shows, feeding times and so much more. When creating this schedule, I looked at several zoos around the world to get a pulse of what they have to offer. This schedule was based on my findings. That's right. These things happen for real, not in an imaginary world. Thus, if you want to feed the penguins, head to ZSL London Zoo in London, England, if you would rather see how a bear is trained, fly to Louisville, KY, U.S.A. In the mood for orangutan crossing? The Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington DC, U.S.A. has it! Sea Lion show? Well now, that's pretty pretty much anywhere with sea lions, right? How about seeing an elephant take a bath? Could be funny, right? Then you'll need to go to Houston, TX, U.S.A. Finally, as you may have guessed, to hold a cuddly koala and get a picture taken with it, you'll need to arrange a trip to Taronga Zoo, in Sydney, Australia! There, you have it!

Zoo Feeding Stations - Feeding an Elephant and Giraffe - Fine Motor

Before we had kids, I was the kid. I was the one asking to feed the animals. Yep. I did the giraffe feeding, the dolphin feeding and all. :) For this activity, Adrian, who never got to feed any zoo animals yet (goats don't really count now, do they?), got to finally feed an elephant some peanuts with a nutcracker and a giraffe some lettuce with some tongs. 

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Today, I'm happily linking up to:

I can Teach my Child, Sugar Aunts, Teach Beside Me, Golden Grasses, No Time for Flashcards, True Aim Education, Hey Mommy Chocolate Milk, Chicken Babies, Life with Moore Babies, Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas, Here Comes the Girls, Inspiration Laboratories, The Iowa Farmer's Wife, Artsy Play Wednesday , Discover and Explore, and Train Up a Child.   

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!