R is for Rainbow

check out www.123child.com for thread on rain and rainbows

O is for Ocean

We read some books about the ocean- "Into the A,B,Sea" by Deborah Lee Rose and "I am the Biggest Thing in the Ocean" by Kevin Sherry, as well as some nonfiction ones. Then we took turns acting out different animals that live in the ocean and tried to guess what they were. Then we made an octopus out of our handprints. I put paint all over the kids hands and then they made two handprints on top of each other- fingers are legs. After it dried we glued on googly eyes. We also made ocean scenes. This was a big hit! First they watercolored the water on a sheet of construction paper. Then they glued on some sand on the bottom and some real shells that we had. Finally they stuck stickers of different ocean animals wherever they wanted to put them. I also tried to do an experiment to show how things float differently in salt water and regular water but that didn't work.

K is for Kite

Books: "Bear and Kite" by Cliff Wright, "Kite Flying" by Grace Lin, "Let's Fly a Kite" by Stuart J. Murphy, "Henry and the Kite Dragon" by Bruce Edward Hall, and "Curious George Flies a Kite" by Margret Rey

We made 2 kinds of kites: one out of a paper plate with crepe paper streamers all around and another shaped like a diamond out of construction paper with supports made from straws and a crepe paper tail. I tied the string to the straws where they meet like an "x". The diamond ones worked best for flying.

K is also for Kix (we glued Kix to the shape of letter K), and kick (we played kickball).

E is for egg

For the letter E this week we read "Chickens Aren't the Only Ones" by Ruth Heller and "Daisy and the Egg" by Jane Simmons. Great books! We talked about all the animals that come from eggs. I had a bunch of plastic eggs and inside I put plastic animals and bugs that hatch from eggs- dinosaur, fish, lizard, snake, lady bug, octopus, frog, etc. They took turns opening them. Then we had an Easter egg hunt. (We had lots of rounds of this. And they didn't even care that there wasn't any candy inside.) Then we talked about all the things you can do with eggs and how you can make eggs. We had boiled eggs for snack. Then we painted eggs with watercolors. And finally we made a game of matching the plastic eggs and putting them together.

Some more wonderful books for eggs: "An Egg is Quiet" by Dianna Aston, "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr Seuss, and "Minerva Louise and the Colorful Egg" by Janet Morgan Stoeke.

Juegos para los colores

This site has some fun games for learning colors and other Spanish vocab. My boys always love anything that remotely resembles a video game so they enjoyed them and I think learned a thing or two at the same time!

Semillitas de aprendizaje

Our Fun Box

An idea that has really worked for our family is our FUN BOX. When my oldest was younger I let him help me decorate a cardboard box with yarn, stickers, scrap papers, extra photos of himself, etc and it became our fun box. Inside of the box I put different flannel stories, magnetic stories, a little critter paperdoll, a personalized BINGO, pompoms with paper sacks to sort them into colors, and some art supplies. I got the BINGO cards at http://www.dltk-cards.com/bingo and a lot of the story pictures at http://www.dltk-teach.com/books/index.htm. The idea was that on rainy days we'd find something to do in the Fun Box but I soon discovered that when I kept it in the pantry closet, it was the perfect thing to bring out when I was trying to make dinner. I still use it often when my boys are complaining of hunger or boredom or crying for my attention right at that critical dinnertime hour. They especially like the magnetic picture stories that they can do right there by me on the fridge. It's been a lifesaver many a time!

I love giveaways!

I was directed to this great site by a friend at www.wannajugarwithmigo.blogspot.com. They are hosting a great giveaway so go check it out!