A Compilation of School Activities

It's been a month since I last posted anything, but it doesn't mean we haven't done anything worth blogging about.  I honestly don't know how some people can run several blogs at the same time, raise their kids, go to work, keep their house clean and family fed, and still have time for themselves.  It's absolutely impossible for me!

With that in mind, I'm going to bring you all up to speed on what we've done over the past month since Valentine's Day week.  It hasn't been our normal barrage of activities, but we've had quite a fulfilling month regardless!

100th Day of School
Our 100th day of school was during the week of Feb 20-24.  My stepmother came to visit that week, and being a math teacher, had a great time helping us out with 100th Day Activities.  I more or less spread them  throughout the week because you know, when you have guests over, it's not exactly feasible to keep a normal routine/workday.

"100 Hunt"

One of the activities we did was a "100 Hunt".  I wrote the numbers 1-100 on a bunch of dot stickers, and we stuck them up around the schoolroom and living room areas the night before.  When the boys woke up, they noticed these bright green dots all over the place, and were really excited to learn that they got to "hunt" all of them down.  This lasted WAY longer than I expected it to (although 100 stickers is quite a bit of stickers for a 3 and 5 year old to hunt down)!  We found all but one of them - #71....hmmmm....the mystery of the disappearing number....

Counting out 100 fruit loops

"Cool, man."

We also made a "100 Day Necklace" out of yarn and fruit loops.  We started off by using a hundreds chart, and the boys had to lay out 100 fruit loops using the numbers on the chart.  This part was agonizing for them, especially Sawyer, who wanted to eat them all immediately rather than make something with them first.  You'd think that giving them a few to eat right beforehand would satisfy that need, but no.....





After they painstakingly laid out 100 individual fruit loops, they got to string them on to a long piece of yarn.  I learned here, that this can be difficult for a 3 year old, and almost difficult for a 5 year old boy.  Those small motor skills got quite a workout this day!  In the end, though, they both made fabulous necklaces.  It took them all of 2 minutes to chomp them into oblivion while playing on the swing set out back.

The boys also did a 100 penny count with "Ema" while I was at my doctor's office for one of my countless prenatal visits.  There are no photos of that, but I'm sure you can guess what 100 pennies being count out by a 3 and 5 year old must look like!

The last activity we did for our 100th day of school was make a snowman by glueing 100 marshmallows on to a big piece of blue construction paper.  You can see that we drew the snowman out for them as a guideline.  I soon figured out that we should have made this snowman on a regular size piece of construction paper rather than the 16X20 because we ended up with a "300 Day Marshmallow Snowman".  We kind of had the same issue here as we did with the fruit loop necklaces as well.  They couldn't stand to waste precious marshmallows by defacing them with glue and adhering them permanently to a piece of paper.  Even after the glue had dried, Sawyer tried countless times to eat them.  I eventually had to throw Mr. Marshmallow Man in the garbage (who weighed a ton, I might add.  Who knew mini marshmallows with dots of glue could become so heavy???).



Leap Year Day
This was a day I couldn't let slide without doing something to celebrate/recognize.  It worked out really well with our daily calendar activities.  I also found out that there really isn't a whole lot at the library on Leap Year Day.  So, to teach this concept to a preschooler and kindergartner was very challenging when they are just now beginning to grasp the concept of time.  I couldn't find any books suitable for them to read about the holiday.  Instead, I tried using our globe/bodies to emulate the sun and Earth so they could visualize a day and a year (since we learned about the planets at the beginning of the school year, I thought this would be easy-peasie).  I think Hayden's lightbulb went off, but Sawyer still didn't' get it.  No worries. We can do it again in 4 years.  Ha!

We did figure out what year will be the next leap year and how old we will all be.  We also figured out when the last leap year was and how old we were then.  That was about all the math that got accomplished on that subject.

The one thing that they will NOT forget was the leap year cookie we made.  I'm sure they will have no problems reminding me to make this again in four years (and believe me, it will be at LEAST four years before we make this sucker again!).

Happy Leap Year Day!!

We Love Green!

In preparation for St. Patrick's Day, I decided to do a green themed week.  We started off with Dr. Seuss' "Green Eggs and Ham" since Mar. 2nd was a day to celebrate Dr. Seuss.  The boys had loads of fun this day, and by the end of the week, Hayden had even read half of the book all by himself (so proud!).  

After we read the book once, I had written out a chart on the chalkboard 6 sight words that are repeated in the beginning (and throughout) the book pretty frequently.  Both boys picked 3 words each to listen out for and make a mark under their word when they heard me say it.  I had to read slowly and repeat the sentences several times in order for this to work out well.  Usually, I believe this would be done with a bigger group size, and each child would be given only ONE word to listen out for.  Much easier than keeping track of 3 words and remembering which was which.  Anyway, Hayden wanted to make X's for his marks and Sawyer wanted to make happy faces.  Hence, the two different marks.  There was no hidden meaning behind that.

Sight word graph

Afterwards, we talked about which word we heard the most of and which word we heard the least.  Plus, I had Hayden write the words down in ABC order.

Then we had a Green Egg Toss.  The boys took turns rolling a die.  They would then have to throw that number of eggs into the wastebasket with the green ham on it.  For every egg they got in, they got 5 points.  Hayden made tally marks for every point they each got.  In the end, this activity helped him with counting by 5's, hand-eye coordination, and tallying skills.

This was a "Go Green" Venn Diagram.  We brainstormed a bunch of green foods and graphed them onto the venn diagram chart.  Our subjects were "green fruit" and "green foods that I like".  You'll notice by looking at the diagram, that Hayden is NOT  a big fan of fruit, but he will eat the heck out of some green veggies.

Moving on from Dr. Seuss, we enter the more holiday-themed portion of "We Love Green".  So begins our I Spy a Shamrock activity.  This was sort of another scavenger hunt idea - the boys, especially Hayden LOVE scavenger hunts.  The more, the merrier.  With this one, which I got as a free download from www.teacherspayteachers.com/, I taped shamrocks with pictures on them up around the room.  The shamrocks were numbered 1-16 (I only used the first 8 since Hayden and Sawyer ARE a bit young).  Each picture depicts a 3 lettered sight word.  They had to figure out the word that each picture was, and then Hayden had to write out the word on next to the correlating number on his piece of paper.

                 Searching for Shamrocks


   (from the same website as the other activity)

 

 With this activity, I printed out a bunch of shamrocks with real and nonsense words on them.  Then, I hid them inside a bucket filled with rice.  The boys had to "search" for the shamrocks in the rice, sound out the word, and decide whether it was a real or nonsense word.  Once they figured that part out, Hayden would write the word down on a piece of paper in the appropriate column labeled "real" or "nonsense".

                    Green Bean Counting
For this green activity, I spray painted a bunch of kidney beans green on one side.  This was actually a "Blue Bean Counting" activity that I modified for St. Patrick's Day.  I found it on education.com.  Both boys played the game, but I helped Sawyer more with his since he's not ready for writing out math problems just yet.

The idea for this game was to shake up a number of beans in a small cup (10 for Hayden, 5 for Sawyer).  They then had to draw the number of beans and color in the ones that were green side facing up.  Hayden had to also write out an addition sentence to go along with his picture.  I wound up helping him out with that part, but he understood the concept pretty well.  They continued to play this activity for quite some time. So, it was a big hit, I guess!



Leprechaun Trap 101

 The last thing we did was build a leprechaun trap.  I never realized how popular this type of project was until I googled it and found an unimaginable amount of ideas and examples from hundreds of people.  Hayden couldn't get enough of looking through examples and building a plan in his mind.

So, this is what our trap started as: a Costco garbage bag box.  We spray painted it green and put the flap down so that it made a "faux floor".

 After spray painting it all green, we built a ladder out of straws and spray painted it gold.  Then, Hayden had me make a "Free Gold" sign that he sprinkled gold glitter onto.  He got some green Easter grass to cover the opening, and he decorated the whole box with shamrock stickers and garland.

 We also had an artificial green gerber daisy that Hayden decided to stick on top to make it more "nature-like".  He was very proud of his work and couldn't wait to set it up and catch his leprechaun.

(By the way, I hope I don't scar this kid for life by encouraging him to believe in leprechauns, Easter bunny, Santa Claus, and all that stuff.  One day, he's going to realize he's been had, and all those other beliefs are going to come crumbling down around him.  God help the person who is next to him when this discovery is made).

Hayden insisted on setting up his trap outside since leprechauns like nature.  He used a trail of Lucky Charms to entice the leprechaun to find his trap, and he stuck some of his green Easter eggs inside the trap along with some rocks to trick the leprechaun into thinking there was gold in there.

The morning after St. Patrick's Day, he hurried outside to see if he caught one....

He could tell immediately that something had been there because the ladder had been knocked to the side and the trap door was fallen in some.  He stuck his hand inside to find that there was NO leprechaun, but he HAD left a note that praised Hayden's cleverness.  As a reward for his attempt at catching a swift-footed fairy, the leprechaun left gummy bears inside the green eggs, and filled some leprechaun hats with chocolate gold coins.  He also left a trail of gold "nuggets" from the trap to another tree which he must have climbed to get away.

Since then, we have mostly been adjusting to life with an additional family member.  Riley Finn Holbrook arrived the Wednesday before St. Patrick's Day, and we have been reveling in baby-ness ever since.  The boys are getting playtime with Daddy and grandparents as they come and go, and they are learning to be big brothers and great helpers.  Sometimes life's experiences are our greatest lessons, and we are taking every moment to savor as much of this one as possible before we finally re-enter the real world.

Riley Finn Holbrook - 9lbs 3oz and 21 in long!

Our big happy family of five!