M Is For Monster, Music & More

Yesterday morning New Fish was up early and I was downstairs starting breakfast.  It was going to be a baked oatmeal dish.  New Fish came down and said: "Oh Mommy!  I love you!  Did you wake up early to make pancakes with me?" [Insert clapped hands here.]  It's impossible to say no to someone who is that cute in the morning so we started off our day by cooking pancakes together.

 

 We started off school day by watching a little video on the different musical instruments and the sounds they make.  Then we sang songs and looked at all of the musical instruments we have in the house.  We talked about our 5th sense- hearing.  We read books about animal sounds and counting.  We talked about high and low, loud and soft sounds.

Then we worked on our number recognition with a counting game of putting googly eyes on monsters drawings.

 Next we talked about the letter M. Our nursery rhyme of the week was "Little Miss Muffet."  We read a book with a lot of M sounds.  Then we decorated letter M collages to look like monsters.  Red Fish made one the second she got home from school.  Googly eyes are always a hit.

New Fish/Red Fish

 We made spider handprints with black fingerpaint.  It is actually quite difficult to come up with enough activities to keep two kids totally engaged for two hours.  A larger group might be easier because everything would take longer.  It's nice to know we are accomplishing a lot together so there is a reward. I had planned to make woven spider webs like the one Red Fish made the other day out of a paper plate and yarn.



New Fish asked if we could dance to Peter And The Wolf.  That actually fit in perfectly with our theme today so I quickly agreed and the kids danced and pretended to be all of the animals and instruments.

 Next we used the Easter eggs I made last spring to play a matching game with sounds.  Some had rice, pennies, beans etc. inside of them so the kids spent awhile trying to listen to the sounds and line them up.  It is a very fun activity.  We ate snacks, talked about our calendar and then went outside to play in the spooky sensory bin.

 Red Fish came home from school with a new monster mask and New Fish insisted on making one.  So Red Fish made a monster M and a handprint spider while New Fish made a mask.  I think that should be enough projects for one day!