Dry Ice Bubbles

 I woke up this morning and wanted to make dry ice bubbles.  It seemed like the only thing to do today. Sometimes I just get an idea and can't give it up until the task is accomplished.  I am a fun chaser. This experiment was much easier than I thought it was going to be and the effect was magical. We spent a solid hour blowing bubbles and juggling them around.

Online Preschool

This year New Fish is participating in an online preschool program.  She plays games for 15 minutes a day five days a week.  She is flying through the program and it has been interesting to see how well she knows how to use the computer.

Gross

I owe my neighbors an apology after all of the screaming it required for me to catch this giant beetle for my girls.  Bug collecting is yet another thing I thought I would not have to do again after ninth grade biology.  The girls are planning a bug collection complete with pins and foam.  Gross.  This mammoth insect is currently under the microscope being examined.  He is half dead already, which is the only reason I was able to capture him.

Winter Break

 We have been playing hard during our Winter break but we have also spent a lot of time at home. It has been too cold to go anywhere. There has been a lot of baking, playing games, science experiments and hours upon hours of reading.

 We have been doing a lot of water experiments lately and the girls really loved figuring out what materials, weights and shapes would float in water.

 We started making some Valentines Day decorations because we don't really have many and the girls love holiday decor.  It helped take some of the sting out of packing up the Christmas stuff.

 There have been a lot of art supplies scattered around the house.

 A box of math manipulatives has somehow become some of their favorite toys (didn't they just get a ton of toys for Christmas?) We have had so much fun together I will be sad to see them go back to school.

The girls have been coloring mittens with oil pastels and stitching them together with yarn and drawing dozens of pictures of horses.

By Red Fish

Red Fish

by New Fish

Ancient Egypt

New Fish

 The girls and I have been reading a lot together lately, mostly because I don't feel like doing much else.  In an effort to create more diversity in our reading material we are stating to read more about different time periods and cultures.  Don't worry.  We still read more than enough fiction and make believe.  We read picture books, poetry and nonfiction science books.  Most recently we have been reading about ancient Egypt.  New Fish has especially enjoyed reading about the pharoahs and tombs and all of the treasures they were buried with.  We read about the discovery of King Tut's tomb and made masks.  We downloaded printables for these masks here.  The kids had a good time coloring them over the last week and it gave them a good project that didn't need close supervision.  I just helped them glue the final product together and put it on.

Red Fish

 We read about the invention of writing and about hieroglyphics and the kids tried their hand at drawing their name as a heiroglyphic with air dry clay.  We also attempted sugar cube pyramids that didn't end up looking like pyramids at all.

 

Little Scientists

 My girls had such a good time with the science curriculum we did last year for fun from Sonlight.  We actually did all of the experiments and read the entire Usborne Children's Encyclopedia.  These kids will read anything.  We decided it was worth it to get one for this year as well.  We don't really study the information, we just read and do experiments and have fun with it.  Science is not my forte and Red Fish LOVES science so I need a little help coming up with the information for her.  There are tons of magnet experiments we have been doing testing the force and pulling power of magnets.  This week the girls checked to see if different magnets were strong enough to pull objects through different materials.  They had to do all of the work while I sat on the couch and directed.

 They also made little boats out of metal tacks, corks and paper sails and drove them around the bin of water with their magnets.

w is for western

 For Western week the kids decorated paperbag cowboy vests.  Buddy B was pretty convinced his would go better with his sponge bob underpants but I convinced him that cowboys wear their shorts.  (Teaching preschool to these two has been hysterical.)  I borrowed stick horses and drew chalk numbers on the sidewalk.  They had to gallop their horses to the right number 1-20.  Buddy B fell once and his gum fell out of his mouth.  New Fish started screaming: "His skin!  It just fell off!  The horror!"  Hilarious.

 I also drew chalk letters on the driveway and we played several alphabet games.  The kids are starting to remember alphabetic order pretty well.

 We made cowboy stick puppets and the kids put on a puppet show.

 We matched cowboys with lowercase letters on them to their hats with upper case letters on them.

 We made a big batch of moon sand (flour and baby oil) and the kids had a blast playing in it.  They buried their feet over and over.

 The kids used scissors to cut up little pieces of pipe cleaners as a fine motor skill. It was difficult.  Then we filled waterbottles with the bits and moved them around with a magnet.  We did several cutting exercises as well as mazes and prewriting worksheets.  Then the kids played with horses and pretended to be in the wild wild west.  They also played sheriffs and outlaws.  Blue Fish, our dog played the part of outlaw.

 

 

 

 

 

Little Scientist

Water absorption experiments.

f is for feelings

 We talked about the letter "f" and feelings today in preschool.  The kids colored and cut out their letters and did some prewriting worksheets and games.  Their fine motor skills are getting really good.  We did our calendar and music time.  We do a lot of dancing and parading around during music times these days.  We always use the parachute.  We did some matching games and talked about feelings.  We read several little story books that highlight emotions and the kids thought this weeks nursey rhyme, fee fie fo fum, was hilarious.  They walked around pretending to be giants.

 For our math practice I put magnetic numbers on the fridge in series and they had to fill in the blanks.  They know their numbers really well now.  We went outside to paint with watercolors and ate snacks.

 The kids played in the magnetic sensory bin and after the older kids got out of school we invited them over for a new sensory experience.  I was inspired by this post.  I filled our sensory bin with baking soda and filled ice cube trays full of colored vinegar.  (I used liquid watercolor to dye it.) I gave each kid an eye dropped so they could drop the vinegar into the bin and watch it fizz.  The kids loved watching it fizz and kept working together to create bigger "explosions."

 There was a lot of color mixing with the vinegar as well.  They kept trying to create new colors in the baking soda.

 Next the hands went into the bin.

 Next we decided to add corn starch and make a goo for the kids to ply in.  We added increasing amounts of water until they decided the texture was right. 

 Eventually we got out some tools for them to dig with.  They were filthy by the time they finished with the bin so I hosed them down and they ended up running through the sprinklers.  The warmer weather has been incredible.

Introduction To Electricity

We had some fun playing with circuits.

m is for magnets, metal and music

Today we talked about the letter "m" for metal and magnets.  Our nursery rhyme was "Do You Know The Muffin Man?" We read a little bit about magnets in Usbourne's Childrens Encycolpedia and then I set out ice cube trays of random objects.  The kids used magnets to pick out which items were magnetic.  They LOVED all of the magnet acitivities.  They had so much fun playing with everything today.

Our experiment trays

 Our sensory bin today was full of pinto beans and objects like spoons, clothes pins, bobby pins, bolts, washers, paper clips, jewelry etc.  The kids would hold onto their magnets and swirl their hands around in the bin until the magnet was covered with metal objects. 

Playing in the sensory bin

 We did letter recognition by cutting out the letter M with scissors.  Then they used our metal (shredded aluminum foil- too bad it isn't magnetic) and covered it with glitter glue. 

 I have been planning too many activities for the past month or so and music time has gotten short changed, much to Buddy B's dismay.  So today we spent a good 45 minutes doing musical activities.  We paraded through the house with instruments, danced with streamers, played musical games with the parachute and sang our hearts out. 

 We did math by putting magnetic numbers on the fridge.  I would put one up and they would have to put up the number that comes before and after it.

Then we got out our magnetic dolls and the kids spent a good long time acting out their future wedding (to eachother of course) with the dolls.  It was hilarious.  They kept changing outfits on the dolls in case they went to their honeymoon on skis or in the ocean.  It was pretty funny to listen in on their story.