Shape Monsters

(4 Years)

I actually did something similar to this with my fifth graders to review plane geometry.  So, when I saw this on the wall of one of the potential pre-k schools for this Fall (it looked just like this post here), I knew we would be creating our own shape monsters.

The set up for this can be as elaborate or simple as you'd like.  We worked on some basic shapes: circles, ovals, squares, rectangles, trapezoids and triangles.  The set-up for this took a little less than five minutes.

Materials needed:
Scissors
Various colors of construction paper- we use the heavier stock, it's easier for them to work with
Glue sticks
Markers
Large pre-cut shapes for your monster's body
Smaller pre-cut shapes for body parts, horns, antennae, arms, legs, facial features...

I invited Little Miss and Wild One over to the kitchen table, "Who wants to build shape monsters with glue sticks?"  That's all it took.  I had two eager monster mechanics ready to design and create their shape monsters.

While they were busy working, Little Miss was having her monster talk to her.  I love their imaginations.  When they were finished with their creatures, I asked what they named it, and to tell me about the monster.  Little Miss created Sailor, because he is in a sail boat.  Wild One created Wolfie, who has very sharp teeth and no arms, but he does have a horn on his head!

Before wrapping this art project up, I asked each of them about the shapes they chose to use for their monster.  I asked for them to point to and count each shape.  I wrote the numbers down for Wild One, but Little Miss wanted to write her own numbers.  We haven't practiced writing numbers yet.  I was curious as to what they would look like.  She asked me to write a number 2 for her, so I did on a scrap piece of paper.  Her's came out pretty darn good!

While Little Miss was writing the number of shapes that she used, Wild One asked if he could make another monster.  I love it when they want to keep working.  His new monster has six arms and three legs, but NO nose!  I love how emphatic he gets when he's excited, it's not just with his voice, he also emphasizes with his gestures.

This art project helps to strengthen their fine motor skills, develop hand-eye coordination, reinforces the names of the shapes, fosters creativity, and prepares them for holding a pencil.  Plus, it's a lot of fun.

This is us, learning through play.  Happy Wednesday!

Our Favorite Preschool Apps

(43 Months)

We use our iPad as part of our quiet time activities (when Wild One doesn't nap or when Little Miss wakes up very early from a nap) and while I'm cooking dinner.  I am so happy with these apps, they keep the kiddos fully engaged, while learning- and I get to complete some never-ending housework.

The kids love using the iPad to do "work".  All of these games are fantastic learning tools, they don't even realize they are practicing - heh heh heh (evil laugh).  I've spent hours searching and playing with numerous learning apps.  These are the ones that the kids and I really like and decided to keep.

Handwriting
Letter School
Letter Quiz
Dora's ABC's
Wet Dry Try - Handwriting Without Tears

Math: Problem Solving, Puzzles, Matching, Sorting, Counting
Snake Tangrams
Amazing Shape Puzzles
Jurassic Jr. (Dinosaur Train)
Phonics Island
Candy Count
Teach Me (Toddler)
Countalicious

Reading and Spelling
Super Why
Phonics Island
BOB Books Lite
Sight Words
Word Family
Fun Rhyming

What are your favorite learning apps?

Ordering Numbers

(37 Months)

When I was at Dollar Tree a couple of weeks ago, I found two fun window clings in the teaching section of the store.  One was of shapes, the other was numbers 1-10.  My two kidabunks love window clings, especially rearranging the ones that we use as decoration in the front windows.  When I saw these two, I knew they would have fun.  

While I was reading to Wild One, I noticed Little Miss quietly ordering the numbers.  Quick, grab the camera.  The six and nine were interchanged, I asked her which number came after five and she answered six.  Then she looked at the nine, and without a word looked at the window to find her six.  She's practicing math!  On her own!  Learning through play is always the best way.

If you are unable to find these at Dollar Tree, they are very so similar to our Bath Math foam tiles.  

Calendar Time

(31 Months)

I've been wanting to making this board for several weeks now.  Calendar time offers so much learning in one confined space.  For the past few weeks, after the kidabunks were asleep in bed for the night I searched blog after blog, Pinterest board after board, looking for ideas.  The process seemed to be too time-consuming to tackle during a once-a-day, hour long nap.  Then, one wonderful day last week they took a two-hour nap (two glorious uninterrupted hours).  It was the jump start I needed to get this project underway.  Once I started, it actually came together pretty quickly (although not as fast as homemade play-doh).  

I had certain goals that I wanted to accomplish in using this board, which determined the material that I placed on the board.  My goals over the next year+ are to practice learning:

• the days of the week (in order)
• the months of the year (in order)
• the concept of yesterday, today and tomorrow
• what the weather is outside (cloudy, sunny, rainy)
• the names of the seasons and our current season
• learning about each number 
• learning numbers in sequence, through a real-world number line
• begin learning about word families
• understand that there are several ways to draw a basic shape
• practice in forming letters (out of shaving cream, play doh, blocks, sticks, pom poms) 
• -this one is for me, I wanted a board that requires little time to update, and that will grow with the kidabunks for the next two plus years.

The board is finally finished!  The ideas and inspiration came from my Pinterest board and Today's Weather is a free printable from Homeschool Creations (thank you, to all of you incredible mommies out there for posting your terrific ideas).  We're going to start using the board tomorrow and I have a lot of fun activities planned for us that I'm so excited to share with the kidabunks.

We sing the Days of the Week song to the tune of "Oh My Darlin'"-
There are seven days,
there are seven days, 
there are seven days in a week.
There are seven days,
there are seven days,
there are seven days in a week.
Sunday, Monday
Tuesday, Wednesday
Thursday, Friday
Saturday.

Sunday, Monday

Tuesday, Wednesday

Thursday, Friday

Saturday.

We sing the Months of the Year song to the tune of "Ten Little Indians" - 

January, February, March and April

May, June, July and August

September, October, November, December

Those are the months of the year

(repeat two or three more times)

I'm so excited for tomorrow!

Geometric Matching

(26 Months)

Uncle Keith has these huge geometric volume containers.  When he brought them out, my eyes lit up.  Oh the possibilities (my geeky teacher side started coming through).  We first laid a couple of them out and watched their reactions as the sunlight passed through the container's colored base- the kids were amazed that the driveway changed color.  Little Miss kept moving her hand in and out of the light watching her hand go from skin color to green to skin color to green.  I took a few pictures but they didn't show the colors (so sad).

Here we are practicing following directions (please place the containers inside this rectangle).  It's amazing how well they follow directions when it's a game!  Although this did turn into a construction activity when the boys started stacking the containers on top of one another.  We never did say how to place the containers inside the rectangle- boys, so creative.

Next, we traced the bases of each of the containers onto the driveway with sidewalk chalk, then we asked the kids to match up the colored bases (bottoms) of the containers to the shapes in the driveway.  They really got into this, they quickly started working finding a shape and looking for the match.  I love how in the second picture, Buddy is "reading" the instructions for the geometric shapes.

The twins really liked this part of the activity so to modify it for home, I'm going to start saving empty tissue boxes, cereal boxes, plastic mayonnaise jars, plastic peanut butter jars... and we'll do this again.

We never did get around to using the geometric shapes as they were designed (to demonstrate volume), we'll try again on our next visit.  They had so much fun, just matching up shapes, looking through the bases seeing the world another color, stacking and watching the tower crash with the loud banging sounds.