Rubber Duckies Rock!!

    We are camping with the Virtual Book Club Summer Camp again this week!

    We took last week off from the Book Club Summer Camp because of the 4th of July holiday and we had family in town. The first half of our week was filled with last minute family fun and we said goodbye to our family this morning. 

    So with the house empty (with hubby at work and my teen son in Chicago until Sunday), the little munchkin and I went camping again!

    This week's theme has been Water Play.

    One of the recommended books for this week is "10 Little Rubber Ducks" by Eric Carle.  Again, me being me and wanting to do so many things at once, I looked for a way to combine learning activities. 

   And since the next letter we are going to learn about is Letter Dd, a Duck themed book/activity was perfect!! Ah, some times I love the way I think!!

   Anyhow, here is the math (and water play) activity that I created for the little munchkin.

       

      I had originally wanted to use her water table, but with all the rain we have had, there was too much wet sand in it (and you know wet sand weighs a ton) for me to clean it out all by myself! 

    After reading the book, she searched each duck for the numbers to match the Number Line.

       

                 

And here is alternative version that was a little more challenging.

       

          

          

    Then the REAL water play fun started when she added in some dish soap and I gathered random toys & objects for her to use.

                     

   

  Discovering that some of the rubber duckies blew bubbles was the best part!

                     

      

    After about an hour of playing, she was pretty wet from all the little splashing and splashing and she wanted to come inside to change. I'm sure if it was warmer outside, she would have continued to play.

    Once she got settled inside, we did a quick spelling activity using letter stamps. She spelled the word DUCK, not one time, not two times, but THREE times!!

                 

So that was the awesome Ducky Water Play fun we had today! 

Letter Aa is for Apple, Alligator... and Arctic Animals!

This past week in our curriculu,m, we were to learn about the letter Aa.

   Here are the activities the little munchkins did for the letter Aa. They used apple pictures to make the letter A and also made an Alligator head by finding teeth that had the letter Aa on it.

What else starts with Aa?  ARCTIC ANIMALS!

    Like how I squeezed my own theme in this week?  =)  I do it all the time!

   Teaching little ones about animals is always so much fun. I love the look they get on their faces when they learn new facts about animals.

   This past week I saw those faces a lot as I taught them about the Arctic and the Antarctic and the animals that live there.

   Before we went into depth about the different animals that live in these cold regions, we explored the climate and what can be found in that type of environment.
   I extended the learning to our water table, that I turned into a Polar Ice Land! I froze water in ice cube trays and in a big bowl and added polar animal toys into the water table. Man, did I have some issues trying to get the kids to take turns for the first few days!  No one ever wanted to leave the water table. (Don't ask why the kiddos pictured don't have smocks on... I just noticed it too!!)

   It was too bad that I had to step in and regulate though when, even after reviewing the rules, I still had a few kids licking (YES- licking) the ice cubes and even throwing the ice cubes against the wall to watch them break!  I guess they were just experimenting, huh?

   I also used these Polar Animal Spelling mats that I found at 2Teaching Mommies blog, which is a blog I visit frequently because I love her units! 

   Click on the picture to download your own free copy of this Polar Lands unit! I will be using some of the material in this unit with my little one at home too!

   This week, they also continued to work on matching number to set. I created these simple Snowflake puzzles for the classroom, for the winter season.

   

          You can purchase your own set here, on SALE this week only, in my TPT store.

   There is so much to learn about the Arctic region and the life there. It's too bad that I do not have enough time to dive into it as much as I would like to.... But as always, I will do what I can!  =)

Fishy Math Fun plus * FREEBIES*

    Well, I have had quite the busy week! We had familly from Texas visiting this week and it was tons of fun! We went to Niagara Falls (American Side) and my husband and I literally walked across the border to Canada, with my cousin! 

    Then we went on a boat tour along Lake Erie. It was so fun to have famliy visitng because being out here without family and friends can get lonely, so we are more than ecstatic when we have visitors!  =)

    Now that the kids and I are settling back into our routine, I am back here blogging! I have some fun Fishy Math activities to share, and since Teaching Blog Addict is hosting FREEBIE FRIDAY, I also have 2 FREEBIES for you! =)

    My little munchkin and I do a lot of math activities throughout the day. She loves to count everything and she is very good at it! Here are a few activities that we did this week.

   We start everyday with our calendar, which gives her practice counting and I try to  focus on one number a day to help her with number identification. 

    I saw this bulletin board idea in this Mailbox Ocean Animals Theme magazine and loved it. 

    All you need is some fish cutouts, magnetic strips and a chalkboard or magnetic whiteboard. Everyday I change the amount of fish that I put out and I also put out 2 numbers that she can chose from. This helps her identify numbers and match it to the set of fish that are on the board. 

I absolutely LOVE The Mailbox magazines!

     Also using another Mailbox resource (Literacy Envelope Centers), I used these Fish Twins mats to help her with her visual discrimination and matching skills.

    

** FREEBIE ALERT! **

     Since I loved this mat so much and figured other moms and teachers might too, I created my own. I had a fishing set from Lake Shore learning and instead of having her use paper cards, I used the plastic fish that were in our Scoop & Play Fishing kit, from Lakeshore Learning.

(There are several other things that can be used, like other types of plastic fish, fish erasers, goldfish crackers, etc.)

    We took the learning fun outside on a warm day, and I poured some colorful gravel into  her water table along with the fishing set… Water Table Fun!

    Another thing that my little munchkin is working on is matching number to set. So I made another math mat, similar to the Fishy Twins mat. I gave her fish erasers and some magnetic numbers. I helped her identify the numbers and then she counted out the erasers and put them on the Fish Bowl mat.

Click either of the pictures below for your FREEBIES!

I also linked up with TBA's Freebie Friday! Click here or below for more fun freebies!

    Today we are heading to Michael's to pick up some arts & crafts materials to create some fun fish art! =) Stay tuned....

Flower Fun !

    Flowers are everywhere! We walk outside and turn left, we see a garden with flowers! We turn right, we see another garden full of flowers!  It sure is nice to have neighbors who keep their gardens looking lovely!  Too bad I don’t have a green thumb, or else we would have our own garden to look at! =)

    This past week, the weather heated up quite a bit. But I was not complaining! There wasn’t much humidity in the air—thank goodness! So the heat was bearable b/c of the summer breeze… felt like I was in Hawaii!

   Anyhow, the little munchkin and I are always looking for fun stuff to do and with this heat, we brought out the water hose and the water table! I took an idea I saw in a Mailbox magazine and created a Flower water play area. 

   All I needed was fake plastic flowers (which I cut down to a smaller size), some empty Dannonino yogurt containers, and a spray bottle—and there we had it! Not quite sure what to call it though… Flower Spray Play?  I don’t know! =) 

   The little munchkin had TONS of fun putting the flowers inside the containers, setting them up and spraying away! Note: It led to a whole lot of additional soaking water play! This lead to purchasing 2 wacky sprinklers to help us keep cool!

   

    When we aren’t outside getting wet, or playing in the “dirt”, as she calls it (it’s really her garden sensory bin), we are indoors doing some other fun stuff.

    Here are a few little projects we have done with Flowers this week.

               Glued buttons onto the Letter F:

Scrapbook Flowers- 

I cut scrapbook paper into parts of a flower and glued them onto paper: 

    

    

   Skittle Flowers:

Then I got an fun idea to do, with a Flower dot printable that I found at Making Learning Fun.

    Rather than using Fruit Loops, I used Tropical Skittles! They are much more colorful and delicious!

 It was as VERY tasty Flower Treat! =)

    This weekend I have been making some math mat games for my little munchkin to play in the next week! 

     And I just finally put together my Preschool Memory Book! I will share a picture tomorrow!