More Building Houses

Here are some more photos of the kids using tools to build a house in the sensory table. To see the original post, click here and scroll down.

They really enjoyed cutting the tape and taping things together.

She taped the roof to her house.

I never even realized how great a fine motor activity taping can be. To pull the tape, cut it and keep it from sticking together takes a lot of eye hand coordination, not to mention actually sticking it onto something the way you want it and to stick more than one thing together requires even more complex movements and steadiness.

Hammering, one child on each end. What a creative way to work together.

 One child actually cut all the way through the thick cardboard with our plastic saw!

The girls decided they needed to do a little bit of decorating, so they got out the markers and drew all over the tape. This is one little girl's "grouchy face." I love it!!!

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Wishlist Wednesday: Alina's Adventures in Homemaking

This week's guest blogger is Alina from Adventures in Homemaking. I love all the adventures she and her son embark on. But the best is how she describes in such detail all the things they learned including exactly what questions were asked and the process of finding the answers. It is truly inspirational. I highly recommend checking out her blog!

The Littman Classic II SE Stethoscope

Learning Resources Simple Stopwatch

The first time I heard my heart beat through a stethoscope brought an awareness of my own body and life to me. Suddenly, the fact that the heart pumps blood throughout my body turned from an abstract idea to a real, live whooshing and sucking sound. When learning with my kids, I scour my memory for those little ah-ha moments in the child in me learned something profound.

Cachey Mama's invitation to her Wishlist Wednesday gave me the perfect excuse to daydream about two items I've wanted for a long, long time. Since some of our learning goals for the year require meausurement and experimentation, I dream of a stopwatch and a stethoscope. There are so many ways to use these two tools, together and individually, to make comparisons and study relationships. These comparisons are best illustrated on paper by charts and graphs, one of Max's favorite hobbies.

Max can use the stopwatch to compare his pulse to that of his sisters. Or that of his friends and neighbors. He can keep an ongoing chart measuring his heartbeat after eating, after bathing, after playing, after dancing, and even after getting upset. He can find an average for his resting heart-rate. He can explore averages across the spectrum of activities. What is the recovery period (the time it takes the heart to get back to resting beat after exercise)?

We could explore frequency in other creatures by using the stopwatch and picking a given amount of time to observe the dog and see how often he scratches, growls, barks, or sits in a 7 minute period. Then we could graph this. We could try again at a different time of day and see if our results differed. If they did, then we would try the entire experiment again the next day to see if we could discover any peristent patterns that might suggest relationships between time of day and frequency of particular behaviors.

What better way to spend time waiting in grocery lines or at large events than asking people nearby to be part of an ongoing average resting heartrate experiment? There are so many ways and so many contexts in which these two tools could help us learn about our world and how it works.

Other experiments and explorations might include:

• Relationship between grooming and horse's heart rate
• Fitness tests and challenges
• Relationship between perceived color and heart rate
• How fast food travels from mouth to stomach
• A day in the life of your heart
• Sound ranging
• Effects of various exercises on the cardiovascular system
• Relationship between caffeine and typing speed (with me as guinea pig, of course)

There's no way to predict the relationships and comparisons Max and Micah would discover with two simple tools.

Fingers, Toes and Homes around the World

Today I read this book to my class. I have done a previous post about this book, but here are some more details about how we used it in class.

First we did a small group that consisted of using these felt board fingers and toes to count to 10.

Then we took off our socks and shoes to count our toes. Yep, we all had 10 :)

We have also started learning about homes around the world. Here is our sensory table filled with materials for building a house. We got into questions such as what are houses made of, what are the parts of a house, how do you build a house, why are houses different around the world, what is the purpose of a roof? The children had some good answers and seemed like they were becoming interested.

He said this was an apartment :)

Hammering the pieces together.

I introduced a lot of new vocabulary such as carpenter, hinges, plaster, door frame, etc. I am beginning to see that there is so many directions this study could go. We had planned to go into weather around the world next week, but we may stretch out homes for another week. Can't wait to do some more of the activities we have planned for this week. Stay tuned!

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Upcycling Beads and Charms

So here is my crafty invention for the week. (Although I'm sure someone has done it before and way better). I decorated a bead and a charm from an old necklace using my Cricut and some Mod Podge.

Let me just start by saying, I have never used Mod Podge before. This was my first attempt. I have been seeing so many crafts online using it, I had to buy some and try it out. I have all kinds of ideas to try, but let's start with one at a time.

First, I cut small designs out of paper(thin purple paper for the stars on the bead) or sticker paper(gold for the charm):

Then I stuck the cutouts to the bead and charm and applied the Mod Podge:

Very simple process. I think the results were... ok for my first time. You can't see the Mod Podge on the bead much, but there are some streaks on the charm. I think it was the type of brush I used. Next time, I would use a softer smoother brush.

I think you could do something similar to this with kids. The Mod Podge would have to be carefully supervised though. I am pretty sure it's toxic judging by the smell of it. Have the children get creative and see what they would want to decorate... a pet rock perhaps :)

What have you used Mod Podge for? Let me know what you think!

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Motivational Monday: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Storytime Sunday: Snow

Here is my selection of snow/winter books for this week. These are only few of the MANY great children's books about winter. They were just a few I happened to have in my personal collection that I have been using with my son this weekend as we have begun exploring snow. The Snowy Day is an older book that I'm sure most of you have read. I like it because it describes actions that children can replicate in the snow. While not particularly about snow, the book On the Night You Were Born is a wonderful book and there are some really awesome outdoor pictures including the polar bears in the snow.

Here are some photos of my sensory bin I used with my 1 year old. I actually left the blue lights in here from the light box I had made and covered it with a white towel then lined it with cotton balls. The blue lights shine through a little bit, just enough to give it that glow that ice sometimes gets when it's really thick. 

CAUTION: DO NOT TRY THIS WITH THE LIGHTS! I had to take my lights out today because they got nearly hot enough to melt the toys inside. Just use some tissue paper or foam under the towel or no towel at all. Just to eliminate the fire hazard completely. Sorry.

The snowflakes are cut out of wrapping paper. There is metallic wrapping paper for a frozen pond with a small snowman figure.

After L played awhile, I decided to give him another empty bin to transfer the cotton balls into since he mostly wanted to take them out of the bin. Also, we added some measuring cups for scooping and pouring.

 At school, we brought some snow inside as it was too cold to go outside. The kids had a blast with it and wanted some art materials to help them build their snowman. I also brought snow in for L to play with at home this weekend and some ice from our newly working ice maker, but as soon as I went to take the photo, L began to fuss. Figures!

We also made sparkly snowflakes with glitter. We used the printable pattern from here. I was going to let the kids cut them out, but once folded, it was too thick for their little scissors to cut through, so I did it for them.

What books have you been reading about winter?

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Thinky Linky Thursday

I have decided to start featuring the link that got the most views from the week before. Last week's top viewed link and my very first featured winner is...

Polar Region Sensory Bin by Criss-Cross Applesauce

Congrats!!!

Thank you all so much for entering your links. Please continue to come back each week, so we can build a database of the best kids thinking ideas on the net!

<a href="http://preschoolteacher81.blogspot.com/search/label/thinky%20linky%20thursday"><img alt="Preschool Teacher" src="http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r103/loriajones/ThinkyLinkyThursButton.jpg"/></a>

If you have been featured, please feel free to grab this button:

Wishlist Wednesday: Playing with Words 365

This week's guest blogger is from Playing with Words 365. She has freebies, activities, resources and best of all (in my opinion), her Thrifty Thursday linky party! Here is what she has to wish for this week.

I am SO excited to be here with you all guest blogging for Lori. I was thrilled when she asked me to be a part of her Wishlist Wednesday. What a great topic!

I wanted to start by telling you a little about myself. I am a speech language pathologist specializing in working with preschool aged children (ages 2-6) though I have a total of 15 years experience working with children of all ages and all abilities in numerous teaching environments. I also happen to be a mother to two amazing little people, E age 3 and my baby Ev who just turned one last week. I blog about a variety of things relating to being a mother and a speech pathologist but mostly I blog about children’s learning activities, most of which can be adapted to be used with children of all abilities.

So now, onto my wish! What would I wish for? Well..I am going to tell you two ;)


What I wish for for me...

If I could have ANYTHING to use in my classroom at home (with my own kids), my "classroom" when I am working as a speech pathologist, and as a blogger, the answer was REALLY simple. 

A new camera.

Photography happens to be a hobby of mine, but I also use my camera a ton as a blogger and a speech pathologist. As a blogger, good pictures can really help "make a post" so a good camera can help. Also, as a speech pathologist, I often use my camera to take pictures of my students/clients to make personalized learning materials for them, like social stories or picture communication systems.

OK so I won't lie...I have a decent camera now but this is Wishlist Wednesday, right?? And I wish for a

Nikon D7000.

Oh Nikon D7000 how I love thee! One day you will be mine! :D


What I REALLY wish...

As much as I want the camera, if I could wish for ANYTHING, I would actually wish for my daughter's illness to go into remission. She suffers from Juvenile Arthritis, an autoimmune disease that causes her immune system to attack her own joints causing pain, swelling, inflammation and joint damage. Every week we have to give our daughter an injection of a medication (that is actually used in Chemotherapy to treat cancer!) to suppress her overactive immune system. She is also on daily medications and our lives the last year since her diagnosis have been riddled with doctors appointments and therapies. So, I wish for remission for my daughter and hopefully a CURE for this disease that effects over 300,000 children in the US.

Doesn't she deserve to be pain free?

Thank you so much Lori for giving me the opportunity to be a part of your awesome Wishlist Wednesday! Feel free to come by and say Hi at Playing With Words 365 Cheers! ***********************************************************************

Sorting using Venn Diagrams

Ok, so I'll admit, this activity started out as just shape and color review. Here is what I put in the block area. The "blue things" box I added on Wednesday and the "squares" on Thursday. That was going to be the whole activity. The idea was for the kids to just be aware of them, identify them and try to figure out what the items have in common. 

But then I began thinking, what if the kids notice that there are some blue squares and ask which box it should go in. What a great way to teach sorting by more than one characteristic. I don't know if that is an objective in your curriculum, but it is in Creative Curriculum. So, why don't we make a venn diagram and allow the kids to sort and that way it will account for those blue squares.

These 3 photos above are what it looked like when I sorted the items just to show how it would look. Below are the results I got when the kids did the activity:

I thought there was no way to fit all those items on that small paper, but leave it to the kids to find a way! They did an awesome job and I am so very proud of them!!!!

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Motivational Monday

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