Insects at the Pond

With the older boys being off of school for who-knows-how-long because of the virus, they have been doing Experience Early Curriculum with Little Miss and I. Its kind of fun. They ask what we will be doing together. They do have their own set of work to keep up with their grade at school, but having them join us for this period of time has been fun... so far... we'll see how it goes in the time to come. Anyway, week 3 has been about the insects that enjoy the pond life. Below are some things that we've enjoyed together.

All the kids colored all of the coloring pages from the member resources link. They colored ALL of them at once. They sat and colored for a really long time; using paint sticks, markers, do-a-dots and crayons. It was really great to see Little Miss color with her brothers so nicely.

The story included in the curriculum also has many corresponding activities to accompany it. One being a puzzle. Little Miss still hasn't really grasped the concept of completing a puzzle on her own, so her brothers helped her. Teamwork is great to see.

My kids love the Make & Play crafts. There have been several this week and they all have a collection of homemade insects. Little bigs have been flying all over the house this week.

The kids matched the foam stars to the mat. Then, of course they became shooting stars when they began getting tossed around the room.

During the day for Waterstriders, we played a game. We rolled a die and moved our bug across the board. Since the game itself was short, we just kept going back and forth until everyone decided they were done with the game. We all really tried to get Little Miss counting correctly. She still skips #4 when counting. We'll get there eventually.

The Invitation to Create for the Waterstrider day included popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners. Nobody wanted to use the pipe cleaners, so I found these art swabs. They worked perfectly for the legs of their striders.

The kids added a painting project in the mix from last week. They painted some algae, swirled it around for a long time before adding some glitter when they finished.

We have a huge bin of extra materials to use as desired. The kids raided it to make their own Mayfly craft. One was not included in this day, but they decided to make one anyway. They found all the pieces they needed to make adorable Mayflies. These are the ones that the boys made. Little Miss just tore up paper. Sometimes, you just have to let them do what they want. Mr Z made little tiny bugs to go with his Mayfly; the yellow one is getting eaten and the small blue one on the wing is its friend. Creativity is the greatest from children. 

I receive Experience Early Curriculum free in exchange for our honest opinion and experiences with the product.

Pond Plants

Week 2 in our preschool curriculum from Experience Early Learning was all about the plants that live in or near the pond. Some grow completely under the water, some float on the top and others stretch from the bottom to the top. I must admit, that Little Miss wasn't too interested in the subject matter for this week, but loved the crafts and projects the most.

We learned that the cattails live around the edge of a pond. They create a barrier and add some protection for some animals that live in the center of the pond.

I love how the Invitation to Create art projects inspires the child. Little Miss really only wanted to cut her paper into small pieces. But, then decided to actually glue a few things onto her paper.

The games included for week 2 and week 1 were fun for everyone. We played them often last week, especially after dinner. I'm glad the boys still love the games too. They are 9 and 7 and wanted to play with everything.

My middle child, Mr Z had fun with the magnet story pieces that coordinated with a book included in the curriculum, The Turtle, the Beaver and the Pond.

I receive preschool curriculum from Experience Early Learning free, in exchange for our opinion on the curriculum and the experiences we have.

Starting Again. Mother Goose Time with the Youngest

It's finally happened. My youngest is old enough to enjoy this preschool curriculum!
I started using Experience Early Learning formerly Mother Goose Time with my two boys several years ago. We used it for about 3 years. Then we had the Little Miss. I was overwhelmed with 3 children. I tried to keep up with the learning activities, but it was too much and I took a break. But now a few years later, I felt like I was in a place to do it again. I have a ton of old units leftover that are pretty much complete.
So, this week, Little Miss and I started with the unit, Ocean Commotion from April of 2018. We've had a great time so far. I actually forgot how much I liked it and needed this time to connect with my children too. Over the years, I've become bored and complacent and knew something was missing. I just didn't know what. My 3-year-old, Little Miss, was just watching TV all day while the boys were at school. We both needed a change.

Little Miss and I began our EELfMGT unit by taking a trip to Sea World to visit some sea life. Her favorite thing to do is pet the bamboo sharks, so we were there for quite some time.

Dolphins are silly when swimming upsidedown.

We love touching the bat rays too and fed them lots of fish.

We watched a sea turtle work his way out of a tight spot and the school of fish swim back and forth.

Day 1: Ocean Water
This was a fun day. Little Miss taste-tested different types of water. She came to the conclusion that regular water is better for humans and the saltwater is just right for the fish, sharks, and whales. She doesn't want to be a fish.
One of our projects provided by EELfMGT was an Invitation to Create. The inspiration photo is an aerial shot of the ocean. Since most of the earth is saltwater, the paint was watered down. With an eyedropper, Little Miss collected paint and squirted it onto her paper then sprinkled salt on top. She loved this!

She said several times, "I like you for letting me do this Mom. I love Mother Goose Time."

After starting her second picture, Little Miss decided to pour the paint. She loved watching the colors mix together.

Little Miss decorated her EELfMGT nametag also. She loves the stamper markers.

Since the earth is covered in water, the main bodies have names. To learn them, we had containers of water with the ocean names. The pocket cube was rolled to find out how many shells would be dropped into one of the oceans. We also found the ocean on the globe.

Our last experiment for Ocean Water was to see if objects would sink or float in regular, salt or sugar water.
What a fun day.

Day 2: Ocean Floor
We learned about things that you would find on the floor of the ocean; Sand, crabs, shells, plants, rocks...
Our Make&Play craft was to make an oyster with a small paper plate and bead. Little Miss colored her oyster and glued on her bead. She got a little inspiration from a few real pearls that I had collected over the years.

We used kinetic sand to play the shells for a while. We counted them and hid them underneath.

After a little while of playing with just shells, I remembered we had a ton of animal figurines and so we found all of our ocean animals. Then we picked out the ones that might be found on the ocean floor.

Day 3&4: Ocean Caves and Ocean Plants (I combined the 2 days)
Using a few blankets and a table we made a cave. We also glued some green strips of paper together to make some plants to camouflage the entrance. After talking about some animals that would live in a cave and some that wouldn't, Little Miss collected shells using a flashlight and placed them on the number cards. She's getting better at counting. Number 4 is one that she always skips though. But, we did do a lot in our cave that day. We read books by flashlight, we ate lunch, we played with play-doh. Even the dogs investigated the cave and hung out with us for awhile.

Learning about the Ocean Zones was not very interesting. She didn't care one bit about the Sunlight, Twilight or Midnight zones of the ocean. All she wanted to do for the Invitation to Create was to cut the paper. But that's ok. Sometimes your brain just doesn't care about any more information.

Thanks to Mother Goose Time (Experience Early Learning), we have had better days together this week. Hopefully, we can keep it up. By day three of the week though, I think Little Miss was going through TV withdrawals. It was a bit harder to keep her attention because she did want to watch her shows. But, it will take time to adjust.