Pre-K/Tot School: Insects Week 1

It was hard to balance taking pictures with school time this week. I was too busy trying to figure out our schedule, and make lessons work with the WILD toddler running around. His naptime is our best bet for focused learning time. You will notice Littlemiss is in the same shirt for most of the pictures. The pictures were mostly taken on Friday when I braved balancing the camera and doing school with her.

Math:

(Sorry for making you dizzy, I can't get this picture to flip!)

We have been using Cuisenaire rods for math. I have heard they are one of the best ways for kids to learn math conceptually. From another blogger I came across these video tutorials for teaching using them on the Education Unboxed website. They are amazing!  I started by teaching her the amount for each rod. I didn't take pictures of this, but the next day I had a little review and she knew them all! If I pull a rod out of order, she struggles a bit, but she's getting the hang of it.

We did another lesson in which I used a number rod, 4 in this example, and had her come up with combinations that together is the same as the rod. After this activity I wrote out each combination as an addition problem and then we would count out how many each combination was together if she needed to.

Fine Motor:

Littlemiss avoids most coloring and drawing. It frustrates her and she ends up tearing up her papers. So I have some fine motor work set up each week that doesn't involve picking up a pen and paper. Colored sand in a tub on our light board with a mirror. She practiced writing her name and other letters. 

 Her favorite letter to draw is "H." 

Paper weaving. I cut slits in the paper and then we weaved the pink paper slips over and under, over and under. I did most of the weaving. This activity frustrates her. I didn't let her give up, but encouraged her to push through and she did.

Science:

I didn't take a picture of all the insect nomenclature cards laid out, but I had her pair up the cards with the insect name on it with the matching card without the name on it. I would say the name and then she would say the name counting the syllables in the name. I hadn't done this with her before, but she did most of it independently. I was impressed! 

"3 syllables"

I was hoping our butterflies would morph into butterflies next week when we are studying butterflies, but they morphed a week early. No problem! We LOVED doing this. We will definitely do it again.

Singing our metamorphosis song:

Metamorphosis, metamorphosis.

See me change, see me change,

Caterpillar to butterfly, caterpillar to butterfly,

Metamorphosis, metamorphosis. (To the tune of frere jacques)

I will get better pictures of next week when we release them!

BooBoo:

My kids are so different at his age. He isn't the least bit interested in doing activities with me. This is him eating the stamp and running wildly around the school room. He's so funny! He can at least identify the letter A. Which shocked me cause he never seems to focus when I sit with him!

Art:

I am obsessed with Eric Carle books, so my kids are too. Which is what inspired our Eric Carle insects. First we painted tissue paper. I didn't worry about the colors being painted matching the tissue paper, I just let them choose and paint freely. They both also painted their bodies (typical), which I don't mind either. When Littlemiss is a bit older I will make it a point to teach her more about technique, etc. 

Homemade, edible paints are in our future :) 

My serious little painter.

 The end result of Littlemiss's butterfly. I cut out the shapes and she pasted them together.

 BooBoo's "caterpillar." I used a 2 inch circle hole punch to cut out the circles and I put glue on them so he could paste them on the paper.

 Letter "A" art project for the week. We are loosely following Animal ABC's by Carissa at 1+1+1=1. He loves animals, so he enjoys looking at the animal pictures for each letter. You can see the alligators in this picture, because he wanted to paint over them.

Sensory Play:

 I set up some insect sensory play for the kids. It is cooked spaghetti noodles covered in dirt. Yuck! And some things I picked up in our backyard. Unfortunately, the kids were not interested in it the day I set it up. So they played with it for only a few minutes and then moved on. So not like them, so I will have to reenact this set up later this month. AND our water table had a leg break off soon after.

We had a great first week!

If you want to check out more from our first week check out my post on our crazy first day: First Day of Homeschool Pre-Kindergarten & Tot School