Wacky Wednesday!

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Following with our Dr Seuss fun this week, today was Wacky Wednesday.  Have you ever read that book?  The kids LOVE picking out all the wacky things on the pages.  Before I introduced the book I had the kiddos search all around the house for things that looked wacky.  They found a shoe on the wall, socks in the tissue box, socks hanging from our plant and mirror, bananas in a water pitcher, and “donkey tails” on a frames throughout the house.  They (kids) came dressed all wacky to go with our theme for the day, and let me tell you…..they were rockin’ those clothes!  I wish the picture below showed more of their outfits, because they were awesome!  This morning was SOOO much fun!

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Time for a wacky snacky

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 Coloring UNDER the table is wacky!

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Eating with sticks (coffee stir sticks) and straws IS wacky!

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Red cups and lots of fun.

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This morning was brought to you by red plastic cups!  I set these out for the kids to see what they would come up with.  They started by stacking towers, knocking them down with their hands, then their feet, then reinforcements were brought in and they started using monster trucks and dump trucks.  That lasted awhile.  I showed them how they could build a pyramid type tower with them and they thought that was really neat!  We seen how tall we could get it, and then one of the little ones would come and knock it down 🙂  At first the older ones were NOT impressed but then started to think it was funny.  That continued on for about 20 minutes.  They all eventually grabbed a stack of cups for themselves and started creating, imagining and building things on their own.  I observed an older child sitting on the couch, stacking the cups together and counting each one as she did.  Then the “baby” sat next to her and started saying “one, two, free, two, free, one”.  Some of them would make two or three stacks and compare the height of them, others would chuck the cups across the room and run after them as they rolled on the wooden floor 😉  Needless to say these cups provided us LOTS of fun this morning!  I love when I find an activity that grabs their attention for more than an hour!  Oh I almost forgot, the kids all came back together and decided to make a pretend lemonade stand.  They served up some delicious strawberry lemonade to all of us 😉   What a great child-led free play LEARNING morning.

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Magenta love bubble water – or just messy fun.

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Time has gotten away from me!  It’s been far too long since I posted a blog update.  This will be a short one but I wanted to share our sensory fun this morning.  The kids loved the magenta tinted bubble water.  It was equipped with measuring cups, spoons, wire whisks and heart sponges which led to almost an hour of water fun 🙂
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Ahhh lavender play-dough

Calming, relaxing, squishy, and fun. We kept busy today for over an hour with our lavender play-dough.  I used young livings lavender oil with fresh cut sprigs of lavender from my back yard.  Thanks to ‘My Small Potatoes’ for the inspiration! Can’t wait to use other oils in our dough!

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Messy fun

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This mornings sensory was all about messy fun.  While the kids were busy playing house in the playroom I set up our sensory table.  A can of shaving cream and matchbox cars.  I let the kids know that if they were interested they could come out to the kitchen and check out the sensory item.  They were all excited to get their smocks on and dig in to the fun!  After awhile I added a bowl of water and that added a whole new level of fun for them.  They were splashing and sending the cars through the car wash.  I also heard “We are washing your table for you Stephy”  Added bonus for sure! I don’t know why but shaving cream always makes our table shine after clean up 🙂 

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Play IS learning!

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One of the kids favorite things that they see me pull out from the cupboard is our sensory bin.  This morning new materials were added to our  bin. Items inclused plastic eggs, pom poms, tweezers, egg cartons and various scooping tools (measuring cups, spoons, etc).  Before I brought out these materials I had no plan on setting them out today, in fact this was going to be for our Easter week but at circle time all the kids wanted to talk about was the Easter bunny and how he hides eggs.  After we had sharing time I told the kiddos they were free to go play.  I went and put this bin together and when I brought it out they were SO excited that there were eggs in there!  The pom poms and other things were just a bonus.  They started by filling the eggs with the pom poms.  The older two matched the color poms with the same color egg (on there own), and all of them had fun trying to pick pom poms up with the tweezers (working their find motor muscles!).  Opening and closing the eggs is also great at working those small muscles in there hands.  They used the egg cartons to load up there eggs and started counting how many eggs fit into each carton, also counting how many extras they could squeeze in even though there wasn’t a designated spot for the extras.  I mentioned to them that each carton holds a half dozen eggs….they stopped, looked at me and ‘B’ Says “well then a half dozen is 6 because this carton is holding 6 of my eggs”  I was SOOO excited that he put that together!  I then told them that 2 of the cartons together would be 1 dozen eggs.  Not long after that “B” came back up to me and said “one dozen is 12!”  He was so excited and so was I!  He figured it out on his own just by me mentioning the word 1/2 dozen and 1 dozen.  Soon all the kiddos were counting out a dozen eggs 🙂

About 45 minutes into their playing they decided they wanted to hide the eggs like the Easter bunny does.  They gathered 6 eggs and hid them around the house. At this point I was getting lunch around and one of the kiddos comes to the kitchen and says “Sis hid 6 eggs and we found 4 of them…how many more do we need to find?”  My first thought was “This 5 year old just asked me a story math problem!”  I said to him “let’s figure this out together”  We all sat down (by that point all the kids were in there with us waiting to see how many more eggs they needed to find) and held up 6 fingers.  I repeated what he had asked me and we put 4 of our fingers down and they counted how many that should be left to find.  2!!!! they all screamed!  We need 2 more eggs!  They all ran out of the kitchen excited to find those 2 eggs.  I was excited that we just “worked” on so much math in the hour with that sensory bin!  Did they know they were doing math?  No!  But with them just playing and having fun there were learning and SO excited to be doing so!

I’m not against worksheets by any means.  Actually the kids enjoy doing them sometimes and ask to do them BUT would they have gotten these skills above by sitting down and me just telling them and having them “read” or “write” out the problems?  NO!  They would never remember.  The fact they had actual tangible items and they decided on their own what they wanted to do is where the learning comes to play.  And the laughs and giggles that I heard all morning is proof that they had fun.  Just one of the many reasons I believe that play is in fact learning!

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Here’s B with is dozen eggs 🙂

 

Science fun!

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The kiddos are always so enthusiastic about any type of project but today when I set out an empty water bottle, “special” water (vinegar and water mixed), and a balloon that was filled with baking soda they were extra excited!  I think it was because they seen the balloon….any activity that involves a balloon is a good one in the eyes of a child.  I explained that we were going to do a science experiment and I needed their help.  First we sat down and looked at the materials.

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Our next step was to guess what they thought we were going to do.  One said we were going to pour the water into the balloon and have a water balloon fight.  Another child said we were going to dip the balloon in the water and then drink the vinegar  😉  I explained that we were going to fill the bottle with the water/vinegar mixture and that I put baking soda in the balloon.  I then told them I was going to stretch the balloon neck onto the bottle.  

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This is where I asked them what they thought was going to happen when the baking soda dropped from the balloon into our “special water”.  They all agreed it was going to “blow up”.  While the purpose of this experiment was to blow up the balloon I have doubts that they were referring to that 🙂  The kids shook the balloon and watched the “magic” happen.  

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Their excitement and squeals as they watched the bubbles race to the top of the bottle and then see the balloon jump up and fill with air was priceless!  They were beyond thrilled that the balloon could do such a thing with those ingredients.  I explained that the water, vinegar and baking soda created a chemical reaction that produces carbon dioxide to fill up the balloon.  They all acted like they knew what I was talking about so I was content with my explanation. haha  We did it 2 other times because the kids couldn’t get enough of watching it 🙂  

Here are a couple more pictures of our balloon fun

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There’s nothing like watching the kiddos light up when they see something exciting or new!  

Beach Day!

Today we had yet another cold snowy morning in Mi, but the kiddos and I decided to turn our snow day into a BEACH DAY! The kiddos changed into their suits and sunglasses and  we played in the “sand” (brown sugar), had water play, made a pretend beach, laid in the “sun”, blew bubbles and played with beach balls.  Oh and had a picnic lunch on our beach 🙂  What a fun way to spend this cold winter day.

 

 

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