Veggies and Gardening Preschool

I love to garden. Love it. I'm going to blame (thank) my dad for that. He is a passionate gardener and I have vivid memories of summer mornings spent out in the garden pulling up rocks (10 cents per 5 gallon bucket. Ugh. We hated that injustice. :) But I learned to love having my hands dirty and cultivating something til fruition. All kinds of wonderful lessons there. 

We have a modest family garden and our kids enjoy helping us with that. Of course, at their ages they are not yet doing the 'hard' work of the garden, but we are hoping to start them loving gardening and self-sufficiency early. I was really excited to do this week of science-y seeds, veggies, and gardening with Caroline!

I LOVE this free printable! It is perfect for this time of year when Caroline is pretty strong on recognition of letters but needs practice on the sounds they produce. This is a beginning sounds veggie clip sheet with upper case letters on one side and lower case letters on the other. You could alternatively cut out each card to make clip cards, but we opted for easy here. Those candies are "carrots":) free printable from Pinay Homeschooler

pumpkin life cycle word trace printable

I happened to have these wonky shaped pipe cleaners that were PERFECT little carrots! Caroline rolled the die and harvested that many carrots. Then she did it again and replanted. We harvested and planted repeatedly bc she really loved this activity! idea for pipe cleaner carrots from Sorting Sprinkles.

Books we read:

Rah Rah Radishes

Creepy Carrots (which the girls really thought was hilarious. They quote it now and bust up laughing every time. Kid humor is hilarious. I thought it was cute but didn't realize it was THAT funny!)

For our Veggie/Gardening book club: 

Books: 

The Carrot Seed

Carrot Soup

Tops and Bottoms

After The Carrot Seed we sang "This is they way we plant the seed" (...so early in the morning) with all kinds of carrot-appropriate verses that we made up on the fly!

-plant the seed

-water the seed

-sun shines down

-pull the weeds

-patiently wait

-harvest the carrots

-wash the carrots

-peel the carrots

-eat the carrots!

After reading Carrot Soup we did wheelbarrow races which the kids thoroughly enjoyed!

After Tops and Bottoms we shared our favorite vegetable and named whether it was a top, bottom, or middle. 

I was originally going to do some carrot art with mud paint with 2 equally awesome options:

real mud plus glue:

mud-copycat paint: 

I still think both those ideas are great and would like to do them in the future. 

But when I got RSVPs back for over 16 kids, I decided I didn't want to do a messy art project at our kitchen table. So instead we planted seeds in wet paper towels that the kids could take home and watch grow in a window. 

 look at those 'octopus' roots!

It is so fun to have Caroline checking on the progress of her seed every day, multiple times a day!

Our snack was, naturally, raw veggies with ranch. We sampled carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, sweet peppers, snap peas, garden-grown baby spinach, and even an avocado. The kids loved tasting a garden! :)

and unrelated to preschool or book club, but relating to gardens... here is a pic of our seeds coming up! the girls helped plant all of this before we put up the bunny fence.

 Sweet Candy onions

Amethyst beans (they are deep purple!)

our dwarf lemon tree is happy to be outside after a bleak winter!

Do you garden with your kids?

Spring Exploring

Spring is upon us (finally!) and we are loving the color and outdoor exploration!

flower-themed ABC practice

flower pattern-making

little daffodils (these were made at book club--- all the kids wanted to use these mini cupcake liners because they were so cute, though the flower size would look better with regular sized liners)

Gwen has been enjoying our rainbow of flowers

Caroline is loving running around outside and looking at the dirt in the sidewalks

trees need to be smacked by sticks. It is a right of childhood passage, I think. 

We had a week themed around rain and rainbows. I happened to have found these rainbow water beads on clearance (SCORE!!!) and pulled em out to do a little 'science' activity. See how small they start out? This is awesome...

Caroline and I talked about what she thought was going to happen and defined that as a 'hypothesis'. 

She was pretty excited to see them growing bigger only 20 minutes later. 

 

After 2 hours, they were huge! and they have this AMAZING tactile feel that just demanded exploration. Lots of squishing and sorting ensued. 

They tried to sort out which colors grew the largest and which ones remained the smallest. 

Moving the beads from one receptacle to another was just pure joy. I couldn't believe that these 15 cent things could keep my kiddos entertained for OVER AN HOUR!!!! Now THAT is a fabulous kid activity! :)

ps. you know what else is cool? They shrink back down as the water evaporates! 

Princess, Knights and Dragons Preschool--- Learning when NOT at our best

I realize I am so very NOT up-to-date on documenting our preschool, book club, and after school activities. This is sad for numerous reasons, most of them only important to me, but especially for extended family who never got a chuckle out of seeing my kids doin their educational 'thang'. So, for the grandmas. And anyone else that doesn't mind going BACK a couple months. This post about dragons, knights, and princesses is for you!

Dragon week was right around Lunar New Year (otherwise known as Chinese New Year, but that smacks of exclusivity for a holiday celebrated all over East Asia and parts of SE Asia and, frankly, my Korean sensitivity forbids me from using that phrase!).  Our dragon week was NOT about the holiday, though we DID read some books about it. Gwen really likes How to Train Your Dragon and I knew her Toothless obsession would play well into fun 'generic' dragon activities. We were ill in one form or another for about 3 weeks, so I didn't take as many pictures of all our adventures. But here's a skimming of our activities! 

We used 3Dinosaurs free printable medieval (includes lots of dragons) pack to play a little ABC game together. 

of course the rainbow writing

 Then we had a button sorting activity. The black and green were dragon scales, the red and orange were dragon fire. The girls loved doing this simple, simple, simple (basically no prep) activity!

 We made our very own dragons out of TP. Originally I wanted to do a plastic cup version because they are so much cuter, but in the end, I opted for cheap (free). 

 first the painting

 Gwen was meticulous with her painting.

glue on a little tissue paper fire and you're done!

 They didn't 'blow' their fire quite the way I'd hoped, but the girls loved them anyway!

You've got to check out this video to see the jewel details Gwen put on her dragon and to see what Caroline decided her dragon looked like!

 ha ha! squid! (she's right, though! Don't you agree?)

 Caroline's dry-erase coloring of a 'water' princess. Every day she drew a few different 'themed' princesses. It was fun to see what she came up with!

 We did some jewels on the ABCs (focus on phonics that time) bc princesses need their bling!

 Then some jewel patterns, which were a big hit with both girls.

 Gwen was very proud of her 'advanced' patterning.

 For 2 out of the 3 weeks, we had to cancel book club because of illness. So for the 3rd we kind of did a 'combo' dragon-knight-princess theme and our friends came dressed up as one of the three! See the cute dragon to the right, there? And on the left you've got a 'knight-ninja'!!!

handprint castles that we made. Idea credit goes here. 

 The girls begged Eric to dress up as a prince and play with them. He's such an accommodating daddy! :)

 Caroline's origami frog became 'queen' and held court with her retinue... that's when you know your kids really enjoyed the theme!

You see the amazing crown-bed Caroline designed for...

...princess lizard! 

We survived the less-than-ideal three weeks of illness and managed to have some fun along the way. It was during one of Gwen's 'sick' days that she had to stay home from Kindergarten and got to play with us. Apparently it made a lasting impression, prompting this journal entry months later:

(translation: "I like to be at my sister's preschool. I like to draw pictures. I also like to put jewels on letters.")

and THAT is why I love preparing learning activities, even when it would be easy to say 'not today'. Carpe diem, right? Keeping up preschool when we were all so tired--- and tired of each other--- for all those weeks was challenging. But seeing Gwen's opinion book made it all worth it. Now if only I could go back in time and take more pictures. But we were not at our best, so I am grateful for the pictures we got at all. :) Hope this inspires you (and me!) to keep up the learning activities when we'd rather just plop em in front of the tv! 

(though we do that too). 

:)

We "Heart" Preschool!

Our Valentine's themed week was wonderfully rewarding! Caroline was especially excited for preschool and Gwen enjoyed it as extra fun when she got home too. I love it when the kids ASK to play with educational materials! At the end of the week we sadly had to cancel our Book Club Valentine's party because Caroline was contagiously sick with a nasty cold (some love should NOT be shared!). But we squeezed in all the learning activities during the week before she got apathetic and wanted to lay on the couch all day with someone rubbing her back. So here is what went down:

Capital/lowercase letter match. Just as simple as it sounds. I used a heart punch and card stock for durability and wrote the letters on myself. There are printables out there, but the ink saturation just seemed a waste. This was the easy alternative. 

Caroline is still challenged by lowercase letters, so I began with the easiest approach: I named the lowercase letter as I handed it to her and asked her to find the mommy. Next step up was to put 2-3 lowercase letters for her to choose from and then ask her to identify the "f" before pairing it with the "mommy". When she had that down, we transitioned to the hardest way: putting a large number of lower case letters out there and asking her to find their matches. We don't stay too long on challenging ones like this because Caroline still gets frustrated. So usually this is the 'crowning' activity before we move on. 

Another ABC/phonics activity we did was to put the heart over the letter that makes the phonics sound I was doing. Basic. I made this ABC sheet generic so that I can re-use it for all kinds of themes. You can use any kind of 'marker' to cover the completed letters, which makes it perfect for year-round use!

Caroline was singing "Red Heart Pink Heart" (a song we sing at her music class) throughout the lesson. Adorable. 

We did rainbow writing 'L is for Love' and 'H is for Heart' during the week. Caroline is getting pretty adept at this. I just have to remind her repeatedly to begin her letters at the top, otherwise she wants to start at the bottom of each.

This was our second time to do patterns. I originally introduced patterns in October, but she was NOT ready for the concept and it was a terrible failure. No big deal, I set patterns aside until last week when she tried out duplo patterns (during construction week. Sorry I'm all out of order on blogging) and she was getting the hang of it. So I brought them out again this week and she NAILED it! Just goes to show: if your kids don't like an activity, don't bang your head against a wall. Give it a rest and come back to it later! What fun it was this time around!

Gwen loved it too and spent a lot of time after school doing patterns. Candy heart patterns available for printing free from PreKinders. You'll notice I have a HUGE bag of conversation hearts. I needed a ton for a group game for our V-tines party that we didn't end up having. So now I've got a stash. :) I see science experiments in our future. :) Oh, and one last side note. Gwen laughed and told me she found one that said 'Pugs and Kittens' and I thought she was mis-reading 'hugs and kisses'... but nope. It said "Pugs and Kittens". How funny. 

One to one correspondence activity with a beautiful do-a-dot heart. Supposed to be red, but I am almost out of ink, so this was how it printed. Available for free printing from Gift of Curiosity. Of course Caroline ate the candy afterwards. :)

Caroline got a set of wooden shape blocks for Christmas and ADORES them. I knew she would love this activity. I found it for free printing at Playdough to Plato, but as I've already mentioned, my ink is low. Yellow always seems to be the first to go. So I had to color quite a bit of this AFTER it printed so that orange and green looked right in addition to the obvious yellow. While I was working away with my markers, Caroline kept asking when it would be ready. I told her 'after laminating.' Well, when we DIDN'T pull this out for our first day of Pre-K, she was offended. So I got it out anyway (even though we were officially finished for the day) and she played for about another hour. Yeah. An awesome activity!

One of our math activities was counting. Just plain ole counting. She would draw a heart, each with a number from 1-15 on it. She had to count that many M&M's into the muffin cup. Then she could eat one, dump it out, and pick another heart. 

In retrospect, I should have saved out the 11-15 hearts until the end. Her first 3 draws were from the teens and it was a frustrating way to start out. She would have done better with a 'warm up', I think. She kept getting sloppy and dropping multiple candies in while calling out numbers rapid fire. When she did this I made her start over. I want her to practice the one to one correspondence of counting so that she recognizes numbers aren't just a 'sequence' that we chant along like lyrics to a song. They represent actual objects, especially when counting. 

A simpler math activity was to create the number of tarts that the heart specifies. This was fun because playdough is always fun. The cute Queen of Hearts play dough mat was a free printable from PreKinders. The link takes you to ALL their Valentine's mats, but the one I used was the 'Toddler' mat because it has an unspecified number of tarts. I liked the open-endedness of this one. I paired it with my home made number hearts. 

Caroline loves sticking toothpicks into her play dough and asked if her tarts could have candles. Which then morphed into suckers? I'm not sure. But she pretended to lick them. So. There you go.

Gwen spent almost 2 hours playing with this and making cute mini tarts! She said they had blackberry sauce, marshmellow creme, and glowing candles. I'd say this play dough mat was a hit!

For our gross motor, we adapted BINGO into Heart-O. Got the idea from Mommy and Me Book Club, which is one of my favorite sources for our book club ideas. 

HEART-O 

(tune of Bingo)

"There is a shape and it means love. Heart is it's name-o. 

H-E-A-R-T, H-E-A-R-T, H-E-A-R-T, and heart is it's name-o."

blow kisses instead of clapping when you take the hearts away. Very cute!

Our favorite books were:

The Day it Rained Hearts (thank you Mama! You chose a great one to send us!)

Love, Splat

Plant a Kiss

Fancy Nancy Heart to Heart

Guess How Much I Love You

All the Things I Love about You

We also read:

I Spy Little Hearts

Happy Valentine's Day, Mouse!

The Biggest Valentine Ever

Pete the Cat Valentine's Day is Cool

There were a few others that didn't get to us in time (that happens when everyone is requesting the same books from the library. Guess I have a few more to add to my own collection wishlist!). But if you can snag a copy, I've heard wonderful things about:

Brugal. Love Monster

Boynton. Consider Love

Sperring. The Shape of My Heart

Sheehan. Love is You and Me

Patricelli. Hugsy Kissy

Isop. How Do you Hug a Porcupine?

Happy Valentine's Day! Hope you had a LOVE-ly time with your friends and family!