Monday - Literacy
W Tracing Page
I printed this out from Kid's Learning Station, my go-to website for alphabet tracing pages. Just love these!
Beginning Sounds Worksheet
I created this myself in PSE as a way to help Honey Pot practice listening to beginning sounds. She needed to say the name of each picture, hear which ones started with a W and then circle them. She did well with this!
Want one? Take it!
"The Walrus and the Carpenter" - Story Sequencing
I had been eager to try story sequencing with Honey Pot. She comprehends stories so well while reading and even creates some pretty awesome sticker stories on her own. I knew she'd enjoy this! First, we watched "The Walrus and the Carpenter" clip from Alice in Wonderland on You Tube.
Then, I gave her four images that I printed from Blabbing on Arts and Culture, and asked her to place them in the order which they occurred.
She did so correctly, and then I asked her to retell the story we watched based on the pictures in front of her. She did! I look forward to trying this again with more pictures!
Painting with Water
I pulled out Honey Pot's chalkboard and wrote an uppercase W on it for her to paint over with water.
Then we did a couple of lowercase W's.
And finally, a few waves. This is great pre-writing practice in disguise!
Tuesday - Math and Cognitive Skills + Craft
W is for Web - Maze
This printable comes from the Education website. I love how it includes letters similar in appearance, such as V's and M's. Honey Pot had no trouble with this!
W is for Watch - Telling Time Activity
This is Honey Pot's first real introduction to telling time, so I kept it simple. I made a worksheet out of coloring pages, and stuck on some clock faces that I found online. There aren't any process pictures here, as it was mainly just discussion. We started with just the concept of the top of the hour: 12:00, 4:00 and 10:00, as they appear on a clock and how they are read aloud. As you can see along the bottom, we also briefly tried writing them as they would appear digitally.
W is for Weather - Roll and Graph
I printed some weather images from this website and placed them into our photo cubes. Then I printed a basic graph and added the same clip art there. She had such fun rolling the cube! Little M&M cracked up every time she chucked it across the table.
She played until one of them reached the top. It was a race to see which weather would win! Here is the final result. We counted up and compared each of the columns. Talked about which has the most, least, same, etc. Great activity!
W is for Whale in the Water - Craft
First I put on a You Tube video so that the kids could hear whale sounds while they painted. This is the one we watched. What soothing sounds! And we didn't even have to touch it once it was on, because it was nice and long. See Little M&M's reflection? He loved watching the whale, even though it didn't move during the video.
Then, while we listened, I gave Honey Pot and Little M&M a sheet of cardstock with blue and white paint.
Honey Pot was doing a wonderful job of covering the whole page!
She even added some white swirls when she was done, which I think makes it look awesome!
We then threw on some fine glitter while it was still wet, and an image of a whale that I printed from the Internet. So cute!
Wednesday - Social Studies and Social Skills
W is for Washing Windows with Washcloths - Skills
It is hard to see, but I drew W's all over the window with a dry erase marker.
Then I put the kids to work, providing them each with a washcloth, and a spray bottle to share. (Windex also happens to start with W, but I don't feel comfortable letting Little M&M use chemicals. So I just filled their spray bottle with water, which, ahem, also starts with W.) And in addition to washing, this activity also provided them with a lesson in turn-taking, as they had to share the spray bottle.
W is for Water - Bodies of Water Identification and Playdough Diorama
I looked all over for a simple representation of the basic bodies of water, and found a great one for free on the Teachers Pay Teachers website. I pulled out the ones I wanted and printed them together on one page. Then I colored them in for Honey Pot to get a better look at them. We first discussed the three types of water.
Then she recreated them on a piece of playdough. I asked her a question, "Which body of water is made up of salt water and covers most of the Earth?" She would answer "ocean" correctly, and we'd create an ocean out of her gems. (These we purchased at the Dollar Tree a while ago to use for her gem jar: a jar that we drop gems into one at a time as we see good behavior, for positive reinforcement.)
Next I asked, "Which body of water is long and flowing and always moving?" She consistently answered this question with "a rushing river." I think the alliteration is a great way to remember what a river is!
So here is her river:
And finally, I asked which body of water is surrounded by land on all sides. She answered "a lake!"
Thursday - Sensory + Music
W is for Worms - Book + Sensory Bin
First we read this fun and concise story about worms that we borrowed from the library. Great introduction to the world of worms!
In it, we had read that worms can often be found after it rains. So we trekked outside through the mud in search of some.
Honey Pot knows that they live under the dirt, so she got her shovel to try to uncover them.
The kids weren't afraid to get dirty!
Sadly we didn't find any real worms. But that's okay, because we created our own sensory bin full of worms! This was inspired by Fun at Home with Kids, except we used real dirt instead of dried coffee grounds. I threw some dirt in a bucket, with about a dozen cooked spaghetti noodles. Then the kids dug their hands in.
Always one for imaginative play, Honey Pot started pretending right away, making her worms crawl and talk to one another.
After a bit, the noodles became covered with dirt and really started to look real!
While playing, one of Honey Pot's worms broke. She said it was now a Mommy and a baby worm.
Little M&M mostly enjoyed breaking them into itty bitty pieces.
Here is Honey Pot having her worm dig a tunnel under the dirt!
We snuck in some learning during our pretend play with the worms, such as comparing lengths.
Forming W's.
She even tried to copy my worm's swirl...
And she tried to copy my worm's heart shape too!
W is for Whale - Music, Baby Beluga Song
For music this week we sang the Baby Beluga song a bunch of times. I even showed them the music video on You Tube.
W is for Woodwinds - Music
We also briefly discussed a few popular woodwind instruments: flute, clarinet and saxophone. I showed her pictures of each. Then we found (yes, I did it again) versions of Let it Go played on those instruments. She just listened, without watching, and had to guess which of the three woodwind instruments was playing the song. A fun game and she seems to have a knack for hearing instruments!
Friday - Science
W is for Whale and Walrus - Blubber Experiment
Frugal Fun for Boys had a great tutorial on how to simulate the blubber found under the skin of arctic animals, such as whales and walruses. First I set up a bowl of icy water, with our two arctic friends nearby.
Honey Pot had to dip her hand in there. She noted that it was cold!
Then I had her slip her hand into the Ziploc bag full of Crisco (which is actually two Ziploc bags so her hands never actually touched it), and she couldn't feel the cold at all! It really worked! We talked about how arctic animals have something similar, called blubber, under their skin so they don't feel the cold.
Little M&M tried it too!
This led to some more pretend play...
They took the game outside later, and Marshall the fire pup helped wash off the beached whale.
W is for Watermelon - Cooking
We finished our science day, and our week, with some cooking in the kitchen! Honey Pot helped me measure out the watermelon, strawberries and sugar. And she helped me juice half a lime. Then we put it all in a blender and made ice pops! We followed the recipe from Bitz and Giggles.
Here they are enjoying their ice pops.
So good! Everyone finished them all up. This recipe is a keeper!
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