Week 1 - Ice Cream
Week 2 - Monsters
Week 3 - Camping
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This week's theme was FISH! We have done beach and ocean themes several times as well. Take a look back at those fun weeks, or keep scrolling to see what we did this week.
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Monday - Math
I took a connect-the-dot page from the Internet, and changed the letters to numbers. For Honey Pot, the numbers began at 2, and continued by 2's to refresh her memory on the skip-counting she learned in Kindergarten.
For Little M&M I started with 10, and counted by 1's until 30, to help reinforce those tricky numbers!
Then they colored in their fish. Honey Pot even drew a mermaid, octopus and alligator!
Next we played a roll and cover game that I created in Photoshop Elements, using the sweet Rainbow Fish clip-art that I found here. I included a third die for an extra challenge!
First Little M&M took his turn, covering numbers 2-12 with sequin "scales" and then numbers 13-18 with gems for "bubbles."
It was great for hands-on counting practice and number recognition. Plus, it's just plain fun rolling dice!
Then Honey Pot took her turn. For the bonus bubbles at the end, I allowed each of the kids to keep their first two dice on six before rolling their third. Otherwise this game may have taken a while!
Look like fun? Here's one for you!
Tuesday - Literacy
We borrowed a few fishy books from the library, and combined it with a few favorites from home. The kids really enjoyed Dear Fish and Fish is Fish. Very imaginative stories!
We also went "fishing" today for letters and sight words. I created a fishing pole out of a stick, yarn and a magnet. Then cut out a dozen paper fishes and added a paperclip to each. (This is similar to an activity we did years ago when Honey Pot learned the Letter F, except we just used pipe cleaners as fish, to practice color recognition.)
Honey Pot went first. Her fish each had sight words on them. Some as a review from what she learned at school, and a few tricky ones that she's had trouble with when reading books to me, like again and only.
Here she is casting her line into the pond.
And reading what she caught! She surprised me, and had no difficulties at all reading these. I better think of some more challenging ones for her!
Next it was Little M&M's turn. I wrote a few of his favorite letters in there, as well as a few I know he has trouble recognizing.
He had so much fun fishing for letters. And then later he even caught his sister!
Wednesday - Craft and Computer
The kids and I made puffer fish today, following a idea from this blog. We loved using forks to paint with, as that is something we had never tried before!
Isn't it cute?
And then they pulled out their workbooks to work on handwriting skills.
Thursday - Science or Sensory
We had been doing science experiments for each theme recently, so I knew I wanted to create a sensory bin for the kids this week. I came across this fun idea at Two-Daloo. I thought it was the cutest thing! And we already had a silicone fish mold from Honey Pot's Little Mermaid Birthday Party over three years ago. Remember? We made fish ice cubes and threw them in the "sea water" punch! Since I had just one mold, I started making gelatin fish first thing in the morning. I made 3 colors; and by the afternoon, we had plenty of fishies for their buckets of water.
They were so thrilled to play with their slippery fish! They each picked them up, and splashed around in their buckets for a while.
Then I provided each of them with a measuring cup for scooping and pouring. This went on for a while, even as the gelatin fish began to break apart into little pieces.
And as they did, the water started to turn green, which excited the kids.
Here is Little M&M toward the end of their play, scooping pieces and green ocean water from bucket to bucket. Super fun summer play.
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