Playing With Worms

Playing with mud in the backyard on a gorgeous Saturday, we came upon some worms.  

Big ol' worms just loving life in the compost pile!

Sensory discovery ensued...

The worms were cool, and slimy, and dirty, and tickley in our palms.  

Some moved fast, some slow.  

They changed shape as the moved- from fat and short, to long and thin.

So proud of my kids for being down with worms.  I loved digging for worms as a kid... and I still get a little too excited when we find a big one.

We've found worms before, but never really spent time exploring and playing with them in this scale.  Smarty Pants 3 Year Old and I talked about how worms eat dirt and make tunnels that are good for the plants.

I felt secretly kind of sad for the worms as the kids dropped them into a container to take on their first ever fishing trip.  But I was honest with them about what we were doing with the worms... a little Circle of Life/Food Chain lesson.  And the next day they had no problem seeing their friends from the yard put on a hook for the fish.

Go on...Get Messy!

We were playing in the yard this weekend, and one thing led to another... we made a mud table.

I always promised myself I wouldn't be a mother who would shy away from a mess.  But lately I have been doing just that.  At the playground, after a rainstorm, my poor kid looked on longingly while the other kids were practically swimming through the sand box.  As grossed out as I was, I felt bad that I could just not commit to the mess at that moment. 

So on a day when there was nothing else we had to do, and a leaky hose making puddles and muddy patches in the yard anyway.... I invited the boys to GET DIRTY!

It was funny to see them hesitate at first.  I had to dig on in and give it a squeeze and a squish...even hand some over to them to get them started.  They soon got the hang of it as, I knew they would.

Elements of Sensory Exploration:

• Scoop and pour dirt into a bucket. We had some great dirt to use from our composted leaves.
• Explore the texture of the dirt.  Slightly moist, crumbly, sifts through fingers.
• More pouring, this time into shallow water. Added more dirt/water and observed the changes.
• More texture exploration, this time of the mud.  Squishy and schloppy and wet, doesn't sift through fingers, sometimes moldable. Pour it, rake it, pound it!
• Wash away mud in clear water.  The water becomes more and more dirty...hmmmm interesting observation kiddos!
• Talk about it.  We chatted about what happened to our dirt, and how rain makes our whole yard muddy!

We also turned our mud play into MUD ART!

And had some interesting sensory playmates... WORMS!!!!

This post is linking up at:

Book Activity - The Bridge is Up

Is that hell freezing over????!!!!!!

Oh no... wait...it's just the world's worst blogger throwing up a post... phew! Close one!

It's been about a million years since I've been on here, and since then the kids have grown into little giants, gotten way too smart for me, and racked up quite a few fines at the library!

Homeschooling Ryan Gosling

If you haven't died laughing on this site...do so now.  Oh man! hilarious!

OK, Back to business.

So we got all payed up with our bookies (aka librarians) and checked out a few books.  

My plan was to get a bunch of Donald Crews books since we read one of his books at our playgroup, my kiddo was upset we couldn't take it home, we have loved his books in the past, and pinterest has opened my eyes to the wonderful activity possibilities to go along with his simple books.

In addition to the D.Crews books we grabbed, the adorable one and a half year old who is at this very moment slapping my arm and shouting "Mommmmmmyyyyyyy!!!!!" pulled this book off the shelf.  Quite the score.

"The Bridge is Up" - by Babs Bell

Ignoring my mother's last words of cleaning advice as she walked out the door, I sat down with the boys to read this book.  After reading it together once, I left the big one to read it to himself as he requested, while I got some trucks together so we could do a more large scale reading together.  I mean, it was so simple and my kids love playing with trucks, how could I not?!

The text in the book is so simple and repetitive that both kids were able to "read along" and tell me which vehicle was next.  It was also great for some at-home articulation work, especially practicing those /k/ and /g/ consonant sounds, which are my 3 year old's bane.  Giving him something he loves (trucks and cars), and a physical task (queuing them up to wait for the bridge), makes him more willing to correct the sounds he is making without putting up a fight and giving up on me.

I want my kids to love reading as much as I do, (Ok, maybe not as much....lets be honest, I'm borderline suicidal when I finish a good book! "It rips my life away but it's a great escape....escaaaape." Ten bonus points if you can name that song), so I'm excited to find more and more books that lend easily to play and crafting ideas.  Which if you think about it, is just about every book.  And once again I avoided housework. 

What's that about kids not remembering how clean the house was, but how much time I spent with them and how much fun we had, yada yada yada.... That line better be true.  I'm totally banking on it!